I am someone who’s not fond of buying and driving large cars. I had comfortable time driving Wagon R for close to 10 years. In 2010, I thought of shifting to a better vehicle, which could offer better driving comfort, offer more space and offer peace of mind. While I was about to buy Honda City, a very close friend suggested about newly launched company fitted CNG version of Toyota Corolla Altis. I took the test drive and with default perception of Toyota brand, I decided to go for it, little did I know the trouble I was entering into.
Since I’d a driver since beginning, I didn’t get to enjoy the driving pleasure of the car on daily basis but was comfortable with the spacious feel at the back and was happy about the mileage due to significant difference between Petrol & CNG price. It was my 1st experience with CNG vehicle and given it was Company(i.e. Toyota) fitted I didn’t have to worry much about its performance.
The time for 1st service came and I sent the vehicle to Galaxy Toyota(Motinagar) Service Center, the place from where I bought the Altis. They promised to deliver the vehicle home after the service. After few hours of receiving the vehicle, I realized that there was an unfitted part of the vehicle. While I am unable to remember the exact part, I’d to send the car back to get it fitted. Galaxy Toyota service person apologized and I was ok assuming it to be an exception.
Within few weeks, I started to face trouble with CNG. To get it repaired, I’d to send the car to their partner company in Gurgaon, which was responsible for the CNG Kit.
The time for next service came and I sent the car assuming normal service charges. However, on diagnosing the car for the service, I was told that there is an issue with Disk Brake/Pad and it requires repair. I’d no choice and ended up paying significant amount above the service charges for the repair.
I was still ok assuming that the above issues were one time and I would not need to worry about spending time and money for future occurrences of similar issues. However, I was wrong and had horrible experience wasting huge amount of time, money and peace of mind dealing with never-ending issues related to CNG, Service and functioning of Toyota Altis. Instead of boring you with long story, I am summarizing my experience over last few years with Toyota, Toyota Altis and their service center Galaxy Toyota:
1. Every service required 2 Visits: For various reasons including uninstalled parts such as center locking not working, damage to the car by the driver who dropped the vehicle after service to home, I’d to send my car back to Galaxy Toyota Service Center after service.
When I complained about it after few occasions, I was told that there were issues related to Galaxy Toyota and it would not repeat as they’ve got new management. I couldn’t see any improvement at all throughout these years. Their only interest is to extract as much money during every service. At the same time, they force their customers to get great feedback about their pathetic service. To share with you, their CRM person would call you for feedback after the service and ask your rating on scale of 1 to 10. Once when I gave them the rating of 8/10, I was told that 1-8 is poor and I should reconsider my rating. At other times, they’d cleverly taken good rating from my driver. In situations where they knew that I was extremely dissatisfied with their service, they avoided calling me for the feedback. When I looked at the reviews of other people online about Galaxy Toyota, I realized that I am not alone.
If you are sending car to Galaxy Toyota for service, be prepared to wait for at least 3-4 extra hours or upto wait for next day delivery above the estimated time. You can read more about other’s experience at https://bit.ly/1lE4sAq.
2. Toyota failed to deal with Altis CNG issues: My problems related to CNG didn’t end. Every few months, I’d to send the car to Gurgaon for issues related to repair of CNG. The CNG Company and Toyota(Galaxy Service Center) continued to play blame game on each other and I ended up wasting huge amount of precious time and money. I later found that Toyota had to discontinue CNG version as they found serious issues with the Car.
3. Be prepared to spend upto Rs 10-15k Disk Brake/Pad issues with alternate service: I had to spend over Rs 40, 000 by around 50, 000 Kms of driving Toyota Altis CNG. Unfortunately, I realized it very late and when I complained about it, I was told that with every 10-15000 Kms of drive, its normal to pay for repair or replacement of Disk Brake/Pad. At the same time I got to know that it’s an issue known to Toyota. Find more about it at https://bit.ly/1k1hGCY.
If you are sending car for service, you are likely to get a call back reporting issue related to Disk Brake/Pad, forcing you to spend almost 2-3 times of the amount originally estimated for your car service. Accordingly, if you are sending your Altis through a driver, you may want to give him around Rs 15k or else he will have to come back for collecting balance amount. Once I’d to keep my Altis at the Galaxy Toyota service center overnight as my driven didn’t carry the amount for Disk Brake/Pad repair and Galaxy service center people didn’t agree to send anyone with the driver to collect the remaining amount. Similar incident happened earlier, when Galaxy Toyota failed to drop the vehicle to my home and kept the car overnight despite their promise to deliver it in the evening.
I was not surprised to read frustrating experiences of many Toyota Altis customers on Team-BHP. You must check out this thread about Toyota Altis Brake Pad issues at https://bit.ly/1pLT4BO
4. You may have to try upto 50 times to start Altis: Couple of months back, I faced an unusual problem of car not starting and at times it required me to attempt upto 50 times and wait upto few minutes. At times, I found myself embarrassed in the middle of the road as the Altis refused to start after I switched it off. When I reported this problem, Toyota initially blamed CNG guys for the issue and later told that the issue has nothing to do with CNG. Despite sending the car multiple times to them and even when product guy from Toyota got involved, they have not been able to solve the issue.
Finally, after their diagnosis I was told that there is 99% probability that issue is with the self starter and they replaced it with other self starter but the problem was still there. At this point of the time, I lost my patience and refused to give the car for repair again. Imagine, I’d already sent the car for one or other issue over 20 times out of which only 5 times were for service. The GM of Galaxy Toyota requested to send the car once more and when I asked what would they do now, he said “there’s 1% chance that the issue could be due to ignition”. Despite knowing my overall experience with them and Toyota, he had the courage and wasn’t ashamed to ask me to pay for the replacement of ignition as the condition for checking my Altis again.
And there are other issues with Toyota Altis and their service quality. Having paid Rs 11 Lacs for the vehicle, I couldn’t expect an experience worse than this. I realized that my over co-operation with them encouraged them to take me for granted. I’d no option but to write this review so that others could not be taken for similar ride by Toyota for a product like Altis. I wished my experience with Toyota brand, Toyota Altis Car and Galaxy Toyota was one of the cases but having discovered number of other people who’d been through similar troubles, I could not stop sharing my experience.
Also, speaking with couple of friends, another learning is to avoid a new auto product even from a brand you’ve always trusted. If you are considering buying Toyota Corolla Altis 2014, you may want to make sure that your decision is not just solely based on the looks of the vehicle.
If you have a similar experience with Toyota, Corolla Altis or Galaxy Toyota, please do share here. If you have any query related to my experience, please feel free to ask. I will be glad to be of any support.
Updated on Mar 1, 2015
On Advice of a lot of friends, I agreed to give them another chance and gave my car to Galaxy Toyota for repair. I even agreed to pay for the repair related to start issue of the car. As expected, my horrible experience with them only continued. Some of the aspects worth mentioning about Galaxy Toyota:
a.) They charged full price for replacing the Starter and gave assurance that the problem wouldn't reoccur. As expected, within few days of the replacement, the problem reappeared. As earlier, the issue started with less frequency(i.e. once in few days) and increased to a stage of multiple times on daily basis. When they couldn't reproduce the issue(which is expected given the problem only appears once in few days), their Customer Relation Head Seema Pall sent the mail(see the attachment) to move back from their responsibility.
When the frequency increased and they could reproduce the defect, they sent back the car after cleaning one of the wires and as expected the problem continued. They asked to send back the car.
b.) Despite knowing the issues related to my situation, both the Chairman(Mr. Ashok Sachdev) and the CEO & Executive Director of Galaxy Toyota Mr. Praveen Sahni didn't both to respond to my mails & calls.
c.) Even their Service Advisor didn't have time to call me despite multiple notices to him during last time when the car was sent to Galaxy Toyota.
In short, Galaxy Toyota's interest lies only in extracting as much money possible from their customers through unwanted repairs. They are least concerned about solving customer's problem and the worst, people from bottom to top management have no empathy for their customer's situation. I doubt how long their monopoly with Toyota will continue. Till then, decide for yourself if you want to do any business Galaxy Toyota or not.
