Just wanted to share my experience of dealing with Ashtavinayak Auto, Jogeshwari, Mumbai, Authorized Center of General Motors(Chevrolet).
Our Tavera started emitting black smoke on 19th February, 2010, and we handed over the car to these people on 20th Feb ‘ 10. Car was there for 3 days and got the confirmation on solving the problem with a bill of Rs 3, 300.Next day same problem started again, they once again asked us to come in the week end 27th February ‘ 10. Had a meeting with General Manager of Ashtavinayak, Mr. Karnik, their technical team concluded that it is a engine problem and the expense would be substantial & they asked us to keep the car for 10 days. Trusting these guy’s ability to identify the cause of the problem we asked them to go ahead with the work.We got the car back on 20th March ‘ 10 with bill a of Rs 71, 000, only to realize that problem was not resolved, black smoke problem was intensified.
After this, every weekend the car was stationed in their Service Center till 23rd April ‘ 10 and they just could not identify the problem for more than 2 months, in-spite of leaving the car in their custody.On 25th April ‘ 10, complaint was escalated(earlier mail chain of 11 pages, there was no response from AVK) to the CEO & MD of General Motors, India and finally managed to meet a GM Official called Manish Kocchhar along with AVK officials. Before this, there was at least 10 mails addressed to AVK and General Motors, none of them replied with necessary answers.Probably this is what GM CEO means when he comes in a Indian TV commercial wearing a nice American Suite saying “Chevrolet Promise” on quality of service. In my case and experience, “It’s absolute rubbish”.
Till we met and discussed GM & AVK Officals on 26th April, 10, these guys had absolutely no clue on what the problem was!. They took another 5 days to figure out the problem and finally concluded that black smoke is due to chocking Fuel Injector!. Received a mail from AVK on this with a estimated expense of Rs 2, 000 which GM said will be absorbed as a goodwill gesture!. We denied the same asking for refund & business loss. By this time we had completely lost faith on their ability to identify and resolve the problem and demanded refund of entire amount with claim on business loss, this car being a tourist vehicle. AVK denied to refund the amount and General Motors deviated themselves from this issue saying Ashtavinayak Auto has to address this problem!
By this time we did not have much option than deciding on lodging a legal complaint against AVK and General Motors and demanded a letter in AVK company letter head explaining us 3 points,
(1) Why did they charge us without even identifying the problem?
(2) Why did it take more than 2 months to figure out the cause of the problem?
(3) What did they charge us for?.
We forced AVK General Manager Mr. Karnik to issue the letter before taking the car out from Service Center, he is escaped on that day saying he is out due to emergency and promised the letter next day. We trusted him and little did we realize that he actually wanted to run away from this problem. From that day(4th May ‘ 10) onward he is not answering our calls and AVK is not responding to my emails.!I have all the email communications, on what is expressed in this communication, in case anyone requires I will be extremely happy to share it with you, our email id is symonneenterprises@hotmail.com.
We can not exactly figure out whether AVK wanted to make money by not identifying the problem and doing what they were not suppose to do? It is pretty clear now, actual problem was servicing of Fuel injector with a cost of Rs 2, 000 with a job of 1 day, actually costed us 75, 000 with more than 2 months!. Do we need to say anything more!
Worst thing is when AVK is taking us for a ride, General Motors is raising hand by saying AVK has to resolve this!. It speaks volumes on how dangerous it is to go for a General Motor product!. Would appreciate your feedback on this and your experiences, if any, of dealing with AVK and General Motors.
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- Thank You! We appreciate your effort.