Gadgets

Honda India and Service?

I bought a new car – Honda City GXi early April this year. We all know Honda to be the best car makers’ in the worldwide, Yes, the car is fabulous to drive but their service is pathetic & cold.

After the first month, when I left it for the first service, in the bright sunlight of Chennai I noticed for the first time a colour variance (can you believe this in a Honda car) of one of the rear-doors from rest of the vehicle. On complaining this to the dealer (Sundaram Motor, Chennai) they accused me of painting it with a 3rd party – how attrocious. Later when I complaint on how they can accuse like this, the manager in Sundaram said that is their normal procedure to grill down customer before accepting a warranty problem – what a great customer service.

Coming back to the story, after several faxes to Sundaram, Honda (which no one bothered or acknowledged) they accepted the manufacturing defect. Then after repeated complaints to Honda One2One I got my car back nearly after three weeks of being in service. It took them 3 weeks to do it, since they wanted to find what went wrong in their supply chain up to Japan keeping my car in their service. They re-painted (have you ever heard about a new Honda Car getting painted) that side of doors and gave it back to me. Sundaram or Honda never called me once during the whole episode – not even a courtesy “Sorry”. Even after I repeatedly demanded to One2One that I needed an explanation from Honda on why this happened, no one called me back. It seems they have a policy in One2One that customer can only talk to them, they will reply only through dealers – and they call the program One2One.

Sundaram after all my screaming promised to give one year of extended warranty free (Rs.8500 value) in 2 days – even after 3 weeks now, no sign of it. 

Read my full complaint to Honda One2One. Finally I would like to congratulate Honda for being completely Indianized (for the worse).

6 Comments

  • R.Sreekumar

    Hi,
    Exactly the same experience to me also from One2One.This One2One is a part of mafia group of dealers. I have a new CITY SAT and given to Peninsular Honda at Trivandrum for service and a small denting work on 1st Oct-09.Untill now (13th-Oct) no news. Some times they say no parts or painting shop repair and now I understand that they do not have sufficient man power to handle the volume. I am wondering that why they are taking and keeping the vehicle with them, if they cannot manage it.

  • Vinod kumaar

    hi all,

    Mine seems to be a definite problem. I got bought the car from Capital Honda on GST road(on the way to the airport). When I bought the car I was promised that the car would give 14 kmpl with AC within the city. Sadly, my car gives only 8 kmpl within city with AC ON ;(

    hmmm. when I checked with the capital honda team they said I will have to pay around 800Rs. for some computerized checkup of the injector. I don’t understand this, tis been only a month and a free service done for the car.

    Can any of you tell me how much mileage your car gives???

    Rgds,
    Vinod kumaar.V

  • Dev Lall

    Venkat

    Exactly the same issues with the a dealer in Delhi. My Accord has now been with them for 20 days and it is very clear they bungled up a repair job a few months ago that has resulted in the entire electrical system being fried. Headlights explode, doors dont open and radio has its own mind. To top it all main engine oil seal blew all in 38000 kms. Dealer and Honda 1 to 1 are not giving any explanation and dealer keeps calling me and asking me to settle quietly on the side. He has even gone as far as telling me that we will show it as accident damage and make insurance pay and he will foot my deductable. Still no response from Honda at all…….Crappy company with a good car. Unfortunately they have lost a customer who owns 3 hondas. I will be selling all of them.

  • Kanna

    Venkatta,
    If you had bought any Toyota Models, probably you would have gotten better customer service than Honda. I believe Toyota in association with Kirloskar Group does a better job than Honda. Just a thought!

  • Amit Batra

    Exactly my experience too.

    Even though there is no doubt that the quality of the cars that Honda manufactures is excellent, as a Honda customer I can say with confidence that the after sales service and support offered by Honda is terrible.

    During the one year that I have owned a Honda City ZX (CVT), there are numerous times when I have wished that I had bought another car — perhaps a Hyundai, because of the hopelessly inexistent customer care that Honda extends to its customers.

    To read the full story, please visit http://hondasiel.blogspot.com/.