Dear Sir,
1. My name is Flt Lt Alka Pandey and my husband, Sqn Ldr Shailesh Gautam and I are serving Air Force Officers. We are the proud owners (at least till not so long ago we loved to believe so!!) of a WagonR LXI model. We had purchased the car from your authorized dealer 'Hira Automobiles' at Muksar, Bathinda in Sep 2005. It used to then give us a mileage of 15-16 kms/Lt in city and upto 18 kms/Lt on the highway, with the AC on. The same continued till Jun 07.
2. In Jun 07, one fine morning suddenly our car failed to start without any pre-warning of any sort prior to that day. We immediately called for the Service Engineer at Hira Automobiles, Muksar (Bathinda) and they towed our vehicle to their service station the next day. After two days we were intimated that the 'Engine Head'’ of our car was faulty and it needed replacement. It was shocking to hear the revelation of such a manufacturing defect in our almost new and hardly driven car but since our car was still under warranty the replacement was undertaken free of cost and we had to pay just the labour charges and other minor charges of the oil replacement etc. Both my husband and I, due to other compelling reasons, unfortunately, could not personally oversee the repairs carried out to our car at Hira Automobiles, Muksar. Our car was sent back to us on completion of the repairs after one week. The in-city mileage (with AC on) it gave us after the repairs was approximately only 14 Kms/Lt. On enquiring about it, the Service Engineer at Hira Automobiles told us that this would gradually improve in a couple of months.
3. In Jul 07, my husband and I got posted to Bhuj, Gujrat. We drove down from Bathinda to Bhuj via Delhi and the mileage (again with AC on) given by the car on the entire highway was only approx 14 Km/Lt. As we perceive it, ever since the Engine Head of our car was replaced, there has been a gradual decline in the mileage it has given us. At present, it is giving us a mileage of only 11 Kms/Lt in city and 13 Kms/Lt on highway. Our repeated complaints to your authorized service centre, K.D. Motors at Bhuj has just fallen on deaf ears. We were initially advised by them to get a detailed servicing including engine oil change, air filter cleaning etc of our car done and we got the same done at their service centre itself in Mar 08 but, even then there has been no change in the mileage of our car.
4. During our next visit to K.D. Motors, Bhuj again with the same complaint in May 08 we were told that we should get our car tank filled from a petrol pump near their service station and then check the mileage. We did as we were told to and again the mileage came out to be roughly 11 Kms/Lt only. When it was told to the service engineer at K.D. Motors, he just turned a blind eye to it saying that probably my husband and I are not driving the car the right way leading to consumption of more fuel. He also said that the car must be given to them to be driven for around 100 Kms, so as to find out its correct mileage.
5. I would here just like to bring to the notice of the higher executives of Maruti Udyog Ltd that when ever a customer buys a Maruti product it is only for the fantastic after-sales service and customer care the company promises to deliver to them. It is extremely disheartening and disappointing to know that even when our car is under the extended warranty clause and has been till date taken to only your authorised service centres, the technical staff at K.D. Motors is willing neither to undertake any kind of investigation or analysis for solving our long pending problem nor projecting our problem to the higher echelons of the company and rather are giving us totally baseless excuses pertaining to our driving skills. I would also like to bring out here that by the mere virtue of us living inside an Air Force Station, the issues of over speeding, sudden application of brakes, long idling time can simply be overruled in the first place itself. I would also like to ask you that are we not the same people who drove this car from day one in the same kind of environment and were getting 16-18 Kms/Lt mileage then, why has the mileage gradually dropped to just 11 Kms/Lt in a period of just one year? Questions like these are many but sadly there are none from your Maruti Team at Bhuj who are willing answer them substantially. It is actually sad to discover that all the promises made to the customers about a trouble free and beautiful experience of owning a Maruti product are actually based on such poor and amateurish technical support offered from the company’s very own so-called ‘authorised dealers and service centres’ in the country.
6. The least we would now expect from a reputed company like Maruti Udyog Ltd is to give us some viable solutions/answers with regard to our above mentioned mysterious problem of constantly dropping mileage of our car. Otherwise, let the company please own up that it is helpless and cannot offer us any solutions or remedial measures to solve this problem of our car so that I can at least reduce the monetary losses being incurred by me presently by owning a Maruti product and switch to a car from some other company which probably would offer me much better technical solutions to a problem occurring in their own product.
7. In the end, I would just like to say that it would really be a very big disappointment if the company of your repute and stature is unable to help us resolve our year long problem because just like the millions of other Indians I too would always love to believe that “INDIA COMES HOME IN A MARUTI SUZUKI " and not regret my decision of becoming a part of the Maruti customer family. Please help us revive our diminishing hope in your company by addressing to our mystifying problem on priority. We need your help and prompt intervention in this regard desperately.
A dissatisfied yet optimistic customer of yours,
Flt Lt Alka Pandey
CEO Office
Air Force Station, Bhuj
Bhuj (Kutch)
Gujrat - 370001
Tele : 02832-244032
Mob : 09725322900
E-Mail: [email protected]
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