[amohan78]

Dear Sir(s)

Of late I am noticing an odd behaviour amongst dealers. I have been negotiating car prices with various dealers of Maruti and Ford and I see an odd trend in terms of unbundling of lumpsum amount against the registration head.

Maruti dealers in most cases and FORD in all cases are offloading the temporary registration charges to the customer, rather than bearing the same for themselves. In my previous car purchases in 2003, 2009 and 2012, I have never seen this trend where TC registration is passed onto customer.

Is this a new scam by dealers to increase their margins ? What does the legal framework state in such cases ? I am of the opinion that the customer is liable to pay the permanent registration charges only.

Your opinions are solicited, especially of those who practice consumer law.

Regards
Anish

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by amohan78

Is this a new scam by dealers to increase their margins ? What does the legal framework state in such cases ? I am of the opinion that the customer is liable to pay the permanent registration charges only.

Your opinions are solicited, especially of those who practice consumer law.

From what I know, most Maruti dealers will not charge extra for temp registration. Its only when you want to take car to another jurisdiction where the dealer is unable to register himself that he charges a temp registration.

Eg. I had paid CRTM charges when I took my Abarth from Pune and got it registered in Vashi. Similarly, when I used to sell cars, if it was a different RTO than Panvel and Pen, we used to bear the CRTM charges on us and not pass it on to the customer.

[amohan78]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

From what I know, most Maruti dealers will not charge extra for temp registration. Its only when you want to take car to another jurisdiction where the dealer is unable to register himself that he charges a temp registration.

Eg. I had paid CRTM charges when I took my Abarth from Pune and got it registered in Vashi. Similarly, when I used to sell cars, if it was a different RTO than Panvel and Pen, we used to bear the CRTM charges on us and not pass it on to the customer.

You are right. Maruti was not in the practice to offload the Temporary registration charges.

I challenged FORD since they are offloading the temporary registration charges on the customer. The logic FORD gave is, they had to get the car from their regional stockyard, which is Chennai, and hence the temporary registration charge is to be paid by me.

FORD is the worst as I am seeing that they are loading temporary registration charges to ALL customers, even for vehicles that are present in their backyard too. This is a very bad practice where they are pocketing everything and asking the customers to take the hit !

Maruti on being challenged is readily agreeing to take that off from the registration expenses.

Anish

[ku69rd]

Originally Posted by amohan78

I challenged FORD since they are offloading the temporary registration charges on the customer. The logic FORD gave is, they had to get the car from their regional stockyard, which is Chennai, and hence the temporary registration charge is to be paid by me.


Anish

Put in a tweet am sure there response will be much better. Else look for a different dealer.

[amohan78]

Originally Posted by ku69rd

Put in a tweet am sure there response will be much better. Else look for a different dealer.

Yes, that was my plan. However, I am told that FORD has no role in the pricing except for the car. The registration is a dealer based network and that is outside of the policies of Ford.

In fact, one of my colleagues is fighting tooth and nail due to payment vs invoice gap of Rs. 23000 with Ford. Ford is asking the dealer to sort it out since the invoices are issued by Ford dealer and payment taken by Ford dealer. Ford India is only interested in getting the value of the car from the dealer.

This information is from Ford's own Sales team, not of the dealer.

And this is not with Ford only. It is with all car dealers and car manufacturers. The ecosystem is highly skewed with the dealership and manufacturer can only mediate but cannot force them.

[Rahul Rao]

RTO's have now started charging a 14 day road tax along with the CRTM, which varies as per the vehicle cost. The CRTM issuing fee Rs 300 (without HP) is something that the dealer should not charge, but tax collected on it should rightly be to the users account.


Sincerely,
Rahul Rao

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by amohan78

And this is not with Ford only. It is with all car dealers and car manufacturers. The ecosystem is highly skewed with the dealership and manufacturer can only mediate but cannot force them.

If customers don’t disagree, dealers will levy all sorts of charges. Also do point to the Ford guys that you are paying ex-showroom and not the ex-yard / ex-factory price. Dealer should bring the car to the showroom at the minimum.

[blackasta]

Originally Posted by amohan78

Dear Sir(s)

Of late I am noticing an odd behaviour amongst dealers. I have been negotiating car prices with various dealers of Maruti and Ford and I see an odd trend in terms of unbundling of lumpsum amount against the registration head.

Maruti dealers in most cases and FORD in all cases are offloading the temporary registration charges to the customer, rather than bearing the same for themselves. In my previous car purchases in 2003, 2009 and 2012, I have never seen this trend where TC registration is passed onto customer.

Is this a new scam by dealers to increase their margins ? What does the legal framework state in such cases ? I am of the opinion that the customer is liable to pay the permanent registration charges only.

Your opinions are solicited, especially of those who practice consumer law.

Regards
Anish

Previously, dealers used to deliver either a car with TC (not recommended, completely the onus of the buyer for any untoward incident) or a permanent registration number from the RTO which has jurisdiction at the buyer's address.
However, currently the law is that, if the buyer address and the dealer address falls under different RTO jurisdictions, a temporary registration (and this is not TC number) for 1 month has to be done (and this is at the buyer's cost), then the car handed over to the customer. You are free to drive the car for one month (they give proper tax receipts) with the temp registration number, by the time which it is expected that the permanent registration shall be done at the buyer's RTO.

However, if the dealer wants to do a TC registration (required to take car from yard to showroom) at buyer's expense, then that is not legal.

[mudhasir]

Originally Posted by blackasta

However, currently the law is that, if the buyer address and the dealer address falls under different RTO jurisdictions, a temporary registration (and this is not TC number) for 1 month has to be done (and this is at the buyer's cost), then the car handed over to the customer.

This is a recent development. I took a Ford Ecosport for my friend recently from Chennai, although there is a dealer in Vellore (buyer address = dealer address). We took from Chennai due to incompetency of the dealer in Vellore. We had to take the vehicle on Temp and then perform a permanent registration with Vellore RTO. The cost of temp was borne by us and it was completely logical.

However, if a dealer charges temp registration cost to the customer for movement of the vehicle from stock yard to showroom or to transfer from one showroom to other showroom, due to unavailability stock, then it's completely wrong.

I purchased an Audi in beginning of this year. It was a 2017 model and the stock was available only in Pune. The dealer took care of the transfer from Pune to Chennai under a temp registration and completed permanent registration within 3 weeks after handover. I didn't have to pay a penny more than the initial agreed on road price. The temp cost was completely borne by the dealer.