Re: Maruti Suzuki A-Star Auto - Road Test Hello all, I am in a tight spot of sorts,
my story:
We were planning to change my mom's Santro AT for some time now and between the A star AT and the i10 AT, we(my family) all voted for the small Suzuki, the reasons for this do not relate to this story and hence will not be covered here.
Anyhow, in Jaipur we have 4 Suzuki dealers, so we went to Prem Motors, they quoted a delivery time 1-2 months, I argued with them that nowadays the time for delivery has come down significantly, also dealers in Tier 1 cities stock the auto variants, but they countered that in Jaipur no one buys automatic cars, they have sold just 1 a star auto till date, so they stuck to their dates of 1-2 months, I wanted to try other dealers, so headed to Vipul motors, to my surprise they said they could deliver a Red A Star auto within 10 days, they told me the car was in stock, at the main plant, so went ahead and gave a cheque for 50 k, they gave me the bill, but the documents they gave me, they wrote "Delivery schedule: 1 month", on asking them why so? they should mention 10 days as they had told me, but they said that 1 month is standard company practice and this is just a formality. I said OK and went home hoping for a delivery in 10 days time.
Meanwhile, I had received a decent offer for my santro, and the thought that my mom had to wait just 10 days for the new car instead of 1-2 months, we decided to sell off the santro. The Santro went on 7th of september ( morning), the booking for the A Star was done a day prior. Things started going wrong from here.
7th september evening we get a call from Vipul motors, they shock us with the news that the Red A star, they had planned to get for was never actually there, it was mistake by the computer and it was never actually there, and the production of the A Star, has been discontinued, so please cancel your booking! they suggested we purchase the Dzire automatic as that was in stock, we flatly refused as we were not interested, they provided me with the number of regional sales manager of Suzuki Rajasthan, speaking to him, he told me that
"Yes, there a mistake by the computer and the Production of the A Star has not been discontinued but just temporarily halted due to problems at the Manesar plant, and only swift Dzire is being produced as it has the longest waiting period of all, and as the A Star does not sell that much so the production has been halted"
Then I told him my side of the story, how this car was for my mom, who goes to office everyday, and how on their false promises we had already sold our Santro AT, he replied stating that he didn't know all this had happened and promised source a car as soon as possible and asked for 1 days time to figure things out.
we started making contingency plans at home, we were really not keen on the I10 auto, the next best option was the Brio automatic, so on saturday, 8th of september I headed to the Honda dealer who said that brio auto would come sometime next month, probably around mid october, I was just warming up to this idea when I get a call from the Regional manager and Vipul that they have found a silver A star auto, just manufactured, and if you are willing to change the color from Red to Silver, we can get the car in 3 days, but you have to pay 1 lakh more to secure the car as for all automatics, Suzuki asks for a higher advance payment as these cars are made to order.
So we said ok, gave another cheque of 1 lakh, I had a lot of doubts in my mind, but figured that this is Life and stuff happens, thought that now we are getting the car quicker, ok not the color of mom's choice but still its ok, you must be thinking, a happy ending to the story, No! the story takes a dramatic turn for the worse! Read on, just to remind you all this was on saturday, 8th September.
In Jaipur, Wednesday is considered an auspicious day to take delivery of a car, so on Tuesday 11th september, I head to Vipul motors to find out where the car was? To my Horror, I am told that the silver car was booked by someone else prior to my booking, there is no car, nothing. Again I am told to talk to regional sales manager.
On the phone, he sounds very apologetic, he told me that as of now Suzuki is producing only 3 A star autos a month, the silver one was the first one and 2 more will be made in the month of September, so he put my booking in line for the next car, I asked what if there are more people in the queue before me, he told me that there is no way to find that out but hopefully I can get you a car in 15 days time, my logic is that if there more than 6 people waiting before then, I wont get the car this month or the next month, as there is production of only 3 cars a month. by that logic my mom would have to suffer for 2 whole months or more, had I known this fact I would have held on to the Santro a bit longer.
Today 4 days after my last talk with Regional manager, also 4 days less out of the 15 days he had asked for, he still said give me 15 days, I am trying pan India to source a car and hope for the best. I have very patient till now, but now its anger is getting the better of me.
I still want to buy the A star as I think its a great little car for my mom, I10 we don't want, Brio being more expensive will offer nothing more as the car is primarily will be used by mom alone, will only look at it if this A Star problem continues too long.
In hindsight I should have taken down the VIN numbers of the red and silver car, just for the record.
What I am asking of you people is to help me out, if you know someone senior in Suzuki who can help, or someone I can escalate the matter further too, I really don't want to go to consumer courts right now and just want to get the car asap.
Thanks everyone.
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