Maruti Esteem (1998) Spares There is a fair amount of speculation, by quite a few people here, who have not actually bought any spares from GoMechanic but are concluding about the veracity of their business.
I have been a long time lurker at Team-BHP, takes too much effort to keep writing on forums, but this instance made me think otherwise, because I am sure there will be others like me who can benefit from such businesses instead of getting turned away by this speculation.
I have a Maruti Esteem (1998). In the past I would usually go to my local MGP dealer (RPB Automotives, Visakhapatnam) for sourcing spares, however, in the last 2-3 years they have become very reluctant and unenthusiastic whenever I come for spares.
In the last instance (July 2020) they sold me a MGP "Genuine" windshield for the Esteem which had a defect in it--there was a thin layer of foggy residue in the laminate that could not be cleaned away--which I only discovered after having it installed and driving in the night time. This defect was not visible during daylight (unless closely inspected), however, in the night oncoming traffic lights would highlight this layer as a foggy layer, dangerously hampering visibility.
Any other company would have just replaced the part, but RPB just refused, giving all kinds of lame excuses for not replacing it. Imagine an MGP dealer doing such a thing? Even that happens.
I even wrote to their MD, Maruti Customer Care, without any resolution. So I just left that defective windshield back at RPB and resolved to never to go back there ever again, if I could help it.
Fast forward to June, 2021, the radiator of the Esteem broke and was spilling fluid everywhere. Then I happened across Boodmo, from one of Ashish Masih's review, seemed like a life saver. Not only that, it would ensure that I need not have to go back to RPB. A little more digging, for similar alternatives, made me bump into GoMechanic Spares as well.
While BoodMo has a well documented catalogue (with photos and part numbers) and offers a wide inventory of spares for all kinds of cars, GoMechanic (who are still in the process of building their catalogue) has the best prices.
GoMechanic even offered free shipping (on the entire order) once my order value exceeded a certain amount.
So I searched for the parts using BoodMo, found out the exact part number/sku#, and placed the order at GoMechanic.
The order was placed on 1st June (check photos) when almost the whole country was in a lockdown. The customer support executives at GoMechanic Spares (Mohit Kataria & Sagar) were upfront about the delays in supply chains (procurement from vendors and dispatch through couriers) and gave me an estimate of 2-3 weeks (depending on the unlocking statuses of the various states) for the parts to be delivered.
Guess what, on 21st the first batch of spares were delivered (their systems are still under development, so the order still shows it as "ready to dispatch", however, I have already received them and also installed them)
So it's just not worth to speculate, or rely on hearsay, without any direct experience. There are people out there taking risks, setting up startups, to change how we function and do business in India, not all of them are out to scam us.
I am not one who documents and writes "reviews" often (otherwise I would have done a proper "unboxing" and start-to-finish review, it just never occurred to me at the time of ordering that there would be so many suspicious people, so I only have photos of the parts already installed like the radiator), but in this case I realize, my experience will help others, like me, having a limited budgets and having a tough time to find rare to source spare parts. If you look at the Gabriel struts, they were manufactured in March, 2021. So it's not like they are trying to sell old stock either. The MGP radiator was from 2016 (if I remember correctly), which is expected since Maruti stopped production quite a while ago.
Last edited by Ashok.Vardhan : 26th June 2021 at 17:22.
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