[Jeroen]

No,

i will only use places I have been myself, been able to talk to the folks, see some of their work first hand, see the workshop etc. I would not trust any online car service in any part of the world for that matter.

Jeroen

[bikerzindia]

I would like to know what if an app which has actual reviews of people who have used their services rather than some guys paid putting reviews? For example if there is a way reviews are filtered by actual person using his services than any random paid guy putting up good or bad reviews? My experience with ASS hasn't been great. I have seen Authorized Service Stations ill equipped, foul mouthed, careless, absolutely zero Customer Service, indifferent to Customer safety and non transparency. Am sure many would have faced this but not everyone takes it seriously. I would and have seen a few care a damn about warranty if such Experience happened in more than one ASS that we visited.

I would take my priced possession to a guy who has a good reputation from a large number of known people/group of individuals I can trust to love their machines as much or more than I do. I would definitely give a try if 20-30 people recommend a service station with a backing that they regularly get their priced possessions serviced there. That's my take on this.

[centaur]

I would have voted as a "Maybe" but that isn't an option. While I always entrust the ASC with any work/service in the car, I wouldn't mind trying the online providers for maybe smaller jobs or minor tinkering but there is a BIG "IF".

Given the digital/social media age, I generally tend to read reviews online and also ask my friends and relatives if any of them have used a product/service. Generally, if there is even a minuscule number of bad reviews, I turn away. The reason why I ask people in my friends and relatives is because, its very easy for anyone to create multiple IDs and post fake "good" reviews. Asking friends and relatives gives first hand information of their experience.

[SRN]

Voted No.

A friend of mine recently tried an online service for getting his Corolla buffed up and to make his baby shine. He used an online app to book the service. Came with all assurances from one of his trusted advisers. The end result, he got a car with botched up job, it was like some amateur work. At least he had this trusted adviser who then had to fort the bill to get the vehicle into ship shape.

[unni246]

My view / inputs for voting a strict NO:

1) No second person will ever value or be passionate about your car as much as you do
2) I have myself seen a car being serviced by one of the leading APP group at a garage I was getting my car serviced. I could see guys cleaning up the air filter with compressed air and making it look like new - according to me compressed air is dangerous as it could make the pores get bigger and actually defeat it's overall purpose.
3) The FNG I was one of their client and had assigned guys to do work for them - however seeing the quality of their work the mechanic was pulled back and they were just given an empty slot to carry on their stuffs with a mechanic of their own.
4) The APP based people were more keen on clicking photos (probably to share with owners or for promotions) than getting engaged in fixing the car quicker

P.S to protect confidentiality I am not mentioning names of the App or the FNG here.

Saying the above, there could be many more out there who might be actually dedicated in their work and are more oriented towards customer satisfaction. I myself have once got the help of one startup to get a 24 point health checkup of my car, which was absolutely free as part of a seasonal offer and I was happy to see their immense knowledge, tools they had and the way they were organized.

All in all these apps are at least a blessing and a better option sometimes than leaving your car purely at the disposal of an ASC the whole day and also for busy owners who would not be able to squeeze in extra time to take care of these things on their own.

[TejasKinger]

I have always been on the fence about it, but after using them once, I'd stay away.

My Hyundai Grand i10 had its fair share of battle scars from Bangalore's traffic over the last few years. While I don't the small ones because they are a part and parcel of living and driving in cities, the sight of the bigger ones began to hurt after a while.

There was a large dent on the front left fender, a large dent on the left running board and a long scratch that ran across the right-hand side front and rear doors. The Hyundai authorized service center (Advaith Hyundai, Bellandur ORR, Bangalore) gave an atrocious price quote as expected.

Seeing their affordable pricing, I thought of trying out GoMechanic. GoMechanic allows you to book services online (routine services, denting and painting, and detailing). For denting and painting, you can pick the panels that need to be repaired (they charge a flat rate per panel), add it to your cart, book an appointment, check out and pay. I also chose the basic interior and exterior detailing packages.

So, here's how GoMechanic works. Based on your pick up location, GoMechanic allots your car to the nearest available friendly neighborhood garage (FNG). These FNGs carry the GoMechanic branding, but may or may not be up to a certain code. Your experience with them may be a hit or a miss.

In my case the pick-up experience was smooth. The service advisor arrived on time at the right location, photographs of the car were taken and an online job card was opened. Note, no physical job card or acknowledgment is given. I was also given a WhatsApp link to track the progress. So far so good.

My ordeal begins when it is time to get the car delivered. On the day of the delivery, I receive contradictory messages from the service advisor and the GoMechanic representative. I've had to follow-up via several phone calls and waste an entire day until I get to know that I can only receive the car on the next day.

On the next day when the car is delivered, while the quality of the denting and painting is satisfactory, the car is delivered without my rubber floor mats. And what's even more disappointing is that they don't seem to have done a good job of the interior cleaning too. It seems to have more dust than what it had when the car was given to them.

It has been over six hours since the car has been delivered and they have no clue where my rubber mats are. And needless to say, I am going to point out their poor quality of interior cleaning to them.

I went with GoMechanic only for convenience and I think I've learned my lesson. For denting and painting, I'd much rather bear some inconvenience and go with a reputed provider like Trend and for service, I'm sticking with HASS simply because of higher accountability.

[Axe77]

Not strictly responding to the poll but hopefully it is relevant enough here.

If anyone is a subscriber to The Ken, their daily piece today is on GoMechanic. Interesting read, as most of The Ken's pieces are.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by Axe77

Not strictly responding to the poll but hopefully it is relevant enough here.

If anyone is a subscriber to The Ken, their daily piece today is on GoMechanic. Interesting read, as most of The Ken's pieces are.

Haven't gone through the The Ken article but there was a similar article on TOI last Sunday, about GoMechanic.

[Turrrb0]

Originally Posted by TejasKinger

So, here's how GoMechanic works. Based on your pick up location, GoMechanic allots your car to the nearest available friendly neighborhood garage (FNG). These FNGs carry the GoMechanic branding, but may or may not be up to a certain code. Your experience with them may be a hit or a miss.

In my case the pick-up experience was smooth. The service advisor arrived on time at the right location, photographs of the car were taken and an online job card was opened. Note, no physical job card or acknowledgment is given. I was also given a WhatsApp link to track the progress. So far so good.

My ordeal begins when it is time to get the car delivered. On the day of the delivery, I receive contradictory messages from the service advisor and the GoMechanic representative. I've had to follow-up via several phone calls and waste an entire day until I get to know that I can only receive the car on the next day.

On the next day when the car is delivered, while the quality of the denting and painting is satisfactory, the car is delivered without my rubber floor mats. And what's even more disappointing is that they don't seem to have done a good job of the interior cleaning too. It seems to have more dust than what it had when the car was given to them.

It has been over six hours since the car has been delivered and they have no clue where my rubber mats are. And needless to say, I am going to point out their poor quality of interior cleaning to them.

I went with GoMechanic only for convenience and I think I've learned my lesson. For denting and painting, I'd much rather bear some inconvenience and go with a reputed provider like Trend and for service, I'm sticking with HASS simply because of higher accountability.

Have heard Carista is good, since they do the service at your desired location. I guess you can watch the car being serviced/repaired while you crack a cold one.

[TejasKinger]

I read the piece in The Ken as well. Honestly, to me, it read more like a PR piece for GoMechanic rather than a thorough deep-dive.

But that was beside the point. My ordeal with GoMechanic didn't end there. That night as I was driving back from work, my windshield started to get hazy almost to the point that it felt like I was looking at a milky white wall.

I was paranoid. No matter what I did, trying to keep the windows open, using the defogger, using the windshield washer, absolutely nothing helped. I parked the car used the handy cleaning cloth that I keep in my bag and scrubbed the windshield clean from the inside, only to realize that the problem was perhaps on the outside.

Wiped the windshield clean. Liberally used the windshield washers almost to the point of emptying the tank which appeared to have solved the problem. Drove back home after a 45-minute long ordeal in the middle of the road.

It seemed like they may have used some kind of wax/polish on my windshield which was perhaps meant for plastics/bodywork.

While I did write back to them and used Twitter to complain as well. Till date apart from a customary feedback call, I haven't heard back from them.

[VKumar]

I have seen the FNG dudes having fun with the vehicles and what all can go wrong.

Well, not for me. I am fine paying more for my mental peace. I frequently travel inter city and inter state too; the car being in top shape - both in performance and reliability, is my priority and not the savings. At times I have to get the work done in the A.S.S. in different city or different state, at least I can stay assured of the work quality.

Additionally, just like cops and officials; the service center guys do regard the service center guys, you enter the workshop and make the service adviser there talk to your local A.S.S. one and things get resolved very quickly.

[Nalin1]

Has anyone in Bangalore utilised Gomechanic's services recently?

If so, please provide your experience. The app is impressive . The way they interact is also very positive.

I decided to pay a visit to any of their service centers nearby to get a 'feel'. Could not even locate the ones in Indiranagar even with Google maps. When I informed the same to them, their response was those centers in Indiranagar are not open for some internal reasons and gave me their outlet's address in Mahadevapura and sent me the location.

Followed the location and Google maps stopped me in the middle of the outer ring road in the midst of all the IT companies and said "You have arrived!".

Called them and was given another location. This one turned out to be almost correct. Somehow reached and was quite surprised to see something like a local garage when I was expecting a SC that looks like an ASC.

Just had a small discussion and was about to leave when I noticed a TUV 300 being revved like mad in climbing into the workshop (not sure why). I was .

[JayKavadi]

I recently used (2 weeks ago) the services of Motofyx in Mumbai. This is the third time I’ve used them. The experience was a mixed one (first two were positive). This time the work done through them was denting/ painting the front left fender and bumper on my 2012 City. I had also asked them to check the air conditioning which wasn’t cooling properly. And the last was an interior sanitisation and disinfection of my car.

While the denting/painting was done satisfactorily, they have botched up the indicator bulb inside the headlight. The left indicator was blinking fast which is something they should have noticed during the delivery of the car and rectified. As it turns out the indicator bulb in the left headlight has blown.

On the disinfection bit, when i got the car back, it seemed fairly clean. Its only a week later when i went out for groceries and opened the rear door i noticed a puddle of water on the left side in the rear passenger footwell. This wasn’t a few drops spilled. It was a full puddle which was covered up by the plastic floor mats and hence not visible at first sight. The entire carpet was soaking wet and also the foam underneath. I tried removing as much as I could using a absorbent towel but there’s still some left which is hard to access.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, they told me at the time of delivery of my car that it was low on fuel so a top up would be needed. I asked them to go ahead for a top up of 300/- which they said they did and billed me for. When i got the car back the fuel meter still showed on reserve. Their workshop is 8 kilometres away. Obviously irritated with this sleight of hand, I took it up with the workshop. After some slight resistance they refunded that 300 taken for fuel but it did leave a bad taste.

Needless to say, Im surely not going to use their services again. Shoddy work and integrity issues - absolute no no

[invidious]

There is a garage right in my office complex. I don't use all my parking spots, so I am friendly with the garage owner and let him use my spots. Whenever I want an interior cleaning job done or have them clean the child seats in my cars, I give it to them and they do a fantastic job. They also do a good job with minor dents and painting. But I still get the cars serviced at a regular authorized center. Why take a chance? The difference in pricing may only be 20%. Having said that, some experiences with VW chaps have been forgettable.

[drsachin]

I had mixed experience with Gomechanic services.

Ist I got my car service done at one of the workshop. Labour quality was better then ASS, and later I got my clutch plates overhaul at another Gomechanic workshop again labour was better.

My first experience tells me that although mechanics , labour may be better at a particular centre but it's the quality of spares which is not good. Modus operandi is simple. They will not use OEM parts but either OES or aftermarket parts. These parts will have better commission for them then OEM parts or they may never charge on printed MRP rate. In my case the OEM rear brake pads used on my fluidic Verna 2014 diesel costs Rs6000. They charged Rs3000 for poor quality aftermarket brakes(no MRP on box). Which later gave me issues after 2000 kms. Replaced again under warranty with another aftermarket brake pads(printed MRP 868/). Also used API CG4 grade oil instead of recommended CH4.

So using this experience when I needed clutch overhaul, I used their services only for labour. Procured replacement parts on my own. So saved significantly. Total expense Rs9600/ for clutch plates/pressure plate/bearing/master/slave cylinder/clutch bleeding using OES parts. Such work at ASS would have costed me Rs25000/