[R2D2]

Originally Posted by bobbyaxelrod

I keep telling the SA the same thing that even if they changed the part for free under warranty, it still needs to be mentioned. The SA made me talk to his senior and that guy claimed that he has 20 years experience in servicing cars and that it is usual for parts to be changed and not be mentioned on the invoices. Both these guys made me furious and I asked them to make their manager contact me.

You are absolutely right ANY part replacement under warranty or a recall is recorded and sent back to the company for root cause analysis on the failure. Let me give you an example, in Jan 2018, my 9 year old Corolla Altis' passenger airbag assembly was replaced under warranty and it was mentioned in the service invoice as FoC (free of charge), the part so removed becomes the property of TKM. Ditto with a small service done to alleviate a problem with one of power window switches. All clearly mentioned in the service invoice and price is FoC. So these fellows are not levelling with you. And that's not a healthy sign. I hope these characters realise there are miles to go before they, as in the Kia brand, catch up with more established players. And since dealerships are the face of the company any negative experience passes on by word of mouth and social media it's the company's reputation that takes the rap. I own a Fiat and let me tell you this is a classic example of how FCA (they are certainly not in my favourite list of companies) had great products and shot themselves in the foot by offering sub standard dealerships and after sales. For gosh sakes even Tata Motors had and still has excellent after sales. This is from my experience of nearly 2 decades ago. Hope Kia and their dealership do a course correction and take customer feedback seriously.

[Bibendum90949]

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

Just a side thought - Hyundai is not the ideal benchmark

Yes it isn't. My reference to Hyundai was to suggest what one can expect with Kia. Only time would tell where Kia ends up with their service standards. My sympathies to the OP on such an early failure in his brand new car.

Originally Posted by ninjatalli

It's important to highlight such cases, even if it turns out later to be just one off case. Keeps the A.S.S. and management of new players in the Indian market on a tight rope as they (should) be scanning threads like these to proactively handle such cases. MG did so recently on a seemingly one-off case with a Hector thread.
It'll be interesting to see if Kia does the same here.

I too echo the same thought and completely agree with you. I followed that Hyundai service lapse thread. Towards the latter part of opening post, you'll see my post on a one off Seltos brake failure issue faced by my friend which was highlighted by CrazyDriver



There's another one off incident(seemingly though) of a serpentine belt failure which I reported recently in the Seltos thread.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/offic...ml#post4869678 (Kia Seltos : Official Review)

[Grease_Monkey]

Originally Posted by bobbyaxelrod

UPDATE

This is the part that most people are not focusing on! It's a brand new car and it broke down in 3 weeks and 372 kms. Also the fact that the SA claims that a memo has been sent out about fuel pumps failing in other Seltos is alarming.

I keep telling the SA the same thing that even if they changed the part for free under warranty, it still needs to be mentioned. The SA made me talk to his senior and that guy claimed that he has 20 years experience in servicing cars and that it is usual for parts to be changed and not be mentioned on the invoices. Both these guys made me furious and I asked them to make their manager contact me.

Try tweeting /posting on FB to KIA motors india page with this page link. Usually most companies respond quick to tweets and social media posts.

What this SA is saying is utter nonsense. Any warranty claim needs to be mentioned in the invoice, otherwise how will they reimburse that amount from the company unless the company itself is having no inventory control

It seems like there has been a silent recall for fuel pumps for Seltos then as per what the dealership is saying, but not brought about in the news which is wrong! All the affected VIN numbers should be informed. Just imagine the car shutting down in the middle of nowhere, or at high speeds on the highway.

The way these guys want to hush everything doesn't seem right to me

[streetfighter]

Saw this today, looks like a bad August for Kia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OHGw27LwS0

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by streetfighter

Saw this today, looks like a bad August for Kia

The effort taken to get the flex printed etc must be quite a bit. I wish a fraction of it was also spent on proof reading the social media post. Would have helped a bit more in gaining credibility for a larger audience.

Frustration has a different level for each individual of course, so we cant judge the person. But KIA SC has offered to investigate the issue & work on a fix while the gentleman is insisting on a car replacement. Emotions aside, doesn't seem fair to simply ask for a replacement. Its far better to get the issue investigated & fixed properly while ensuring its all covered with applicable warranty etc. Post investigation if some terminal flaw is found, it can then be taken up for further points like replacement etc. My 2 cents.

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by bobbyaxelrod

He even said "Sir you don't own a MARUTI, you own a KIA" and that their service is way superior.

I am not sure what the guy was trying to convey by saying this. I am sure this is a one off case and now that you have highlighted on this mighty forum KIA if they hadn't earlier will take notice and make sure you are not disappointing in the future.

Good Luck.

[Sk8r]

I'm really surprised so many of us are asking you to " let go " off it.

I would have asked you to let go too if not for the below :

1) A major failure with 500 kms will kill our confidence in taking out our families across the city border

2) The way in which a part was changed without any information in the system sounds fishy

[arjab]

What is more worrying is the way the RSA, dealer/s responded to the customer's request.
The fact that the tow truck's operating area is outside the demarcated operating area is not to be decided by the customer.
The OEM's backend CRM system is supposed to trianglate the GPS's exact location of the disabled vehicle and map its status to the nearest RSA provider as well as the nearest authorised/dealer workshop. Doesn't look that the first bit happened.

Next: the fracas over the vendor issued part.
Usually in these kind of emergencies, their is an option of "Vehicle - Off - Road", commonly known as V-O-R on the dealership's service software. The turnaround time for most V-O-R requests in urban precincts is 24 hours.

Within this time the part is picked up on topmost prirority, even air-lifted, and despatched to the authorised workshop/dealership where the stranded vehicle is located, from the OEM regional parts warehouse, to enable fitment ASAP.
Looks like in this case the fuel pump was sourced from a 3rd party / parts distributor in the the NCR region. Hence the missing documentation and non-updation of the replaced parts status in the after sales service module.
Another thing, If what the dealer told the customer was true, that several other KIA's have faced similar issues, the OEM should have tracked this as a "field failure" and already incorporated a data-field in their after sales backend software for fuel pump module replacement under warranty.
Then the dealer need not write in the "comments" section as is shown in the screen-grab. Dealer would have chosen it from the "service campaign/recall dropdown" menu, filled in rest of the vehicle details and complete the task smoothly.

Problem is: the moment a product or service tastes some modicum of success, the people behind it tend become pugnacious and develop a false sense of superiority, sometimes even bordering on invincibility!
Otherwise how does one explain the thoroughly unnecessary comments made by the sales person when he came to demonstrate the car to the customer!

I hope KIA takes note of what has happened, and that too in the heart of NCR. KIA should not treat this as a one - off incident and should do what is required to fix all backend processes to avoid a repitition of such an incident in future.
When a person spends his/her hard earned money of well over a million rupees to buys a product & its associated services, the manufacturer owes to the customer, by default, the highest levels of service and process efficiency.

[bobbyaxelrod]

Update 2

I took everyone'e advice here and shared this thread on various posts on Facebook and Twitter by KIA India. I also emailed them on KIA Care. This escalated things real fast. Last evening I got a call from the RM of KIA India, the manager of Sparsh and the manager of Frontier. The three of them tried explaining to me that according to their policy when the part is supplied from the vendor directly it does not show up on the invoice. They told me they got the part from vendor to speed up my repair. I asked them if I had told them even once that I was in a hurry to get the car fixed. I also asked if they were in such a hurry to give the car back to me then why did they take so long the drop off the car. I reminded them that the car got fixed on Monday afternoon and that they told me they will deliver the car either by Monday evening or early Tuesday morning. They delivered the car in the afternoon on Tuesday, a whole day after it was fixed and ready for pickup.
The RM then talked about how he worked at Maruti before and sometimes they would change the rubber on wipers of cars and not put that on the invoice. I have no idea why everyone at KIA has this weird obsession with Maruti haha. I told him there's a huge difference between wiper blades and a fuel pump. Any problems with motion are super serious; gas, brakes, steering. The RM asked me condescendingly if the car was working was fine now and if the issue was fixed. I told him it was running fine but if it was about the car working as it should then a new car should not have a fuel pump failure in the first month. He finally agreed to print me out the correct invoice. The RM asked the manager at Sparsh to arrange a pick up of my car and send me a new invoice. This issue should be resolved today; Sparsh just picked up my car an hour ago. The RM said that he is taking my feedback seriously and they will start printing out remarks on invoices saying that the part was supplied by vendor and that all these vendor part changes would be visible to all KIA dealerships, not just to the KIA dealership that changed the part.
I was hesitant to send the car back to Sparsh as they have already violated my trust once but I am taking the risk again.

Originally Posted by R2D2

You are absolutely right ANY part replacement under warranty or a recall is recorded and sent back to the company for root cause analysis on the failure. Let me give you an example, in Jan 2018, my 9 year old Corolla Altis' passenger airbag assembly was replaced under warranty and it was mentioned in the service invoice as FoC (free of charge), the part so removed becomes the property of TKM. Ditto with a small service done to alleviate a problem with one of power window switches. All clearly mentioned in the service invoice and price is FoC. So these fellows are not levelling with you.

Yes exactly. I explained to the RM that if I sold my car to someone and if that person asked for the service history from a different KIA dealership then the changed fuel pump will never show up on it. I sold my 2011 MB C300 back in April, I moved back to Delhi after 7 years in the States this May and I had to sell my baby, but I had every single service record of that car. The person I sold the car to loved looking at the vehicle history. Every service record had details mentioning what part was changed and what was done under warranty and all that. I even had service records from when the car was out of warranty and worked on by local auto shops. Every part changed from headlights to tires to washer fluid was mentioned by both the Mercedes dealerships and the local auto shop. KIA thinks that I'm an idiot who has never owned a car before.

Originally Posted by Bibendum90949

I too echo the same thought and completely agree with you. I followed that Hyundai service lapse thread. Towards the latter part of opening post, you'll see my post on a one off Seltos brake failure issue faced by my friend which was highlighted by CrazyDriver
There's another one off incident(seemingly though) of a serpentine belt failure which I reported recently in the Seltos thread.

Wow I'm glad no one got hurt in that brake failure incident. I feel like these one off incidents are starting to pile up. Hopefully they don't and Seltos remains a solid car.

Originally Posted by Grease_Monkey

Just imagine the car shutting down in the middle of nowhere, or at high speeds on the highway.

The car breaking down at high speed is my biggest fear. Luckily I was only going 40-50 kmph when my Seltos broke down inside the city but a few minutes before that I was going 80+ on a highway. The car was so much fun on the highway that my family and I were wondering if we should just drive till Chandigarh for a road trip but we're glad we drove back home instead. The car literally broke down 20 minutes after our conversation and we started laughing about it.

Originally Posted by streetfighter

Saw this today, looks like a bad August for Kia

This actually made me geek. Thanks for sharing this!

Originally Posted by GTO

Thanks for sharing, bobbyaxelrod (big fan of the TV show too!). Moving your post to a new thread.

Thank you for making this a thread! This post helped me escalate things with KIA. Billions is such a great show! I still need to watch the latest season.

[King_pin09]

Originally Posted by bobbyaxelrod

He even said "Sir you don't own a MARUTI, you own a KIA" and that their service is way superior.

Perhaps you did not read between the lines. He said 'their' and not 'our' and in all probabilities he meant to say 'Maruti' as being superior.

Jokes apart, Cars are yet seen as symbols of success and we all want them to run as flawlessly as they should be. Having experienced trivial issues like beading coming off, seat hinges corroded, head light bulbs blown off etc within first six months of buying a brand new Rs 4 Lakhs Car from a manufacturer of questionable repute during 2009. I felt totally let down by the product even though the service center normally went an extra mile to sort out the issues. I fully understand what it feels to see a major fault in a brand new car after shelling out nearly 20 grands and then being totally let down by the manufacturer of trusted repute. Hope KIA rises up to the occasion and takes proactive action to set the matter straight before it is too late, or else they may be following the same course as few others did and were eventually thrown out of the market.

[harry10]

Do update when you get the correct invoice. KIA people have behaved amateurishly. Anyone with a little knowledge about cars will know every repair or changed parts is mentioned in the invoice, it's paid or in warranty. They should have realised their mistake the first time itself when you mentioned the issue. However, it's probably their ego which didn't make them rectify it.

Most people generally bash Tata service. Still, in my 15 years + dealing with them I have always received the correct invoice with all the replaced parts mentioned. Like Hyundai, I was expecting KIA also to raise the service expectations bar quite high. Among all this my primary concern still remains that a 400 km run car should not break down under any condition. Hopefully you won't get any trouble further on.

[Ice]

My Palio's turbo packed up 4 days before the warranty expired. Got it replaced at the Tata dealership - Tata was servicing Fiats, remember? - and the entry was updated on every system. They also gave me a zero-rupee invoice for the new tubrocharger, because they had to prove stock movement to their auditors.

Kia is feeding you some A-grade bull potty. If Fiat and Tata can do it cleanly, why can't Kia?

[samee_arian]

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Definitely a concern when such a vital component fails and that too within a month's time and less than 400kms of running. I have seen so many people who won't even take off the plastic on their seats for months, have one friend who still has them on his two year old EcoSport as he has a two year old boy. Most guys tend to get emotional with cars and such experiences tend to sour the man machine relationship. I hope you have smooth sailing hereon and I hope KIA sets a good example by straightening this issue.

[avsrihari]

Its very unusual KIA ASC refused to mention it in the invoice. Its not exactly a part recall but seems something has been done internally. In case of an official part recall by KIA, the invoice will mention the Part name as Product and Removal & refitting as labour and the amount will be 0 Rs. The Service Centre's claim that the part is directly from the vendor is rubbish. Vendors have no contact with the Service Centres. All parts will be supplied through KIA India. Fuel pump is a very critical part and KIA can't change it under the wraps and not record it in the system. Please escalate this to the Regional Service Manager of KIA and have it recorded in your service history to avoid any problem later.

[Zen2001]

Originally Posted by bobbyaxelrod

He even said "Sir you don't own a MARUTI, you own a KIA" and that their service is way superior.

My Maruti Zen's fuel pump failed for the first time after running 2 lakh km and 15+ years, that too in all probability because I was driving 99% of the time on LPG over 150000km (including starting the car, as it is not a sequential kit ; the car's a carb model), which led to a lot of rust accumulation in the petrol tank causing the pump to choke and burn out. And yes, although poor, " inferior" Maruti had stopped manufacturing the OEM part, the same was procured by MASS from a their party vendor and listed in the service invoice. Your SA would definitely have both feet in his mouth going by Maruti's inferiority.