[refaircargo]

Originally Posted by anuking

Thanks Jithin, I agree, these scammers need to be exposed. The leak is yet to be serviced, will probably go to good old Hyundai Service Center...

I was reminded of my experience with the Tatas way back in 2000. My brand new Indica was given for the first "free" service to the company's own service station (Jasper, at Sanathnagar, Hyderabad) and after charging a fortune ( change of oil, filter etc etc. - all being consumables and hence chargeable ) when they returned the car, we found a different battery under the hood. When questioned, they pretended ignorance and only after I showed them the warranty card with a different battery number, did they try to cover up with various excuses. These kind of experiences made us go for a local mechanic, who would do the job in our presence.

I had a similar experience with Hyundai service centre at Mumbai for my daughter's i10 automatic in 2010, where, after the 1st company service the mileage dropped to less than 5 KM / Litre and they wouldn't accept their fault despite repeated visits. Finally after taking help of a "local" mechanic was the average brought near normal.

On the whole, I would never trust the company's service stations for these daylight wholesale robberies.

[coolmind]

Thanks Anuking for bringing to public notice.

I was on verge of thoughts to utilize the services of Go-mechanic for the next regular service of my Grand I10. Your post helped me drop the thoughts.

It may be one off case but still their attitude and forcing you remove the video is creating much doubts!

Hope you maintain your stand against them.

[anuking]

Originally Posted by pawank

This is why one should never leave their car unattained. We can at least take one day off from work once a year to take the beloved vehicle personally to the service station.

Completely agree, but sometimes it's not possible for someone to be present with there physically, especially when it's not a routine service and more of an issue that needs to be rectified immediately, water leaking from AC near passenger side foot-well in my case.

Also, it was a trial to see how these guys turn up, in case there is an emergency. You can't have your trusted mechanic always with you, especially if you are 500 kms away. Just an example.

[Highh5]

One of the reasons I'm not able to take even my out of warranty cars to them no matter how tempted their online offers are is their lack of transparency.
The next step they will take going forward is to disconnect dashcams for all the cars rather than video recording the service of all the cars they are attending to.
I have this belief that on the pretext of giving a discount they will not do justice with the job.

I once went to a body shop who was attached with GoMechanic, had a good paint booth with Nippon original paints and on GoMechanic they were charging only 1999 for a panel paint with denting free. When I enquired about the job with the body shop, their response was that they will not accept the on for such a discounted price and even if they have to they will not be able to do the justice with the panel body paint and have to cut corners.

Normally they charge around 3500 for a panel with denting and painting. From that day onwards, I had little to no trust in their services.

[emmenhr]

Originally Posted by anuking

Aukey DR01 is what I had installed, the wiring etc is all concealed and takes power from the 12v socket, the adapter is soldered directly there and then wires running through the A-Pillar all the way to IRVM. Some hobby project there.....

Anuking, thank you for sharing the incident and putting up the video on social media. Will definitely make a lot of us wake up and take care even for the "small issues that need not go to the ASC".

The dashcam brand you mentioned, is it a local brand? Is it wired to keep running 24/7?

Hope you got your AC clogging done.

Regards

[anuking]

Originally Posted by emmenhr

Anuking, thank you for sharing the incident and putting up the video on social media. Will definitely make a lot of us wake up and take care even for the "small issues that need not go to the ASC".
The dashcam brand you mentioned, is it a local brand? Is it wired to keep running 24/7?
Hope you got your AC clogging done.
Regards

Emmenhr, it's a Chinese brand, but has been serving me faithfully since past 3 years now, even in extreme heat. It doesn't run 24/7, only starts working when the car is unlocked. Also, the clogging was cleared by Hyundai, in like 5 minutes in front of me, they didn't charge me anything for that.

[clementw]

I am very sorry to hear about your experience. And the big takeaway is a dashcam is a good investment.

With regards to pick up and drop of car for service both my neighborhood mechanic whom I have been using for over 3 cars now and the Tata Motors Authorized Service Centre who has been handling 3 of my cars now offer me a complimentary pick up and drop. It may be a better option to go with the known persons and ask them to throw in a complimentary pick up and drop. They will be happy to especially post lockdown.

[iamitp]

Sharing this on Twitter and tagging the founders of GoMechanic.

https://twitter.com/iamitp/status/14...699706371?s=20

[Senna_sempre]

Thank you anuking for the post. It is indeed an eye opener for many of us.

Last week I almost gave my car to the Go Mechanic service for the dent removal and repainting of the left rear door. But somehow I was skeptical because of the negative reviews in the google for almost all of their associated garages in Whitefield, Bengaluru. Most of the reviews pointed towards pathetic workmanship and bad attitude of these garage people. Seems like Go Mechanic has no control over them as escalating doesn't help most of the times.

I decided against giving my car to them and got the job done by an FNG. Im happy with my decision and your post made me decide that I will never be giving my car for any service through Go Mechanic.

[Joyb]

Originally Posted by moralfibre

What I am also eager to know is the actual name of the garage that GoMechanic took your car to. Because once that is listed in Google, we can tag this video and review for the place.

That's the issue, you don't get to know the Garage details, at the time of booking at least. I tried once to get booking for a detailed car interior work, on booking confirmation was just assigned a so called buddy who shall do the pickup and drop. I was not at all comfortable to give out my car to a bunch of strangers, so cancelled the booking without even bothering to take the buddies call. Maybe wrong assumptions on my part, maybe if i asked him he would have told me the garage details, but somehow was uncomfortable.

If I was at helm of GoMechanic, I would have focused highlighting the garage where service shall happen, their infrastructure, total years of operation etc.

[Osteon206]

I had a similar incident captured on my dashcam during registration of the vehicle. The dashcam footage has recorded a wall for 1.5 hours during which time the engine and AC were kept running. I understand it was a hot day and sitting inside the entire time would have been impossible, they could have parked the car and sat in the RTO instead. I got the suspicion when I noticed the average mileage on the MID showing 2.2kmpl, as compared to 17kmpl when I gave the car 2 hours prior. Called up and asked the sales executive initially for which he denied keeping the engine ON. Sent the video footage to him, then he started pleading. Mentioned it to the manager of the dealership but didn't escalate the matter since the MD of this particular dealership is a friend of mine.

[arjab]

End of the day these guys are merely aggregators and couldn't care less as long as they get their commission/cut money.
I also have serious doubts about GoMechanic's technical ability to take on board proper garages as qualified service providers.
If you follow some of GoMechanic's self styled auto guru's blogs, you will be amazed at the frivolous topics, generalised content & seriously wrong assumptions they put in writing.

Please do not take down your video from YouTube. In our country where we don't have active consumer protection legislation like U.S and where consumer court cases lasts decades, (possibly the customer dies also before the case comes up for hearing!), the least we can do is to keep genuine videos like these live on YouTube in the hope that it percolates down to the maximum number of viewers and prevents potential future frauds.

If I were you I would've sent this/tagged this to Ministry of Consumer Affairs or Commerce Ministry in the hope that it gets the attention for penal action.

Hope the investors of GoMechanic are looking at this and they'd better question the management about malpractices like these before pumping in their millions.

[shivam1298]

My car had a major leak near the passenger footwell. It was quite a straight inference that AC drainage pipe had choked. Took it to a nearby mechanic who also tried removing the blockage but couldn't do it. He then saw a crack in a plastic housing and mentioned that m-seal should be applied to stop the leakage. He went to the garage owner who simply refused the m-seal option and mentioned (without ever looking at the car) that the dashboard will need to be removed and the condensor / AC coil housing box needs to be replaced. Should be doable in half a day for 5k.

I took the car to another nearby garage. The owner checked the leak and mentioned that the AC coil needs to be repaired and the coil needs to be checked for gas leakage. He said the leaking water is cold, in a car with functional coil just like home AC discharge water should be hot. One day job, costing around 8k. Further, if i ran the AC without repairing the coil and gas recharge, i would run the risk of compressor failure which would cost another 15-20k.

I next took the car to another small garage / "AC specialist", without looking at the leak, he concluded that full system needs to be serviced and coil needs to be replaced. Should be doable for around 4 to 5k. Upon my insistence, he looked at the leak and the cracked plastic housing and maintained his diagnosis.

Next day, I devoted an hour to self diagnosis and repair. Inspected the leak, similar to the first mechanic (the only one who tried removing any blockage in drain pipe) removed the carpet and unplugged the last piece of drain pipe. No water was coming out of it. Checked it further and saw no blockage in that last piece. Upon driving the car and taking any right turn, the accumulated water (somewhere within the lower part of dashboard) would make some splashing sound and come out of the crack in the broked plastic housing. I decided i would not be able to fix it with m-seal and will take it to Maruti service center later that day. This would at least result in the part being replaced being genuine.

Later that day at the maruti service center, i asked a mechanic to have a look and mentioned that this plastic part is broken from where the leak is happening and requested for the part replacement.
Mech: The part is not in stock as this part is rarely replaced.
Me: Can you apply m-seal there for the time being?
Mech: Yes, however, if i do that, water would start leaking from somewhere else
Me: Why so and what should be done?
Mech: You can replace this box which is the condensor/ AC coil housing, however it would not stop the water leak as water shouldn't be accumulating there in the first place.
Me: So what is the issue?
Mech: Drainage pipe.

He removed the carpet and checked the drain pipe. No water or air coming out. He mentioned that air should also be coming out of it. Removed that last piece of rubber (which connects the second last piece to the floor) and cleaned it but there was no leakage. He then scratched the end of second last piece of drainage pipe . Lo and behold, out came some muck and lots of water. Reconnected the last piece of pipe and no air and water droplets were coming out from it. Mechanic said there shouldn't be any more water leakage, you can replace the cracked plastic housing box but not required.

I was happy and believed that the problem is sorted. Test drove the car for next couple of days and AC was working perfectly fine with no water leakage.

Moral: MASS or any other service station can also save the day. No need to blindly follow FNGs, do your own due diligence first (given you have time and the potential cost makes it worth your while).

[viren83]

O-M-G. This was one site whose reviews, blogs I thought made some sense.
Heck, it was the only other site apart from Team-BHP, I thought was adding some value to the automotive scene in India.

You really got to be careful these days with funded start-ups. For all the money they've raised, they should've at least set up some internal workflow in their application to record the work done by mechanics.

I am under impression that all the advisors physically show the task/work performed after the service. Isn't GoMechanic doing this?

Anyone has idea/reviews on the car accessory products they sell?

[chautob0t]

Thank you for sharing! Incidents like these make me not trust any apps, FNGs etc.
People in India really lose all their ethics as soon as they feel they are not being watched and can get away with it. People go to company SVC centres long after the warrant periods are over because they might charge more but generally they have a reputation to keep or build, and they will inform us about the various charges for parts and labour.

Great to see Team BHP members (including me) expressing their displeasure on YT comments as well.