Hopeless Ather 450 Gen 1 service: Scooter not fixed since 4 months

The bottom line is that Ather is still clueless about the service part. The products are excellent, but they have a long way to go in terms of service.

BHPian sachinshastry recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Mods,
I could not find any active thread where I can share my horrible service experience with my Ather 450 Gen 1, so that other potential buyers of Ather are aware of it. So posting it here. My humble request to move it to the relevant thread.

How Ather has been unable to fix my scooter from past 3.5 months. A look into hopeless and horrible state of Ather service

I have been an Ather owner since June 2019, one of the early customers of the company. The product is excellent. Had a very good ownership experience with it till now barring an issue with the charging of the battery, which to this day remains unsolved. We bought it in Bengaluru (as by then, Ather used to only sell in Bengaluru) had ridden it from there to my home city Shivamogga which is about 270km at a time where there no charging points on our highways. That's a story for different topic. But in this article, I want to bring to your attention, the horrible service experience I am currently facing with my scooter. Long rant warning ahead!

I had a fall with the scooter in the end of April, when I tried to avoid a pothole on the road. There was a huge pothole on the road. In order to avoid it, I took the scooter off the tarmac on the unpaved skirting of the road. But I did not realize that there was a section which had loads of fine sand. As a result, the scooter tires went deep in the sand and I fell towards the right side with considerable speed. It caused significant damages to the right side of the scooter. The right side mirror was shattered due to impact. In the process, I think some stones hit the touchscreen and it suffered slight damages on the top right corner. I just suffered some scratches on my right elbow. As 1st of May was holiday, dropped the scooter to Shruthi Ather, Shivamogga and initiated the insurance company on 2nd of May. The survey was completed and the replacement of all damaged parts including the touchscreen dashboard was approved on May 3rd (Friday). The service center told me that they would indent the parts on 6th of May (Monday) and added that the scooter would be delivered within 15 days.

Everything was going as expected till now. Post 10 days, I call them for an update and they say they are yet to get the parts and explained that there are logistical delays due to elections going on across the country. Since I had another bike at home, I was able to manage without the scooter for some days. I call them after some days, only to get the same response. I visit the service center after 20 days to check and still parts have not reached. I saw my scooter biting the dust. That when I start loosing patience. The service center expressed their helplessness of not receiving parts from Ather. So I wrote my first mail on 24th of may, escalating the issue to Ather. By now it has already been 22 days since the scooter was in the ASS. Now comes the funny part. After this mail, the service center realizes that the touchscreen for Ather 450 Gen 1(my scooter) is different from that used in the current Gen 3. Funny part is that a trained Ather service center does not know such a basic thing. Heck, even I as a simple customer knew it as Ather themselves were clearly marketing that they are shifting from a Linux based dashboard to an Android one post Gen 1.5. Then they indent the part for Gen 1 touchscreen.

Days pass by. By around June 4th, they inform me that the Gen 1 touchscreen is nowhere in stock and hence the company has decided that they would get the existing screen repaired in Bengaluru. I agreed as by this time, I was ready with anything. I just wanted my scooter back. But again things started taking their own time. I would call the service center everyday to get an update and would even visit the service center every alternative day as I had realized that things were never moving ahead without pressurizing them for everything. Upon that , I was following up with mails too, only to get a "sorry for the inconvenience caused" replies. Each day I would get a response that a courier has been initiated from Bengaluru, yet to get the docket number, there is a delay in initiating the courier from Bengaluru,etc. The level of inefficiencies were reaching its limits and I had started loosing hopes. I stopped believing in whatever the service center said and just had to wait with helplessness.

By around June 10th, they tell me that the company has been able to trace a new dashboard and is shipping it. What a relief !I was going out of station for 10 days from 14th and thus requested them to deliver the scooter at least before that so that it would be convenient for me to make the payment (as my insurance did not have a cashless facility tie up) and pick the scooter. The service center promised delivery by 13th as they just had to replace the dashboard and damaged panels. The promised date approached, nothing happened. They said they were yet to receive the parts as .They again promised to drop the scooter themselves to home by 15th of June. I left it to god's hands and went out of the town.

I return by 28th of June and find out that there is no update with the scooter. This is when I lost my patience completely and escalated the issue again to higher ups in Ather. They finally assign a person to look after my case personally. She looked promising though and followed up on time with everything. Things start speeding up and they receive the dashboard. They fix it and put it for an update where the data is to be transferred from the old dashboard to the new one. They hand over the scooter tome saying that it would take an overnight for the update to complete and for the dashboard to turn on. But it never does. Even after a week of waiting, the scooter functions fine, but the dashboard never turns on. Then again the cycle of escalations follow. Since the new dashboard was of no use, they decided to temporarily put the old dashboard back so that I can keep using the scooter till they figure out a solution. I without any other way, agreed. But there was another issue here. Since, the old dashboard had been removed once, it had somehow lost all its brightness and all it could display were faint images which one could make out only if viewed from a very close distance. I take the delivery and start using the scooter. Ather again take their own sweet time.

One month later, I receive a call from them saying that they have received a new dashboard and asked me to drop my scooter. I did it on 1st of August. I visited their service center on 3rd of August only to find out that no work has been carried on my scooter and it is lying idle since two days. They blame it on lack on staff due to everyone catching viral fever. I understand that such situations may happen, but at least they have to be accountable to their customers. They cant just sit quiet and expect the customer to figure out everything. I urgently needed the scooter owing to a ceremony at home and hence I get it back temporarily. Have dropped my scooter again on 6th of August and they have tried installing the new dashboard only to face the same situation as before.

Ather is completely clueless about replacing the dashboards on their Gen 1 vehicles. They have absolutely no value for customer’s time. They always take their own sweet time to do trial and error, and in the process follow the same old path, repeating all the failed steps time and again. If other legacy companies would have faced the same issue, they would have at least flown in a technical person from their headquarters and would have tried fixing the issue. Or, they could have made an arrangement for a pickup of both the old and new dashboards to their base and tried fixing the issue. But no. All they do is try same old steps with no avail. The service center always just keeps blaming the Ather technical team for not guiding them properly. In this mudslinging, it is I who have to suffer at the end of day, despite paying the entire amount for the new dashboard. Upon that, I receive no proactive updates from the Ather service center. I always have to be behind them begging for updates on the scooter. From past three months, I have not been able to use the scooter as it has been on and off to the service center. As I am writing this on 8th of August, with all hopes lost on Ather, the scooter still lies in the service with their team still being clueless about what to do.

The bottom line is that Ather is still clueless about the service part. The products are excellent, but they have a long way to go in terms of service. As mentioned before, there is also another persistent issue with my scooter where the charging does not slow down after reaching 85%. So even if the dashboard shows an estimated time of 1 hour 30 mins to go from 85% to 100%, it dies the same in just 15 minutes. When I reported the same to Ather, they were clueless about it and even went to the extent of telling me that its good for me as the battery is charging faster. So as long as the scooter is working fine, its an excellent product. The moment it faces a major issue, the service centers are clueless and you are at the mercy of god. If this is the level of service that Ather is offering, then no wonder Mr.Rajiv Bajaj was right. The legacy companies will definitely have OATS for their breakfast !

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