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How I ended up buying wrong Swift variant; Direct result of Impatience

21st April 2024, 10:33 by Rahul Nagaraj

Being the first car in the family, we are still happy with the purchase having now run 40,000 km with no issues whatsoever.

BHPian Draunzer21 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I recently joined the forum and after reading so many car-buying stories, decided to share my story of buying Swift in 2017.

I had joined the driving class and was looking to buy a car at the start of 2017. My budget was just 6 lacs and had decided to buy Tiago at that time. It had just launched and it looked very nice. I was aware of Tata vehicles not being reliable but somehow I was attracted to the car.

I went to the Tata showroom in Hadapsar, Pune along with my father and when we entered the showroom, there was no one except a brand new Orange coloured Tata Tiago. We checked out the car; my father and I liked it a lot. After almost 10 minutes a guy came from somewhere until then the showroom had just me and my father. We checked out the price and details of XM, XT, XT(O) and XZ. I had checked all the specs already and had XT(O) in my mind.

The next day I asked the person to come to Magarpatta for a test drive and he came near my office I took one of my friends who drives Grand i10 to test drive Tiago. My friend drove the car and finally said there were too many vibrations and the noise was also too much, this car is not so good, think about buying a Hyundai car. The executive asked me which variant I was thinking of buying and I told him XT(O), he simply said that you either have to buy XT or XZ we do not order optional variants. That was the final nail in the coffin. For the next few days, I again started going through comparison videos about Tiago and other cars just to make sure Tiago was the right car for my family as that was going to be our first car. In one such video, there was a comparison with Swift and I started thinking of getting a Swift; my friend's opinion also impacted my car-buying decision and as I was very new to car driving, I took his opinion seriously.

The weekend came and I visited a Maruti showroom on Solapur highway - got all the details of Swift and took a test drive and the variant was a ZXi petrol manual. I was very sure that I wanted a manual car. I always had this opinion that we could buy a base model with safety features and then add accessories ourselves - obviously not good thinking but my budget was also tight and Swift VXi was costing me around 6.30 lacs at that time. I enquired about all the variants and then decided on LXi (Optional (O)). Many people might not be aware that Maruti had an Optional O variant which had 2 airbags and ABS in the base variant of Swift.

We booked the car within the next few days and I told the executive to order a Glistening Grey colour LXi Optional O variant as it had safety features and I was going to put every other accessory by myself. I was happy with my booking and selection and my family was also happy that we would have our first car.

All this happened in February and then in March second week executive told me that my car had arrived and I could do a PDI. I went to the showroom and checked the car, the car looked nice, I sat on the Driver's seat and started the car and did not notice the ABS LED, I also noticed that there was only a driver-side airbag. I enquired why there was one airbag and why there was no ABS and that is where I saw the panic on his face. He checked again once we went into the showroom and finally told me that he had ordered the LXi optional instead of the LXi optional O variant. I almost had a heart attack as I was eagerly waiting for my car.

I told him to fix it and get me my car as soon as possible. I was frustrated and that day I did not eat anything. I was taking more pressure than that executive. Next week, I visited several other Maruti showrooms in Pune to check the Optional O base variant and there was one Maruti dealer in Pune which had that variant in stock but the colour was granite grey which was almost like black. I checked the car, it had ABS and 2 airbags, for a moment I thought I should go for it but then that was not my choice of colour.

The executive from the first showroom kept on calling me every day saying I should get the car and he would give me discounts on accessories and whatnot. I told him to give me my ordered variant and not anything else. Finally, after almost 3-4 weeks of going around Pune and visiting all Maruti showrooms, I decided that I wouldn't be able to wait for any more months and I might have to settle for an Optional variant instead of an optional O.

Towards the end of March, the executive called me again and I told him I was okay with the optional variant. I went to the showroom with my dad, gave them in writing that I was okay with the variant, completed all formalities and went to the accessories counter. Ordered floor mats, power windows rear, front fog lamps, Sony music system with speakers. Executive gave me mud flaps, car perfume and Ganesh's idol from his side - that is what he told me but later I realized that Ganesh's idol and perfume were given to everyone who bought a car.

On the day of delivery, we went and realized that fog lamps were not there on the car. We checked and we were told that they were not available and they would visit our home in the next 2 days and fit those on the car. I said okay.

I was not at all happy with the booking and delivery experience of Maruti.

Having said that, we took the car and went home and my family was happy to see their first car. No doubt the car looked nice and it has been almost 40K kms on the car now and it has been with me without any issues for all these years.