Get everything on paper ... bad experience with Pratham motors Bangalore

Pratham motors on ORR , Bangalore is a cheat.

I bought car stereo system from them .I asked them to install Sony player and Kenwood speakers. Heinstalled some junk Maruti Nippon speakers.The front speakers were fitted inside the dash bord and the back speakers were inside the rear trunk and covered with Maruti logo cover. They were not visible, so I couldn’t realize what he has given to me and charged full amount.

After some time when the speakers stopped working, I got it opened by pratham motor technician for repair.

To my surprise, I found that it is not Kenwood but some junk Maruti Nippon speakers. There is no Nippon or Kenwood label on it , only a Maruti label and "NFC" series number indicating it is from Nippon. First he kept saying it is Maruti Genuine accessory , then to fool me ,he said, Nippon is same as Kenwood.

I went to Nippon authorized service station in Koramangala . They told me that Nippon and Kenwood are clearly different companies. Both of them have a tie up with Maruti. The NFC series is Nippon and if it were Kenwood , it would have been KFC series.

Nippon Audiotronix Ltd is the distributer of car electronics. It manufactures its own car electronics
accessories. It also distributes Kenwood and other brands. Maruti has tie up with it to supply Nippon
speakers and other car electronics to its cars such as Esteem, swift etc. Pratham motors fooled me by saying that Kenwood and Nippon are same. Nippon is such a low end manufacturer in India . It has no comparison with Kenwood. Just because Nippon audiotronics supply Kenwood speakers, Pratham motors gave me Nippon speakers saying it is same as Kenwood.

What the crook Pratham motors gave me were the removed speakers of some such car not the Kenwood speakers.

I am left with broken junk Maruti Nippon speakers which I never wished for.

My advice to all the people is that don’t give your cars to Pratham motors for service and don’t take any
accessories from him at all. If he is fitting anything, open it and see what he is giving. He will
definitely cheat you where ever he can. He is a cheater.

So I finally bought my first car, an M S Swift Vxi. I love the car; I had apprehensions since the original choice was for the VDi version. But 4-6 months is a long time and things can change. So I settled for the next best thing.  But the entire buying experience was a struggle.

Anyway the reason I am writing this is so that the next guy stands a better chance.

I had been researching cars and loans for over a month and finally had narrowed it down to 2 showrooms , the first being BIMAL auto agency in Whitefield , Bangalore and the next Partham motors off outer ring road.

Bimal offered me a good rate in terms of interest but I went with Pratham coz they said they would compensate for the difference in their financing by providing accessories.

Well on the day of making the down payment they told me I could go for broader tyres with the Swift, if I pay an additional 9000 Rs on buy back of the original tyres.

So I said; sure. I even offered the make the payment of the accessories along with the down payment but was told that they could take care of it when I come for delivery.

Naturally I didn’t smell anything fishy even though my mind kept nagging that I didn’t have anything on paper. The day before I went for delivery I call to confirm the list of accessories and some new guy tells me I need to pay 17000 on top of the buy back of old tyres for the broader tyres.

So I end up getting into a big fight with these people. But the lessons learned from it are:-

They tell you what you want to hear before making the down payment and then change it once they have you in the bag.

Even if the guy who told me the prices was new and didn’t know the actual rates; the sales man was sitting with me when we discussed the prices and he didn’t correct the fellow.

So its just goes to show that you need to make sure that they provide everything in writing no matter what. Don’t take mistake friendliness for trust. These people will stab you in the back once they have you trapped.

Bottom line …. I am happy about my new car. But let me tell you that when I drove it from the showroom I had a frown on my face and the feeling that I have conned by some real professionals.

Post edited to remove quotes

Many times it's happened that we come to a design after a long discussion and when the actual time come to complete the actual transaction the party apposite to you refuse to do the same. So it's better to document all your main points in the discussion. So at least tou have the proof to show the actual design made.