I had called up the Volkswagon Shaman service centre around 1/2nd Sept to take an appointment for the second servicing of my Vento (MH O1 AX 7602). I got an appointment for the 6th of sept as no slot was available before that. At the the time of the earlier servicing, I had a very bad experience of being made to wait for more than 40 minutes. She assured me that I would not be kept waiting and that the day prior to servicing, I would get an SMS confirming the service supervisor’s name and mobile number.
On the 6th of sept, at the appointed time, I went to the service center and called up the supervisor’s mobile no that was sent to me via SMS. He told me that he was on leave and that someone else would attend to me. I was made to wait for more than 40 minutes and it was only after I lost my cool that they found someone who would take the handover of the car. I explained all the issues to him and left. In the evening, he called me up to inform me about all the work that needed to be done and the cost. The explanation given to me on the phone for the issues was far from satisfactory.He also said that the car would be ready the next day and told me to come to pick it up at 12noon.
The next day, I called up service supervisor (Immanuel) three times to confirm that my car was ready and specifically mentioned cleaning/washing/vacuuming. He confirmed that everything Was done and the car was ready. When I reached the station, I was again made to wait for more than 50 mins as they were not able to find the work documents to prepare the final bill. After an hour, when I lost my temper, he got a duplicate copy printed. When I was given d bill it was some 13000/- odd amount as against the SMS I got from them saying that the bill was approximately 11,500. I asked him why the difference and he told me that there was something wrong with their SMS system and it was sending random messages. How ridiculous!
Since more than an hour had already been wasted, I didn’t want to waste more time listening to absurd excuses so I paid and went to pick up my car. Imagine my shock when I saw that the car was in worse condition than it was when I gave it for service. It was covered with dust and dirt and there was no sign that a vacuum cleaner or even a cleaning cloth/sponge had been anywhere near the car. And this after having been told thrice by the supervisor that the car had been vacuumed and cleaned and was ready to be taken back!!! I was extremely angry seeing the disgusting state of my car and demanded an explanation from the Senior manager (Stefan) and the customer service manager (Ronak Shah) about this lack of service and false assurances. They had no explanations, they just said sorry.
The manager called one of their drivers to drop me home (in my own car, wasting my petrol) and the driver drove the car back to the service center promising me that they would complete the cleaning/washing/vacuuming and drop the car back in two hours. When the car was dropped back, I was appalled to find that they had given bare lip service to the word cleaning. Just the exterior had been washed and the interiors hadn’t been cleaned at all. I complained to the supervisor and manager and all I got from them was a sorry. They agreed to send someone the next day to clean the interiors of the car. Though I was told that the person would come to clean it around 3pm, there was no sign of him till 4. He finally came around 4.30 to do the job that should have been done days before, when I gave the car for service. And further, note that he just cleaned the car from inside but NO VACCUUMING was done. I was so disgusted with the whole experience that i decided to keep quiet then as there was no point in calling service guys again and again since nobody is bothered.
After repeated emails to Volkswagon, they finally replied and very condescendingly agreed to have my car washed free of charge! Is that any compensation for all my time that got wasted, the fuel that was unnecessarily wasted and all the mental stress that I had to endure?
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