Maruti Suzuki India — Careless service from dealer which could have taken our life

Address:	411039
Website:	www.thekothariwheels.com

To,
The regional head/customer relation manager/ head consumer cell,
Maruti suzuki india limited

Care of : kothari wheels, 110/a, pune-solapur road, near fatima nagar, pune - 411039

Date[protected]

Sub- complaint against maruti suzuki and dealer – kothari wheels, pune
(Complaint no.- [protected])

Sir/madam,
This is to inform you that on 26th march 2016, i had visited kothari wheels located on pune-solapur road, pune, maharashtra 411039 with my swift lxi (Registration number : mh12ju8238) at 8.45am morning to resolve one problem which i was experiencing for couple of days. Issue which was observed by me was brushing noise coming out from front right wheel. Mr. Vijesh akkawar (+91 [protected]) from kothari wheels attended my vehicle and handed over to his team for repair activity. I had demonstrated issue to technician team. After technician analyzed the issue, vijesh came to me saying that brake pads for front wheels need to be replaced for which i had given go ahead. Vijesh handed over vehicle back to me in approximately one and half hour saying that my issue is completely resolved and vehicle is checked and ready for delivery. I cleared all payments for the service/part replacement done and driven my car to my home.

I driven my car for almost 8kms at avg speed of 15kmph on same day in bit busy traffic conditions along with my family, while parking vehicle back to my home, i heard some noise from rear side for a while and thought that it could be some stuff in car dicky which made that noise. Next day morning again i started with my family at around 3pm in my car to visit near by place, i was at speed of 35kmph and after driving almost 1km, i heard similar noise again and experienced my car started wobbling and immediately heard some metallic noise from rear right side of my car. Fortunately i could control the car and took it to off road to check the issue. When i hit rear right wheel cap, i heard same metallic noise and then i opened it. I was in big shock looking at that wheel. Wheel was tilted outward with two screws fallen down in wheel cap and other two were about to fall down. My body was shacking for about 1minute and i was not in position to think what should i do next. My wife and my son came out of car and they were also shocked with wheel condition. Somehow i settled down and managed to fit wheel back in position. Immediately we went back to home and later called vijesh to inform him about accident we faced. I told him that i have doubt that your team has not screwed rear right wheel screws and that is why we experienced such fatal situation. He told me that they have cctvs installed in premises which can be checked for any error/mistake happened from their side. Later i called maruti-suzuki customer care also and informed about mishap and registered complaint against it. Registered complaint number is [protected]. I was restless and was not able remove all fatal thoughts from my mind. I decided to go kothari wheels to understand exact error/mistake. I reached kothari wheels at around 6.15pm. Mr. Pramod bendale (+91 [protected]) attended me. We visited shop floor but concern technicians who has repaired my vehicle was not available and also vijesh was also not available. I asked mr. Pramod to show me cctv footage for which he said that their admin is not available and they can provide cctv footage next day only. I asked pramod to share cctv footage next day to my wife mrs. Sangita at her office. Next day, 28th march 2016, morning i called vijesh if he got something in cctv footage, he replied that they didn’t observed anything wrong in cctv footage and even claimed that they didn’t open rear wheel caps. As per him only front wheels were removed and repaired for brake pads. He was so confident at that point of time. Later evening my wife got cctv footage for channel 15. I could not watch footage on same day as i was busy in my office work and next day, 29th march 2016, morning i called again to vijesh asking for other channels cctv footage. He again claimed that no other channel captured my vehicle and only channel 15 captured my vehicle footage and they rechecked it and didn’t observed anything wrong. Later evening i played cctv footage received in my laptop and again got shocked after watching video carefully. As per video, technician removed all wheel caps during 09:07:55 am to 09:09:05 am, at 09:09:37 am to 09:09:50 am technician tried to unscrew wheel with help of electric screw driver but as screws were too tightened that he could not open. Then he went to get manual tool at 09:10:26 am. He got manual tool at 09:11:10 am to open screws and started loosening screws manually. He first loosen front left wheel screws at 09:11:22 am, then front right wheel at 09:11:48 am, then at 09:12:14am he moved to rear right wheel to loosen rear right wheel screws and he loosen screw till 09:12:42 am. He was about to loosen rear left wheel screws 09:12:48am, but he was called by some other teammate seating in car mh-12-hv-4871 to whom he handed over some documents 09:12:58 am. During this he just loosen the wheel screws and didn't removed wheels actually. At the same time, he forgot to loosen rear left wheel. Later he stopped working on my vehicle and job was assigned to some other technicians (Team of 2) by shop floor supervisor at 09:13:12 am. Later new technicians came on job and removed only front wheels between 09:15:10 am to 09:15:55 am with help of electric screw driver. Later all technician gathered for exercise session and joint meeting. Technician working on my car started working back at 09:32:38am. Vijesh and technician checked for the issue and later vijesh came to me with faulty parts asking for replacement. They replaced brake pads and started re-fitting front wheels back at 09:45:05am. One of the technician placed rear wheel caps at 09:49:58am assuming rear wheels were not touched. Then technician offloaded vehicle from workstation at 09:51:08am without putting front wheel caps. Later vehicle was taken out of shop floor by technician 09:52:40am. While vehicle was moving out of the shop floor, supervisor checked front wheel asking technician to rotate steering wheels to check repair work. All above activities can be clearly identified from cctv footage. I was surprised with response received from maruti suzuki dealers team. Also surprised that how come they could not see all the things which i have described above. I was sure that wheel screws will not come out automatically in any condition until and unless it was removed by some one. But the way mr. Vijesh replied me both time confidently that it was not happened by them, it gave me further more sleepless nights. Till the time i did not watched the cctv footage by myself and confirmed that it was kothari wheels team's mistake, i was restless in every moment thinking that who could have done this to me. Either they are really inefficient & careless or they deliberately tried to hide and avoid further consequences. Question came to mind was, how can they be so careless, inefficient and incompetent from start to end of this episode, even in investigating such life threatening issue.

It was our luck that we got saved in that accident on 26th march 2016, otherwise if i would have taken my car to higher speed and that too on highway with family, i would have met a fatal accident which could have taken mine and my families life. Psychological trauma which me and my family has gone through in whole episode cannot be expressed in words. I tried driving my car again but i have lost all confidence and scared of increasing speed. Now the situation is, even if i experience simple bumps due to potholes, it makes me feel like my car wheels will come out. I hardly driven my car after this event. My wife and my kid are so scared with above incident that they are not ready to seat in the car. My parents are forcing me to stop driving same car.

In all of this situation for which maruti suzuki is responsible, i cannot continue my car. Being a maruti suzuki customer from past 3 years, i was having a faith which is now all shattered. I have completely lost the confidence on maruti-suzuki vehicles and kothari wheels team. I don't want to drive same vehicle again, hence returning my swift to kothari wheels and expecting my money back along with compensation for all mental and physical trauma me and my family went through. Also expecting all reimbursement hereafter which i will be spending for my local/outstation travel in absence of vehicle. Also want to revive my customer feedback form which i had submitted during repair of my vehicle expecting maruti-suzuki to take strict action against such incompetent and careless employees. Also i am very much disappointed with maruti suzuki customer care team which has take my complaint on 27th march 2016 but till date (09th april 2016) no body taken any action on it.

Along with this complaint letter, i am providing disk which has all call recordings and cctv footage provided to me. I shall look forward to hearing from you within a two day's time to confirm receipt of my complaint. Also expecting response on my complaint with week's time.

Kishor jadhao
+91 [protected]
[protected]@gmail.com
A501, 33 keshavkunj, near old orbis school,
Manjari road, keshav nagar, mundhwa, pune - 411036
Maharashtra