Bajaj Auto — defective motorcycle, irresponsible sales/service

Address:

Mumbai City, Maharashtra, 400081

I had bought this bike from the executive bajaj - malad showroom on 13th september 2018. Within 15 minutes of buying this bike on my home the engine stopped, and self start did not work. Being a first time biker i was told by the executive bajaj salesperson that all new motorbikes face this problem and the problem will go away if i ride the bike more often as the battery will get charged. The problem never went away. Self start of the bike did not work and i ended up kick starting the bike most of the time. This continued for couple of months. I even suffered a road accident because of the bike stopping suddenly in the middle of the road. A car hit me from behind when the motorbike suddenly stopped on the jvlr - powai road in mumbai. One morning the bike refused to start at all and i took it to the executive bajaj service center in ghatkopar for check up and servicing. After the service, they said the problem was due to loose connections. The self start worked for a few days after servicing but soon stopped working again. A couple of weeks later the motorbike did not start at all. Self start and kick-starting did not work. This was on 13th january 2019, on a sunday morning around 6 am, quite far away from any bajaj service centre. I had to drag the bike from marve ferry point to a roadside mechanic, almost a stretch of 1.5 km on foot. He diagnosed the exide battery (Which originally came with the bike) and showed me that it was completely discharged. This is after riding for almost riding nonstop for about 50 km a night before. I told him to install a new battery (Amco) as i had had enough of the issues because of the exide battery that came with as a default with the motorbike. The replacement of the battery was done as per specifications in the bajaj v15's owner's manual. After the repairs, i went to the executive bajaj showroom, malad with the exide battery and asked them to get it replaced. Their attitude towards my problem was horrible. It was as if i had bought a bike of another brand and they had nothing to do with it. The told me that: “it’s not our responsibility” and “ do whatever you want”. This was at around 1:30 - 2 pm on 13th january 2018. The experience at this showroom is exceptionally horrible. After dragging the motorcycle in afternoon sun, this is what i got. The staff employed at executive bajaj showroom was quite incompetent and insensitive to my plight. I felt like they sold me a malfunctioning motorcycle. The staff finally called the executive bajaj service centre, malad which is merely a kilometer away and asked me to talk. I asked them to replace this battery. After a lot of arguments and debate he agreed. The bike started giving the same problems even with the new battery again after a couple of days. Once again it stopped, this time thankfully near to a roadside mechanic. He said that there was some problem with the charging apparatus of the bike. It was overcharging and damaging the bike. So again, he removed the amco battery and put a new amaron battery. The motorbike functioned well for a couple of days and the problem re-occurred. I took the bike to the executive bajaj service center in ghatkopar and told them the problem. I told them to check for wiring as the battery keeps on getting damaged. After a couple of days, the advisor (Singh) from this service center told me that the bike is repaired and the issue was that the battery was drained. I told him that that's not the case and the issue is more than that of a drained battery and told him about the history of replaced batteries. But they did not listen and asked me to take the motorbike. I did what he said, and again after a couple of days, same issue resurfaced. And the bike stopped in the middle of a highway. Now this gave me tremendous mental stress. I called the service center and asked them to fix the bike. They serviced the bike for a couple of days and changed the wiring and couple of other things. A service battery was installed in the bike. Again the problems came back within a week or so. But this time the self start worked but the bike kept stopping while on idle or in the middle of the road out of the blue. Also there was a smell of petrol that kept coming. I informed them about the issue and they asked me to bring the bike again to the workshop. I was tired of these many visits to the workshop and mechanics for a brand new bike in a span of six months. The bike's self start stopped working again. I complained to bajaj customer care by email and by phone many times during this duration: complaint numbers issued to me: isr - 487777, isr - 508585, isr-512389. But the most they did was to make someone from the executive bajaj service center call me and ask what issues i had. Now the bike is with the executive bajaj service center ghatkopar. And i just got to know that the original battery is still not replaced. The executive bajaj showroom people never sent the battery to the service center.