Ford India — Car given for repair and service never returned back to us for nearly 6 months

Address:	600077
Website:	www.hansford.in/en

To the president, ford india, desk

I am venkata subramaniam k from chennai.

On 25/03/2016 my car (Ford fiesta) met with a head on collision due to a guy who drove on the wrong side of the road. Luckily i was alive, thanks to my air bag and seat belt which saved my life. A case was filed against the guy who drove on the wrong side of the road and unfortunately this guy had an expired car insurance. Hence i had to use my insurance for the repair.

After the formalities of fir etc., i gave my car at hans ford iyyapanthangal on 25/03/16. On 28/03/16 hans ford gave an estimation of rs.2.78 lakh. The body shop manager mrs. Subulakhshmi was the contact person for us. She said the cost of original ford fiesta sxi model dashboard fitted with 2 air bags costs us rs.1.17 lakh and if we agree for ford aspire plastic dashboard, the cost of rs.97, 000.00/- will come down from the estimation since it costs only rs.20, 000.00/-. She said this is no different from original dashboard and will look perfectly fine therefore we happily agreed for the aspire dashboard in order to bring down the estimation cost to rs.1.81 lakh.

She called us one day and demanded rs.1, 00, 000.00/- as an advance to start the work. We were shocked at first because they were the ford dealer but without starting the work they wanted money like a road side shop to buy the parts. During this time, we had also submitted our insurance formalities to them and still they wanted money without starting the work. With great resistance we negotiated and paid rs.50, 000.00/- towards advance and obtained a receipt on it as well.

After regular follow ups and their several falls promises on delivery dates finally on 25/07/16 we were told that all repairs were carried out and the car is ready for a test drive before final fittings. We went and did the test drive and also informed the defects found. It was recorded on a paper by the service manager. During this four-month period we were always told that one or the other part was yet to be delivered and they had ordered for it, further the body shop manager also said that they will check for parts only when the assembly is done and then they will order the parts and it will take a minimum of a week or two to get them delivered to chennai. I have few questions here for ford, why don’t a great company like ford have an inventory management system and proper engineer to say what all are the parts required for the assembly and order them to together? Why is it every time one has to assemble and then realize that a part had to be ordered in order to complete the assembly? Ford also claims service promises through advertisement but why can’t have the dealers promise on a delivery date? Why is it so difficult for the ford to estimate a correct delivery date? Is it due to lack of proper engineers or lack of management in estimating a delivery?

Later, we were informed that the total cost of repair was rs.4, 00, 000.00/-. It was a great shock to us because we had bought the top end car for rs.8, 50, 000.00/- in 2009 and now just the front parts of the car with any major part like the engine costed us nearly half the price of the car. Normally, anywhere the cost difference between the actual and estimated will be more or less 10% - 30% maximum. Where as in hans ford the difference between actual and estimated was more than 100%.

Since the car was purchased on aug 2009 on insurance co. M/s bajaj alliance settled the liability of rs.2.33 lakh and the remaining amount of rs.1.76 lakh was asked to pay to hansford. The car was promised to deliver on 30/07/2016 after fixing the complaints made on the test run and is yet to be delivered to us. The painful part is they hold our car for repair for almost half the year and no replacement car was also offered for us to be used during this period. I would have spent more than rs.70.000.00/- on cabs during this period because of falls promises and dishonoring of delivery dates by hans ford. They completely lack empathy and cannot estimate or honor the delivery date. Though we have taken up this issue with ford customer care the ultimate result is only favoring their dealer hans ford. According to us ford does not care about their customer and do not have qualified staffs to deal with the customer vehicle. I would have had a better experience with a road side shop.

Thanking the president of ford for taking time to read our complaint. Hope we get a better justice here.

Regards
Venk krish