[Resolved]  Volkswagen India — volkswagen service centre harassing & exploiting customer

Dear volkswagen,

I have been a proud owner of vw polo with the safety, stability, and comfort it had provided during a long or short journey. I have been recommending my family & friends to test drive vw vehicle before they make their decision purely based on my experience with this car and service center till now. But the current encounter with volkswagen service center hitech city hyderabad has disappointed me.

My car was given for body repair work after a stone hit the car & damaged the underbody on 14th oct' 19. The service advisor did the inspection & informed that 4 parts are damaged - oil sump, suspension lower arm, locking system & bumper & this needs to be replaced & they will go for insurance.
They even replaced the fog lamp cover without informing me thinking insurance will pay for this. When insurance did not cover this, they asked me to make the payment. When i refused, the service guy removed the bumper paint amount instead, saying that it is in his hand. I doubted was he charging me wrongly? Considering it was not much amount i ignored & made the remaining payment & asked the service guy to give me the car & all the old parts.
The car was handed over to me in a very bad condition. The old parts were in the back of the workshop so he took me in my car. As soon as the car started, i observed that there was a strong knocking noise coming from the car. The service advisor initially refused to accept this & said this might be coming from the engine. When i cross-questioned, he said this might be coming before as well and i have not observed it. He even said that this will go away after some time. This means that they just wanted me to leave & take my car.
I am driving my car daily and there was no noise at all. After fighting with the service advisor for some time, he said that the noise is due to link-rod wearing out & needs to be replaced which will cost me rs 6000. This they have also found when they were doing a test drive.
I had only 1 question, my car was in perfect condition before how can suddenly 1 part got wear out? When i gave my car to repair there was no noise at all. The job sheet that they gave after the inspection mentions that there is no problem with the car at all & neither i was informed over the phone. This means that during the repair or test drive they did has caused some issue to my car.
After getting frustrated, i finally went with replacing the link-rod. I was promised that the noise is because of that & replacing it would remove solve the problem. I made myself pretty clear that if this does not fix the problem, i am not paying a single penny & i want my car repaired. They even suggested me to get the tires replaced as it might affect my suspension. Since the tires were 5 years old & ran 35k km's, i thought that it's better to get it changed now only.
Link-rod replacement did not remove the noise at all. This means proper diagnose was not done by the service advisor. I spoke with the workshop manager, how come noise is still coming to which he responded that they will check and let me know. What were they doing till now?
Later they again did the detailed inspection & informed me that the steering rack is damaged and noise is coming because of this & it will cost me rs 22000 (Including everything). When i cross-questioned how come steering rack got damaged, they said that this might be due to the impact during the accident.
They informed me that i can rest assured as they will speak with the insurance person & re-open this case and this would be covered under the insurance.
The insurance person rejected this by stating that this should have been informed before closing the case. Now they can't do anything. Service people are trying to push me to speak to insurance to get this covered. They are just trying to escape & hide their mistake by redirecting me to speak with insurance people to bear this cost. The branch manager even said you do not have a warranty & if insurance does not cover this then i have to pay the full amount.
This is clearly the case of volkswagen trying to fool customers & loot money. They know that my car is not under warranty so i need to pay for everything they will say. They are taking advantage of the customer who is believing them and agrees to pay. Is it the customer's mistake to believe whatever they say? I am astonished and shocked to see such unethical practices and exploitation of the customers by such a reputed german brand volkswagen's dealership.

First, it's their job to do the proper inspection after the accident and find out what all parts are damaged which they did not do.

Second, how can they close the insurance case after repair without doing testing & detailed inspection? When they found during the test drive that there was noise how can they suspect that it is because of link-rod without doing a detailed inspection of what all parts were damaged which they later did?

Third, how can they be 100 % sure that link-rod is making the noise? This is clearly a case of negligence.

I will speak to insurance people once, but i do not care whether insurance covers the steering rack or not. I don't even know if the steering rack is really damaged. I reported this as negligence at the service center and advised them to return my car in a condition that i had handed over. That meant to fix the noise. They continuously refuse to take responsibility for their negligence and ask me to cover the damages if insurance refused. I have known of vw fraud cases earlier so i am compelled to think this could be a deliberate attempt to get me to replace my steering rack. If it is because of the accidental impact then it's clearly their mistake as they closed the insurance case without doing a detailed inspection.

I am having the worst experience with vw, fully frustrated by talking with service center guys and its enough. The service guy always takes me out to talk which means they want to hide their mistake from other customers. Now it is volkswagen's responsibility to repair my car as in my opinion the whole fault is of the service center and at last, i want my car in perfect condition in which i gave it.

After watching all the drama this seems that you need to strongly look after all your inspection team and service advisor as they are making some mockery out of all this. This was not at all expected by a global brand like volkswagen. Request you to look into this case on high priority & resolve this at the earliest.

Car details:-

Polo highline 1.2l petrol

Ts 07 ef 0663