Bad Experience With Cars24.com

[jayap]

I own a Honda Brio from past 4 years and wanted to change and hence wanted to sell the car. I got to know about cars24 from online ad promising the excellent quote.



I went to the nearest location in Malleshwaram, Bangalore. I was escorted by a person named Hema who was polite enough to make me comfortable. She told me about the complete process of how they buy cars. I have given them go ahead for inspection which took for about 35-40 minutes. Once done, she started talking about depreciation year over year and possible garage work for the vehicle. The online amount quoted in their website was Rs. 4,95,681. She told that they approximately have reduced the vehicle value of Rs. 20,000 for garage work. I said go ahead. Now comes the actual fake attitude. She started explaining me about year over year depreciation and quoted me that your car has a depreciation for 4 years and the bidding price could be around 3, 40, 000! That was quite shocking to me because the online quote is nowhere near to the amount they are telling me now. I said get me the final amount that comes as a part of their auction model. After 1.5 hours I got the final quote to sell my car for Rs. 3,35,000 which is below 1,60,000! This is no way acceptable.


Even though they tried to convince me, they accepted the fact that they misquote the price in their website. I understood 2 things from this experience:

• The complete process takes way more than 30 minutes as they claim proudly. It took me over 1 hour 35 minutes. Essentially, you are wasting half a day in travel and office for no reason.
  
• The online quote is just a fraud and it is just to make the customers visit their office. be prepared to get surprising quotes
  

Please share your thoughts in case if you find any.

 

[YogiPunto]

Dont know which variant you own, but in any case 4.9 Lacks for a 4 year old Brio is way too much ! 3.4 seems logical in my view. Most online portal do indicate that the prices shown are olny estimates and actual visits can give more accurate idea !

 

[jayap]

Thanks for sharing the feedback. The thing is I wasn't ready to sell below 3.9 lacs. My concern was more on the wrong estimations that these guys provide instead of being realistic. They gave so much expectations by quoting something random. Not many sites give such wrong figures. I have guinuine buyer who is ready to pay up to 4 lacs. Hence, my concern is more towards over promise and under deliver from cars24 rather than debating about the price of the car. No one can justify 1.6 lacs of reduction which approximately 35% lower. I would be happy if they could give us realistic expectations rather than giving a shock by spending 2 hours.

 

[vishnu vichu]

Oh that was indeed not a fruitful visit to their office. Did you show them the screenshot of the evaluation or try accessing a PC from their office to show their online evaluation ? DO they charge for the visit and checkup ?

In mean time do check IndianBlueBook - New & Upcoming Cars- Used Cars Price - Car Valuation - On Road Car Prices.

I have felt them to be more precise on the vehicle evaluation / I have got a better quote

 

[jayap]

Yes, I did show them in my smartphone and I had a discussion with them for about 30 minutes and both acknowledged the fact that they misquoted the price and they are going to share the feedback to the higher authorities. Thanks for sending the IBB and the valuation seems to be more realistic. Let me try my luck with them

 

[puneet848]

To be honest if you really expected to get 4.9 for your 4 year old Brio it is your fault. The only thing wrong is maybe their quote algorithm which i'm sure they will tweak with your feedback.

Also it is very clear from the website shot it says inspection in 30 mins and they did take 35-40 only according to your own post. They haven't proudly claimed its the time taken for complete process. Does not seem like half a day by any way of measurement.

 

[puneet848]

Also to add what variant and year and kms did you enter in the site ?

 

[jayap]

Puneet looks like you are from cars24, at least the way of looking at your response :)

Your response compliments to what they are telling. I have clearly mentioned what my intention is in the content if you couldn't read it. My question was not on 4.9 lacs but on how they fool people to visit and spend half a day. Let me explain my half a day to you in detail which I didn't mention above:

9:30am I started the conversation and I have been given an appointment at 11:00am. I started my journey at 10:00am And reached at 10:46 and the process began. The rest drive, check up, questions which include did you meet with any accident, you might have hit the rock from bottom, while reversing you might have done unlnowingly etc. These questions are kind of harassment because there was no reason for them to justify the price. The inspection process completed by 11:35 and it took 40 minutes to complete.

Upon completion the lady started me lecturing about how the process works and how they are so called transparent. In spite of that she wasn't able to convince me about the price. I am a big car geek and i follow the major automotive forums and I am not that fool to expect 4.9 lacs for my brio. However, I was expecting something guinuine price. Why do they have to fool around with people about this that you get 4.9 lacs? This itself is a scam.

The discussion went on for about 30 minutes where both the lady and her manager failed to convince me and said they understand what I am telling and acknowledged that they are wrong. Now the main process of auto on which took over for about 30 minutes. By the time she told me that the car can be sold for 3.35 lacs it was 12:40pm. I started heading back without wasting a single minutes and reached home by 1.25pm. Now tell me, isn't it worth half a days efforts? Also they can't even do that vehicle inspection in 30 minutes and claim that they take just 30 minutes to sell the car!!! To be precise I took 1 hour 50 minutes inside and about 1.5 hours commute.

Once again I am reiterating, my concern is on the difference of amount (1.6 lacs) and not about how much I get it. The other authorised dealer is ready to buy the same vehicle for 3.6 lacs and one of my friends is ready to buy it for 4 lacs. Hence, request you not to deviate from the topic.

 

[puneet848]

No i dont work for cars24. You could have also read on their website that only the inspection is for 30 mins, nowhere i could see whole process takes 30 mins. Also you still have not mentioned your car year, variant, kms to get your high online quote. Only then can we discuss things properly. And no imo spending 1 hour 35 mins approx at their location is not a half days effort.

 

[jayap]

You can check online: brio Smt, 33000kmtrs, year 2013.

 

[Varun560061]

Almost everyone who went in to Cars24 had the same experience.

I too had the same experience 6 months ago when I wanted to sell my 2 year old Chevy Enjoy Ls. As per their webpage the quote was 7.xx. After all the drama they offered 3.2lks. They taught me as a joker I left the place wasting my time.

 

[vijay_968]

Puneet looks like you are from cars24, at least the way of looking at your response :) ... ... ... Once again I am reiterating, my concern is on the difference of amount (1.6 lacs) and not about how much I get it. The other authorised dealer is ready to buy the same vehicle for 3.6 lacs and one of my friends is ready to buy it for 4 lacs. Hence, request you not to deviate from the topic.

"cars24 gave an impressive quote on-line to get you to their shop and gave a much lower quote when you went there. Their method is not correct." This is your point and is very loud & clear. It will be useful for fellow TAI members to be careful with such websites. Yet, I feel, you could have avoided that comment on Puneet.


My take on the resale price:
On-road price of Brio S in Bengaluru is 5.93 Lakhs (as per Autocar July 16 edition). After 4 years, value would come down to 60% to 65%, so the depreciated value is 3.56 to 3.85 Lakhs. The IDV value for Insurance purpose would be around these figures. When we want to sell to known people, we expect to get higher value than IDV. But, when we want to buy from known people, we expect them to give a discount on IDV. There is nothing wrong here. It is in the interest of the seller/buyer to calculate Car VALUE based on IDV to know the reference value. IF and WHEN someone is offering a much higher value, it is better to be cautious.

It is like a Finance Company offering 30% interest on deposit The individual needs to be careful and you sharing your experience here is pretty useful.

 

[jayap]

I am sorry if I hurt anyone, I didn't mean to hurt anyone but was just making fun with a smily. I completely agree on your comments. Looks like cars24 took the feedback and they have now reduced the estimated price from 4.96 lacs to 4.1 lacs which is more realistic than what it was now.

 

[dicor]

Apologies for digging an old thread. I recently had experience with cars24

I own 4.5 years Mahindra Verito. Mahindra XMart was paying me 2.25 lakhs and other dealers were ready to pay me 2.6 lakhs. I was firm that I am not going to sell it below 3.5 lakhs.

The I got call from cars24 and they had taken all the details of my vehicle and quoted my vehicle between 3.27 to 3.8 lakhs (actuals as per their evaluation). I told them about my expectations and anything below it is waste of time for both parties on which online sales team assured me about price lock.
I've been given appointment of 10 AM and confirmation of quote on SMS.

The guys punctually opened their office 10 AM. Made me wait for 10 mins.

They were professional and explained me entire process. Like first it will be inspected, report will be shown to me and then it will be put online for auction for an hour. In an hour I will be asked about my wish to sell my vehicle to highest bid. If I agree then payment will be made within one day. If I opt for immediate payment then 1000 will be deducted.

Upon my approval, they inspected my car. and done all the process. Entire process took almost 1.5 hrs.
Highest quote I received was 2.74. I asked about clarification about the discrepancy between quote on SMS and actual one. Then he explained me that quote on SMS was for D6 variant and actually vehicle is D4 variant and so many other things. I told him clearly that I had explained the correct variant yesterday twice. He admitted that it could be data entry error.

He tried convincing me a lot about benefit of selling to dealer but I was firm on price and at the end I sold it to end buyer in my price but not to cars24.

I believe that is their usual practice to call buyers by giving them higher quotes.

That doesn't make them bad actually. They are doing their business and I believe they are also doing it transparently. Their are few malpractices which needs to be mitigated but actually services like cars24 are boon for people who need cash in emergency.

 

[TrafficHacker]

I had a very bad experience with Cars24 recently. I was in the market to sell my Bangalore registered, 2013 XUV 5OO W8, 34K KMs driven car, which was in excellent condition, tyres needed replacement and insurance was getting due in 2 months during evaluation. Their online portal gave me a quote of max 9L. I was not interested at that rate and ignored the option. Later that day I got a call from them asking me to drop into their office nearby for an evaluation, which I turned down considering the low quote I received online. Again the next day I got two more calls from them, I told them am interested in this only if there is a possibility of the price going higher than the online quoted amount, during evaluation. They said it is possible, so fixed up an appointment and I reached there on time. One executive invited me into their office and started giving me lecture for almost 30mins about depreciation, low resale value of the Mahindra cars and about the availability of plenty of XUVs in the market, GST, cost reduction of SUVs, etc. which I tolerated. Then he gave me an absolutely atrocious price on the car, which was 7L, I literally shouted at him and walked away.
The major point to be noted here is that the person did not even have a look at my car, nor the documents. He had no clue about the condition of the car or the documents, but he gave me this stupid price. He literally wasted my 30-45mins. I had nothing further to talk to them or negotiate at all hence did not waste any further time there. They are outright horrible looters. Never go to them, unless you want to throw away your car.