Fiat's Stand on Unfair Business Tactics By Their Dealer in Pune.

[Tornado]

I had booked a Fiat Avventura Emotion diesel model to be manufacturered in Jan 2015 at Fiat caffe ,sky moto,Koregaon park Pune on 19/12/2014 . A Jan 15 Car was booked because I didn't wanted the car to loose resale value of the car at latter date just because it has a label of 2014 Manufactured date.

In the last week of December 14 received a call from fiat caffe Pune that in Jan 15 ,cars are going to be costlier and better to purchase the December14 manufacturered Avventura to save money. And they have brought a car from Ranjangaon Fiat plant for me already. After lot of discussion on resale value benefits and losses I agreed.No discount was offered.
When I pointed out that the handling charges (Rs 5500)they have mentioned on invoice are illegal ,as per SC judgement.They tried to settle it offering me corporate discount of Rs 5500.

Later on time passed on, as I got a link wherein it was mentioned that Fiat Avventura diesel has got some engine mount issue. Later this dobt was sorted out by area sales manager of Fiat.

Then on 14th Jan 2015 ,I handed over the loan amount cheque. Also, I got the insurance of the car done on 16 Jan . And then green signal was given for RTO registration.

On 19th Jan 2115 ,one of my friend told me that he has booked a Ecosport .I told him that I have booked a Avventura, and he should TD it before paying full amount to Fords.
He went to sky moto's second showroom at PCMC ,and felt in love with Avventura. He told me that They are offering free insurance+10 K cash discount on 2014 manufacturered Avventura and car would cost him 40 Thousands Rs cheaper than me.

Stunned due to this, I called up Koregaon park sky moto and asked for discount. They said that this scheme never existed and doesn't exist.

I suspected foul play and asked my friend to refrain from Sky moto's deal and rather contact Jay Vijay Fiat showroom.Meanwhile, I enquired at other show rooms of Fiat at in MH. Where I learnt that the scheme very much exists since 10 Jan 2015 for all 2014 anufactured Fiat Avventuras.

Yesterday, my friend was offered discount worth Rs 40,000 as per fiat's scheme and dealer offered additional 20,000 Rs discount from his side as fords were less likely to refund booking amount . Thus, my friend handed over a booking cheque to Jay Vijay showroom.

I called up sky moto and asked them to pass on similar benefits to me. But they said scheme is applicable only for hiked prices due to excise and discount benefits are going to be null and void. Also they said that since insurance has been done already by me (customer ) hence question of free insurance doesn't arise!!

Annoyed by this, today I called up fiat's call centre. Lady heard me, and arranged conference call with sky moto,Jay vijay me and Fiat .The Discussion:

Sky moto: Deal is done and no question of discount now.

Me : I am getting a deal cheaper by 40 k to 60K(Fiat scheme + dealer scheme ) from Jay Vijay.

Fiat : Did the dealer revealed the scheme to you on 10th jan .?

Me:no

Sky moto :customer already knew the scheme but he opted for insurance from his personal insurance.

Me :They never revealed the scheme, I found it on my own from other dealers.

Sky moto: the scheme is applicable only for cars with hiked prices (aporox 40K Excise hike)hence it is not going to make any difference in the end.

Me: o ther dealers in MH are offering me for non hiked price also.

Fiat :why was the discount scheme hidden from customer ?

Sky moto.: Because Scheme was applicable only for customers who booked the car from 10th Jan.

me: Unfair bussines practice it is , I would have cancelled the booking and renewed it after 10 th Jan.

Fiat :scheme was applicable for bookings done after 10th Jan.

Me : Jay vijay is offering me same scheme now. So cancell the deal.

Fiat : is it true

Jay Vijay :Yes.

Sky moto:if any dealer wants to axe his own leg at his own expense, sky moto can not help.

Jay Vijay :we are offering whatever has been allowed by Fiat.

Me :I want to know why Fiat is partial ?and favoring sky moto.Does Fiat believes in unfair business practices ?

Sky moto :RTO charges are already deposited by the agent. And cancellation of the deal would involve lot of cancellation fees and both the deals (jay Vijay and sky moto) would stand equal for the customer.

Me; atleast I will get a mental satisfaction that one can't take me for ride and cheat.
And getting RTO work done through agents is illegal in MH, and it's media's hottest topic of discussion since last one week. A four line compliant with RTO office can land up dealer's agent in to soup.

Sky moto: it doesn't make difference to us, let him land up.

Fiat : I am going to involve senior Fiat officials in this matter and will call you back within next 24 Hrs.

Me : I am not going to take delivery of the car till then. And I want to know does Fiat believes in fair bussines practice.?

Guys,
We can't allege that Jay vijay is under cutting sky moto Fiat cafe just to lure me , because all other dealers across state of Maharashtra (Nanded,Nagpur)are offering same deal (Fiats offer worth Rs 40k)on the Avventuras manufacturered in 2014.

Price hike is applicable only for the cars manufacturered in 2014.

And it is not the hike on the part of dealer or manufacturer. It is due to increase in excise duty.

Excise duty( Utpadan shulk )is paid by the manufacturer before selling the car to the dealer. It is a tax on the manufacting(Utpadan as it is called in devnagri script ) and not selling .
Tax which applicable upon selling the car is called as VAT .And VAT money comes from dealer. There is no increse in the rate of VAT.

So excise duty is paid by the manufacturer before it is sold to the dealer .Manufacturer has to pay this excise duty tax once car is manufacturered no matter if it gets sold or not.

My car was manufacturered in December 2014and billed on dealer on 27/12/2014,(I can post a pic of the bill taken during my pdi) this implies that fiat has paid the exise duty to the government in December itself @rate prevailing in december.Excise duty concessions were removed after 31/12/2014.
So by government rule, my car is protected from price hike due to excise duty hike. And dealer is not oblising me by protecting the price.Any attempt on the part of the dealer to plunder my money on the name of hike in excise duty should not be tolerated by Fiats. And if at all extra excise duty is to be paid ,it is to be paid by fiats and that too to the government.

So this is how I have stuck. Please help me.

I feel, fiat allows this kind of malpractice by their dealer , this must be one of the reason why fiat's sales figures are in hundreds despite making safe and wonderful cars as compared to Martin who is known to make unsafe cars with borrowed engine.
Agreed, unfair bussines practices are present at the dealership of Maruti also. But Maruti sales figures are so huge that it doesn't make any difference if they loose one or two customers due to dealer's malpractice. While for fiat' loosing one or two customers must be making huge impact on already mediocre sales figures. It is like loosing couple of litres from tankful for Maruti while for Fiat it must be like loosing a couple of litre when the fuel indicator is blinking the low .!!!!

 

[GrandRk]

It was bad experience in all.
Fiat should at least update such schemes on their website or should announce it in newspaper so that customers can make decision themselves rather than depending on such sales executives.

Anyways, keep updated on your experience until you receive your dream machine, best of luck !!

 

[patil]

It is indeed very bad experience with unnecessary headache. I feel that some of the lessons we can learn from this experience, such as: do proper market survey before going to sign the deal. Lets not blindly trust these company "operated/owned" outlets.

Now I have one question to Fiat Management: What is purpose of opening these "caffes" ?
My understanding was that they wanted to give pleasant experience to customers during car buying phase, this is what their advertisements claim, maybe they thought that regular showroom are not dealing properly with customers. However looking at above scenario, the showrooms are doing decent job but these "exclusive" showroom are ruining Fiat brand value (what ever is left).

@Tornado: Why don't you post this experience on their social-media sites, see if they respond positively.

 

[Tornado]

[urlwww.fiat-india.com their official website mentions specially about Fiat Caffè as if it is their pilot and ideal dealership.
fiat Caffè finds special place on their website under the heading Get Ready To Be Charmed while other dealers are listed in a drop down menu.

And Pune fiat Caffè is mentioned on the top of all other fiat Caffè. Alphabetically it could have been Banglore on top and chronologically Delhi!!

 

[Releesh]

Patil @ you are correct. We need to do proper market survey before buying any item which is costly.

Like tornado's this experiance, i landed up many times this type of issues. twice while buying Samsung mobile Once buying A LED TV. This is what i remember.

Once i went straight to a Samusng showroom in Kochi(35 km away from Home) to buy Samsung Grand mobile for cousin. Bought the same within 15 minutes and came home. At night i checked with a friend who is a local mobile shop owner, the current price with him is 2500 lower than i bought.
Next experiance couple of months before i had to buy again a samsung core2 mobile urgently for my wife. I called and checked the price with local shops while i were on samsung showroom open near home. It is Rs. 100 less in show room. I bought that while they closing the shop at night.Next day morning, the frind i called y'day called me and told, Samsung reduced rs.3600 on that mobile. I didnt got any offer/any money back even i visited the showroom in the morning.

last year i had ordered a 40' LED in our local electrical shop.they told the rate is les than Rs.35K. but when i taken the delivery they told the price increased and need to pay Rs.38999 MRP written in the box. next day i called 2 bigger shops in town, same available in Rs.29999. talked to the local shop owner, they were not ready to accept the TV since it is fixed in home. I discussed with them, went to a bigger TV shop at town bought same TV @rs.29999 with a Rs.1K worth gift stright away went to the local shop given the unopened box collected the money i paid.Sorry if i wasted your time by reading this.I thought it will be helpful to future shoppers.

Tonado@

Sorry about your bad experiance. I can under stand your feeling. They are doing the daylight robery .Dont leave them free and never take car from that dealership. check out with Fiat to get the car from other dealership. If even Fiat is not doing responding, go cancel the booking. Dont think much about the loss. Since it is a fiat anyway you loss a good money on resale later. So it will be a saving. Dont think negative. I daily drive a punto to office(70km/day). This car also has its on negatives.

BTW why you went to Avventura? You were looking for SUV/duster like vehicle.Your Manza has more space and GC than this one i guess.

 

[Lameassonwheels]

@Tornado Thanks for sharing the info, one of my colleague was almost set to buy Avventura, though I am not sure from which Fiat dealer and had he already made the booking. I will ask him and confirm. Hope you will get a fair deal from a reputed company like Fiat, the dealer also won't be happy to get their name spoiled in the circle. But for sure they will repeat such practises if left like that. IMO we need to have a dealer rating page in TAI, with options to vote with a small remark.

@Releesh, your TV deal is just awe-inspiring!. Real swift thinking here, I can never come up with anything of that sort but just curse myself for own mistake and make a resolution like "I will be more careful next time".

 

[Surfer]

So this is how I have stuck. Please help me

Cancel deal at Fiat cafe and get it done at jay - vijay
Or even check at Pandit auto

 

[generalmax]

I am not shocked to hear this news. Its not only fiat.Almost all dealerships play these type of crooked business one way or the other.We need consumer courts to be strong enough to understand these issues. The dealerships and the manufacturers are hand in glove in this issue.

 

[Tornado]

THANKS ALL for sympathy and support

Patil @ you are correct. We need to do proper market survey before buying any item which is costly.

I was doing continuous research on Internet before paying the money. But nothing surfaced, The Jay vijay fellow also thought that my car purchase chapter must be over now, hence he didn't bothered to inform me the scheme. And worst part is that Fiat didn't published it in newspapers and Internet.

.

why you went to Avventura? You were looking for SUV/duster like vehicle.Your Manza has more space and GC than this one i guess.

Actually it's for my father, he drives alone most of the time.
Next car would be purchased by the year end and Avventura will be handed over to him then.

@Tornado Thanks for sharing the info, one of my colleague was almost set to buy Avventura, though I am not sure from which Fiat dealer and had he already made the booking. I will ask him and confirm.

Jay Vijay dealer is really transparent.

IMO we need to have a dealer rating page in TAI,

Couldn't agree more., mods please act.

Cancel deal at Fiat cafe and get it done at jay - vijay
Or even check at Pandit auto

That is what I have asked to the Fiats. My only problem is that only Rs 11000 are outstanding now.

I am not shocked to hear this news.

I am also not shocked, but wanted to tell the Fiat that I have caught the dealership Co owned by them doing this.

 

[Akash1886]

I had booked a Fiat Avventura Emotion diesel model to be manufacturered in Jan 2015 at Fiat caffe ,sky moto,Koregaon park Pune on 19/12/2014 .
Guys,

Dealer has misguided you. Better you cancel your deal and buy it from other one. No need of associating with a dubious agency.

My car was manufacturered in December 2014and billed on dealer on 27/12/2014,(I can post a pic of the bill taken during my pdi) this implies that fiat has paid the exise duty to the government in December itself @rate prevailing in december.Excise duty concessions were removed after 31/12/2014.

Definitely do so buddy.

I feel, fiat allows this kind of malpractice by their dealer , this must be one of the reason why fiat's sales figures are in hundreds despite making safe and wonderful cars.

Not really, Since brand like Fiat which so very popular and respected among buyers definitely they wouldn't malign their image. Its all in all fault of the dealer for earning few extra rupees.

Regards

Akash

 

[Tornado]

Received Email from FCA 2 days back

They wrote
1)deeply regret the inconvenience.

2)Matter is coordinated with region /dealer, we assure you of all due attention through Sky Moto Automobiles

3)We have registered your complaint & no. for same is1 __________*

4)Our dealer CRM from Sky Moto Automobiles will coordinate for local assistance
They have provided two phone numbers of same.


After waiting 3 hours after the fiat's email, I called up the CRM of the Sky moto whose phone number was provided by fiat.
CRM was busy hence a lady picked up my phone
She :what's the matter?

Me :I have lodged a complaint with fiat regarding deliberate attempt on the part of the sky moto fiat Caffè. and fiat has mailed me and gave me this contact number
.
She : so, what's the problem now?

Me :are you back to square one?

She : What has been offered to you by Jay Vijay?

Me : Rs 40,000 discount announced by FCA + Rs 20,000 discount from dealer. But I am bothered only about the FCA scheme.

She : can you forward me the mail sent by FCA to you? as CRM will have to talk with Mr Jameer Khan who is region head of FCA.

I then forwarded the email to her. It was 8:00pm by then. I hoped they call me back next morning.

Update, Yesterday 11am to 12.
Call conference with, ASM fiat, dealer GM &Me.
GM : Scheme is for 2014 manufacturered cars bookings done from 10 th to 19th Jan 15. Your booking is done in December 14.

Me : Why I was denied opportunity to cancel earlier booking and do a fresh booking?

ASM : possibility of excise hike was there for renewed booking.

Me : But since my car was invoiced and lying at dealer since last week of December, and fiat had paid the excise(Utpadan shulk) duty at December rates so question doesn't arise for dealer to charge it again at Jan rates.And dealer is not supposed to pay excise (Utpadan shulk) of a car which is not manufacted at his stockyard.

ASM : Jay vijay dealer is selling the car at loss of Rs 60, 000 to your friend.
Me. :Nagpur, Nanded and Nasik dealers, they are also selling the car at the price which is offered by Jay Vijay.
Please take them also on the conference call and let them say that they are at loss.
And my friend was offered the deal at 40000Rs cheaper than me at sky moto itself during same period, I can post copy of quotation.

ASM : The scheme was applicable for the cars which were manufactured in 2014 but invoiced in Jan 2015

Me : Not true, other dealers are selling both december2014 & Jan 2015 invoiced cars at a discount of Rs 40000to 60000 provided that they are invoiced before 18 th January .

Today, there is no scheme available on Fiat Linea emotion, I book it today and ask for delivery on December 2015.
Fiat is known for announcing discounts in month of December.
Are you going sell the Linea to me with today 's rates or December 2015 rates?

ASM : December 2015 rates.

Me :My car was invoiced in the month of december 2014 without my consent because my booking form mentions that I wanted a 2015 car.
Dealer later told me that 2014 car would be cheaper than 2015 model .
And in practice, they are offering it (2014 manufacturered but booked in 2015) cheaper to other customers and rest of the fiat dealers in MH are offering it cheaper to all other customers including me.

ASM : But other dealers in MH are offering the discount on hiked price

Me : I am talking about the period between 10 th Jan & 19th Jan during which prices were not hiked by fiat. And 40000Rs scheme was also applicable.

Dealer :If excise duty was increased on 10 th Jan itself, you and would have required pay it.

Me :In that case, I would have cancelled the deal and bought a two wheeler, do you allow people to cancel the deal or not?

GM : But now your car is registered with RTO.

Me : scheme declared on 10 th Jan was not revealed to me, and then registration process was done by the dealer on 17 th onwards.
On 17 th also, the scheme was applicable but dealer chose to hide it.
I was advised against buying the car from sky moto by my friends who own fiat cars but still I chose to stick to fiat Caffè, sky moto because I thought since FCA themselves co own the fiat Caffè.,

ASM & GM,: We will come back and talk.

 

[Tornado]

As per my booking form of December 2014 , the condition no. 14 clearly mentions that if full payment is not done till 30th of the booking month, discount schemes and additional offers stands cancelled.
Doesn't this mean that in new month you will get new month's scheme if at all there

Update :
Got a call from dealer GM on yesterday afternoon.
After repeating same things umpteen times.
I stayed constant on two points.

1)As per condition no 14 of the booking form , the december 2014 discount scheme and offer stands cancelled because full payment was not done before 30th december.Hence automatically the January 2015 discounts scheme of Rs 40000 is applicable for me.

2)So it was on the 10 th & 14 th Jan when I have deposited rest of the money with the dealer, they should have informed me the FCA 's discount scheme.

3) According to fiat themselves during recorded call conference, it is dealer' s duty to offer FCA scheme.

Finally dealer offered me Rs 10, 000 discount.
And said that since insurance is done already and question doesn't arise of the doing it free!!!


I disagreed and told him that we would talk later.

When I said, I need to update this on the forum
He said that your forum is not whole Internet. People can research on Google search engine and can find positive feedback about the showroom!!!

Today, called up insurance agent, described the issue to him.
He said he can cancel the insurance at my request if reason cited indicates that the customer is getting it elsewhere at the cheaper rate.

Sent messages about possibility of cancellation of insurance done to FCA, GM dealer. Now awaiting answers.

 

[TSIVipul]

@Tornado:
If the insurance can be cancelled, then the ball is again in your court. Tell the Fiat guys to give you the 10k discount as well as the free insurance.

I always used to think that only Toyota and Honda guys are notorious enough not to give a single rupee discount to customers on their cars, but these Fiat guys have broken all the records of ill-treating the customer even before the car is sold.

You deserve the discounts, in fact I got a discount of more than 60k to a relative on a Ritz VDi just a couple of days back and you will be surprised to know that the Maruti guys gave it in just 10-15 minutes of negotiation. How? Read this:

Maruti sales guy: Sir since the car is a 2014 model, we give a discount of 30k.

Me: Open the bonnet, check on the left near the windshield base and tell me the last two characters of the VIN after the cross?

Relative: One is E and one is H.

Me to relative: This is an August 2014 manufactured car but since it will be invoiced in Jan 2015, so no issues. On RC, it will remain a 2014-15(that's what people call here the end-of-year manufactured cars) model car because people mostly look at the registration date and it can be said that the car is end 2014 model as in the manufacturing year, only year is mentioned not the month. Adding to that, since the car will be invoiced in Jan 2015, so no worries of warranty etc - they will be from the time of invoice.

Me to Maruti sales guy:(Maruti Sales guy thought that I am some company official after I decoded the VIN ) See buddy, the car is manufactured 5 months back and hence we want you to provide it to us at the price without excise duty as the company has invoiced you the car at older prices. Fine?

Sales guy: Sir let me talk to you in 5 mins.

After 5 minutes I got a call from the relative and some senior guy was there on phone now.

Maruti guy: See sir we are providing a discount of 30k on the Ritz.

Me: That discount is provided for entire year, tell something new. The car in question is the one parked at your place since 5 months. Maybe its tyres are also patched now and who knows what else. Yes, we want the tyres to be replaced as the car is parked at your dealership since a couple of months.

Maruti guy: No sir, the car is well taken care of and we can provide the discount of 30k.

Me: I want it on the pre-excise-duty-increment price.

Maruti guy: Sir but now the prices have increased.

Me: Not for you provide us at the price it should be. Excise duty is paid by company and you got the car at older prices.

Maruti guy: Sir wait 5 minutes.

After 3-4 minutes itself I got a call and the sales guy said "Sir, this is exclusively for you and we can offer you the 30k and 25k discount on the car with a bonus of 5k and hence you will get the net discount of 60k on the car.

Me: Nothing special you ave done. You just gave the discount of 30k from Maruti, the bonus maybe is because of the loyalty and other 25k is the excise duty saving. The car in question is a 5 month old car and since it is parked so we can expect that its tyres etc have gone kaput.

Sales guy: They are fine sir.

Me: Then change the tyres and get us new ones.

Sales guy: Sir that's not possible.

Me: Then give some accessories. If you don't, then we leave the car for sure.

Sales guy: Sir wait 5 minutes.

In 5 minutes came an another call stating that we are given free matting, parking sensors and door beadings making a total of around 5k accessories.

Well, this simply made a net discount of around 65k on the car.

I am thinking why Fiat can't do the same, especially when the Avventura costs more than the Ritz and their cars don't sell like those of MSIL either.

 

[Tornado]

On Saturday, after long discussion with ASM fiat, GM of dealership, he offered me discount of Rs 10,000.
In the evening on same day, I contacted the owner of the dealership and told him that I want to cancel the car at any cost irrespective of financial loss suffered by me.

Update :Today
Dealer is now ready for discount of Rs 20,000 cash as compared to earlier 10,000.

GM said that the fiat scheme was as follows,
Exchange bonus :10 k.In exchange scheme, they buy the used car of the customer at such a rate that dealer doesn't feel much burden due to 10k bonus offered.
Free Insurance : though it is worth 30k ,if done by themselves without involving the customer, they get it at cheaper rate though on paper it is seen much higher than the amount spent by them actually.

Also, he said, the deal was kept pending because of the query raised by you regarding engine mount. Else the car would have been delivered with deal closed long before the announcement date of the discount scheme (10th Jan ).

I said, I had provided the links to fiat about the engine website and fiat should have taken legal action against the erring websites rather than denying the discount scheme to me.


I have not made up my mind on this 20k discount yet however GM said he is ready to negotiate further if I come up with any affordable offer.

 

[Tornado]

Finally got accessories worth Rs 24000 +discount on zero dep insurance. worth Rs. 11000,and corporate discount Rs 5000. Total discount worth Rs 40,000.(similar to what was offered by Fiat)
I left the decision of dealer scheme of discount on dealer himself and he chose not to offer anything.

Car is now delivered and running well kudos to ride, handling & looks. Fiat rocks.