Fiat Grande Punto MJD Emotion Pk

Flash back to three issues (2 with the car) and the other my order for a spare desmodonic key.

Let's start off with the oldest issue.

Back in March, during my second service, I had placed an order for a spare desmodonic key. I handed over my RC book , Key codes and 50% payment of approximately Rs.2,500 to Fortune. Delivery was in 4 weeks. Due to work pressure, I could not follow up on this matter and uptil a week back there was no feedback on when the key would come. After a few visits by my colleague, Fortune asked me for the key codes again! Anyway, the same was handed over on 12th August and the delivery should happen soon. Hopefully!

There was leakage in the rear of the car as mentioned in this report. Second issue was of driver's seat creaking when going over rough patches and / or potholes. Fortune changed the beadings to solve the leakage issue but I was shocked at the pathetic quality of beadings. For the seat, I was told to wait for 10 days till Fiat and the seat manufacturer could check the seats. This is where things get interesting as my frustration slowly changed into applause.

The next day I shoot off an email to Fiat officials (email id's taken from this forum) at about 11.30 am. I get an acknowledgement from the Punto brand manager and a copy of the message he has forwarded to the service and spares contacts.

At 3.30 pm I get a email from the service and spares guys acknowledging the email and assuring me of quick action.

At 4.30 pm, I get a call from Fortune requesting me to bring the car immediately for replacement of the beadings and to further check the seat issue. You bet I was mighty impressed!

It took me 2 more days to send the car to them. Honestly, I don't know whether the changed the beadings or did some jugad on the existing ones, but the new ones are better. There is still a section that is fitting poorly on the right door. I really don't know why Fiat can't get it's beading's quality right. For a 7 lakh rupee car to have such poor quality of parts is just not done. Fortune also replaced the seat height lever with the new ones on their own initiative.

The spares for the seats were ordered the same day (approxminately 7 days back). Yesterday, Fortune called back to confirm the avaliablity of the part and my car is at Fortune as I write this for the seats issue. Problem is the creaking seat complaint was made in March too. Then, the dealer tried to lubricate the railings but the problem persisted. I was told that a complaint will be made to Fiat but nothing moved until I started highlighting the issue again in July. As of now, the leakage has also stopped but to be fair so have the rains!

While I am impressed with the way Fiat responded, I really feel, the manufacturer should not need to get invovled for such small issues. This should have been solved at the dealer level itself. Fiat and their dealers best know what the problem is. Maybe dealers find it difficult ordering spares or Fiat doens't respond to their requirement in time only they know what the reason is but for the customer to keep following up, tracking, calling up the dealer for trivial issues is really irritating and frustrating.

What I feel is that there is no procedure at the dealership level to see a issue through the system. Once my car was driven out in March, the service advisor knew that the seats are creaking. I have no problems with Fiat and the seat manufacturer needing to look at the car and me having to wait for 10 days for that to happen. Problem is nothing moved after that. Clearly, the service advisor forgot to put this issue up to the manufacturer. A bigger problem at the dealer level is that there is no way to track that someone in the service section forgot to make the complaint. This is the loop hole that Fiat should plug. Have a system whereby such oversight's should automatically get caught by the system in a few days. The same issue happened with the order of the spare key. When I made the advance payment and all documents were handed over, why didn't these details go from the service advisor to the spares section? And if they didn't how come this wasn't caught by the process / system?

I feel this is the area that Fiat and their dealers should work on to sort out. The entire system has to work with clockwork precision. I hope they take this up seriously because it's surely not as difficult to implement in real as it seems in words.

 

Amit can you please post the pictures of the new seat height adjustment lever. Few days back I have requested for the same and SA told me that my car has new one.

 

I feel Fiat must keep intervening until it (defect rectification in quick time) becomes a standard operating procedure. There is a lack of inertia with the dealers, I think primarily due to the mango man mentality. Once the inertia sets in, then I guess what you say will hold. Right now I feel dealers do need a kick from up in the chain.

 

I've been to service centers a couple of time I feel all these issues are due to cab mentality.....the guys at TASC dont feel it's a big deal that your seat creaks coz for a cabbie it doesn't make any difference...This mentality is slowly changing it will take time but i see it happening...I'd been to a new service centre here in hyd opened about 2 months back and i can see vast difference in the way concorde handles and this new service centre .. planning to post a review about it very soon....

 

The seat creaking issue is now solved. Since yesterday, there has been no creaking sound at all although to be fair the sound never used to come continously so I would like to observe how things hold up in the next few weeks and then confirm.

Leakage is also solved. Looks like it were the beadings at fault. Again, this issue is still being monitored for some more time.

The expereince taking delivery of the car back was chaotic. I reached Fortune at 5pm after confirming with the advisor that the car was ready. After waiting for about 15-20 minutes I called his cell to be told that they were on a test drive to check if things were okay. By the time they got back there was a minor traffic jam inside Fortune with cars going out and coming in!

Now here starts the problem. The service advisor and us get into the reception and I am asked to sit. Waving, the advisor disappears inside the dealership. I call him after 10 minutes on the cell to get a out of coverage message! A few minutes later he appears and says he will start the billing process after he has filled up the warranty claim form. Now instead of waving at me couldn't he tell me to sit down while he gets the warranty documentation done?! If he did that, I would know what's going on instead of wondering where deep inside the secret crevices of Fortune has the advisor disappeared! He disappears again for about 15 minutes to complete the documentation so what the hell happened in the initial 10 minutes when he was out of coverage area!!. Almost 30 minutes have gone by and the invoicing has still not started! Anyway, I tell him to keep the job card open as the issue re-surfaces every few days and I would like to monitor if the problem is solved permanantly. I get a gate pass and I am out in a few minutes. Do note that I specifically asked them not to wash the car or I would have to hang around there till at least 7.30pm in which case I would have spent 2 hours and 30 minutes or 150 minutes just waiting to get my car back!

I am not sure how the process works but can't the warranty claim forms be filled after the customer has gone? Or isn't there a speedier way to do this? What I noticed at Fortune, Nerul is that no body is sure of how to go about their work. It's like they don't know how and who to approach for little things. Everyone seems to be busy , running around but precious little actually gets done!

 

The leakage issue is confusing! I didn't drive my car for about a week. After a week, I noticed the right side rear seat and carpet on the floor wet. Beadings have been changed 3 times now. The first two times the car came back with new beadings that were literally hanging loose. Dealership just shrugged their shoulders and said these are the parts we are getting from the company. The newest beadings are better but I am not sure if the leakage has still stopped!

Got the new keys too. Ordered in March, delivered in end August after a lot of chaos and confusion. After the new key's came dealer asked for key codes again to program the key. Didn't they take all these details at the time of ordering for the keys? Another day got delayed as I had to get the code from home the next day and send the car again to these bozo's.

A new issue. The driver's side window console was popping out. Got that done. Now the passenger side one is popping out! How many times should the car go for silly issues!!

Average refuses to go beyond 14kmpl. I used to earlier get minimum 17kmpl. Maybe time to change the oil and filers? Car has done 22K odd kms.

 

::OO .. Sorry Amit, but just feel like laughing.. You and I are going through these silly issues more often than not..

Vroom

 

Have you sent mails to everyone in FIAT from right from security guard to CEO ?.. Looks like that's only way to get the issues solved.