My beautiful white Punto story!! - 1.3MJD EPK

Just a few days into it's launch, I decided that the Punto would be 'my' next car, I had fallen in love with it's looks the moment I saw it, it was just a matter of when!! I used to drive a 2005 Santro Xing XL then, due for a change the following year!

I eventually got to test drive the Punto as part of the looong list of TD's we took up during my Dad's car change process in late 2009. That drive basically sealed the deal for me, I was now certain about what I wanted! So, after a month long of other TD's and discussions later, it finally came down to the Linea Emotion Petrol Vs the Ford Fiesta 1.6 ZXI for my Dad and the latter won only becase he felt it was a risky proposition to have 2 FIATs in the same garage! (I was very strong in my decision about bringing the Punto home one day!!) That thought was justified because he had some troubled times with an Indica during the 5 years that he owned it previously and his experiences with TASS is'nt worth raving about!! He was willing to take a chance with one car, but not two!! It all came down to the quality of 'after sales service' for him!

Fast forward to Present, because of my Punto and my rapidly developing love towards a certain brand called 'FIAT', am sure, his next car is a FIAT!! :car I must also mention here that the service quality of TASS has indeed come a long way. Trust me folks, in my experience thus far, i can assure you (prospective buyers/owners) that TATA/FIAT are taking us customers very very seriously and am sure this is just a sign of better things to come!! :up

Back to my story - Now, with the Fiesta bought, I still had to wait very very patiently until my turn came, in the mean time I would drool at every punto i would see on the roads!! Also, made atleast one trip a month to a Tata dealership on the pretext of buying a GP for a Test Drive! Eventually ended up TD'ing the car atleast 6 times during the 7 month long wait!! Simply could not get enough of her!! :clap

March 28th 2010 - It was time, Come April 1st, the prices were expected to go up thanks to the rise in taxes. So, being a boring Saturday already, we decided to head to Concorde's Diary Circle showroom in the evening to check on the prices. Once there, It was a really busy evening and we had to wait a couple mins before a nice young sales chap greeted us! We spoke with a Finance officer there who promised us that if we were ready to commit right away, he would get the loan disbursed in time and register the car on the 31st of march provided my loan was approved! The sales person paralelly verified on the stock and confirmed they had 3 unblocked EPK March 2010 manufactured (CNZ) vehicles just out of the truck, 1 white and 2 red's!! He also confirmed all the 3 were actually BS4 vehicles!!

I then requested TATA Assured to evaluate my Santro that was going to be my downpayment for the Punto! I was going to take a call after the exchange price was quoted. Although my santro was a little under 5 years old, it only had 28K on the ODO and was in super condition. TATA was willing to take it for 2.15L, I did try to get them to take it for 2.30 but they assured me that this was the best price!! I gave them the nod and asked them to proceed with the formalities!!

I requested for a day to ponder over my choice of colors! I initially wanted to get the Blue but since it was not in stock and waiting was out of the question, i picked the White over the Red because we had already owned a Red Zen earlier and in my opinion, i thought the White looked a wee bit hotter than the red, a couple of my friends preferred White over the Red as well and thus, a decision was made, Bossa Nova White it was!!

In the meantime, our loan was processed with HDFC, the rate of interest was a flat 9.75% for a 5 year tenure, the loan amount - 5.5L. all the documentation requested for was provided the next morning, now all we had to do was patiently wait for Monday!! Come Monday, we received a couple confirmation calls and on Tuesday evening, i get a message letting me know that my loan was approved and that the cheque would be disbursed soon!! I did the PDI, more of a 'car dekho' the same evening, it was late, around 7'ish and I had no choices but to be content going around inspecting the car parked in the showroom's basement. I really did not do much in all the excitement, the only thing i looked for were scratches!! I did crank the engine and it sounded just fine. If i remember correctly, it had less than 30kms on the ODO, only driven from their yard to the showroom! Tuesday ended happily but nevertheless a sleepless night!! :clapping

March 31th 2010 - By evening, the punto was registered and I was pushing for delivery the same evening!! However, because they spelt my name horribly wrong on the registration/road tax slip, the sales chap had to send the guy back to RTO to get the spelling of my name corrected! There was also a delay in the insurance company issuing the cover note!! :hit

I eventually took delivery of my car on Friday, April 2nd 2010 and what an eventful day it was!! Will share the story of my delivery experience and the initial niggles and my first service experience in my next post!!

The final price i paid for my car was 7.28 OTR (Emotion PK) after all the discounts. Here are a few pics from the Delivery!! :up

Cheers!! :bye

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Quite a good hike in price man...

 

well, yeah, the taxes that one has to pay to get the car registered in bangalore apparently, the prices have gone up by another 40k, the current price of the 1.3 MJD EPK in bangy is around 7.6 OTR.

@grandeur - you really cannot go wrong with any color on the punto!!

Sorry guys, busy week this, will update this thread shortly!

 

congrats dude, there is 45-50k difference in the price after the march. delhi boys are the luckiest, we pay almost 60k more than them :A
don't understand there is a price diff in mumbai and pune too.
shake

 

Dood dont regret man.. Its a Gp we all r driving after all.. Color doest matter at times man.. I like the RED inspite got a BN White