That’s what you call after sales service?

I’ve been a car freak all my life and owing to that invariably i’m asked to suggest “the best” car for either a family member or friend or a foe.

One question always stands out “How good is the service”?, I hear the “spare parts are expensive” .
So here is my response to all these “newbie” car junkies.

Pick up a car that you can afford.
Pick up a car that you feel happy about, maruthi, skoda, fiat, benz or any damn brand. “It really DOES NOT MATTER”.

(By now tempers might be raging already, aye!!) Hold your horses and hear me out.

From what i’ve witnessed first hand there is no brand with the infamous “after sales service” or what i’d like to call ASS 😉 .
In a price conscious society where everyone want everything at a cheap price it is just not possible to make livable profits and brands have to cut corners to maintain margin, some skimp on spare parts and the rest on ASS.

Let us be reasonable when we choose a car and stop asking that question of service over and over and over again because it’s worthless .

Lets talk technical now, shall we?
Most the mid segment brands have a yearly service routine and as your car starts churning up miles the cost of ownership also proportionately increases, that’s a no brainer but what we fail to understand is the fact unless a person is truly adventurous or he’s got a bad piece(of which ,there are in plenty) one rarely needs to go outside the service routines .

Now coming to the service itself, a car which has clocked 1,00,000kms would at best cost 25K annually and here is the interesting bit, the ‘cheapest car to own might cost you 21k’ and that’s about it, if you were to follow the schedule as is without an questions being asked regarding the legitimacy of the serviceable parts.

Lets dive a bit deeper, do your math and spending 25K a year would mean your monthly expense for the car is 2000Rs roughly (mind you , this is probably the highest your likely to pay).
Spending 21K a year would mean a monthly expenditure of 1750Rs a month. That’s right you are spending another 250RS extra and you want to go crazy about service costs? and ask every damn person ,making this a huge topic to choose a car.
To me this doesn’t sound silly , its pure idiocy. That’s right its called being a fool.

Lets talk more sense now. The problem of service doesn’t stop there the media(which has a huge impact on what car you buy, That’s right down here someone else tells you which car to buy, is it because your soft in the head ??)and great PR agents of brands make sure their troubles don’t get blown out to dampen the poor buyers spirit.

Lets talk even more sense 😉 (If its getting murkier, your damn right!!)
Just google for ‘Skoda rapid warranty issue”
“Skoda brake issues”
“Maruti recalls alto”
“Fiat recalls”

I can just go on and on, and you should be blind in the freaking eye to not see the 100s and 100s of posts being reported by users . Even premium brands are not spared . Everyone will have issues with quality for any number of reasons and their answers are just as absurd as the rest , the service for all these cars are the same .

So the next time you wish to buy a car , buy it for yourself . Buy one that makes you happy because if your worry about spending that 25K a year for the car then your not worthy of a car at all, which ever brand it may be!

By the way, i own a FIAT, which in “India” is tagged by media and almost everyone else as a terrible car with pathetic After sale service.
I’ve had no issues with spares till date, yes it might not be available immediately(same is the case with any brand) but it surely will be procured to be serviced.

Don’t be an A.S.S freak , just buy the one which makes you smile.