Honda, Arya Honda and My Honda (City)

Honda launched new version of City in January 2014. The car I was waiting for since quite sometime. At that time, even though I wanted to buy the car but was not ready for it.

I made up by mind after reading user experiences. Though, it took me 3 months to decide. Around 25th April, I called up Arya Honda showroom at Bhandup and asked for test drive.

Fixed the time and place for the test drive. Since, I wanted to gift this car to my parents, so decided to go for test drive bit away from my house. The guy was supposed to reach place by 12 in the noon, we (My friend and me) waited for the guy. Called him up after 10 minutes, the guy said, he will be reaching there in next 15 minutes.

We waited for another half an hour, this time he said, he was stuck with one of his clients in Mulund so he will reach in 10 minutes.

We waited for another 15 minutes, got reply saying, he is still stuck with his client. At this time, I was totally pissed off but still waited for another 10 – 15 minutes and called him up saying, if you don’t turn up within next 10 minutes, I am leaving. He promised me that he will be there in few minutes.

Obviously, that did not happen, I left the place. I get call after half an hour from the guy, saying, he is ready for the demo, he has left too. I deny as he kept us waiting for an hour, I hate guys who do not value time. After this, I sent mail to Honda with the feedback about the whole experience.

So that was my first negative impression of Arya Honda. In the evening, we decide to visit Hallmark Honda (Thane) for the test drive. We took the test drive but I was not convinced with the sales guy as his behavior was not positive, he was very polite but I felt like he was forced to sell the vehicle and was not really interested in selling it.

So I return home with a big question mark. I google around for reviews of both the dealers. Arya Honda had many positive reviews so I decided to wait for Honda’s reply thinking they will do something and my experience might be one of the rare ones.

I get reply from Honda within a day or so, also got call from Arya Honda. One of the team leaders called me, apologized for everything. I asked him for sometime to decide whether I should go with them or not.

Finally on 29th April, I called him and asked him to visit my office and collect the booking amount. Paid him Rs. 51,000 (booked black color) and got confirmation that the car will arrive within 3-4 months.

He sent his loan guy to collect the documents and all the formalities were completed within 2 days. And the count for the D-day started.

I called him up after 2 months, just to check if we were on track of the delivery schedule. I get reply from him saying, it might take more than 3 months but should get it in 4 months. I did not argue much as he had promised me 4 months max. In the meantime, Arya Honda started sending me my number in the waiting queue, this was helpful but painfully slow moving.

I was hoping to get the delivery on time as I wanted to give it to my parents and they were planning to go out of station in August.

But on 5th August, I came across an article which stated that Honda is going to shift their production from Noida plant to Tapukara plant in Rajasthan and Honda is going to pause production of the car for the whole month of August.

This was a shocker to me and I was expecting this kind of update to be received from Arya Honda, instead I had to keep tab on news related to Honda to get the updates.

I called up my guy, he confirmed the news and told me, my car won’t arrive in August and I will get it in september.

I lodged complaint about this to Honda, they forwarded the complaint to Arya Honda and in return got the reply that, they will get back to me with exact date on 1st week of september but it will definitely arrive in September.

I made up my mind for September but I still could not trust Arya Honda guys so kept tab on the forum treads about Honda City on Team BHP forum. On 12th August, a user posted about Honda stopping the production of Black color and they have taken it off from their site too. I cross verified this by checking Honda’s official website and the user was right.

This was another setback for me and Arya Honda failed to inform me about this too. I called up my guy to give him this news, he asked his seniors and confirmed the news.

“So now what?” I asked him, he told me to pick Golden Brown color and mail them for the record. My deliver date won’t change as it was not my fault.

I agreed and mailed them as per his instructions. Called him next day for the confirmation. He in reply told me, his sales manager (Girish) told him that the delivery will be done in October as I changed the color.

This is the worst moment of this whole booking drama. I was really angry on him and literally shouted at him and but he was helpless.

This was the moment, I felt, as if I am begging for the car and they are giving it for free. I wrote the same about it & mailed them expressing my disappointment.

Within 2 days, I got reply that, my color change request has been accepted and the car will be delivered in the month of September.

This gave my relief, at this point, I just wanted to pay them and get the car. No more complaints, interactions, absolutely nothing.

On 3rd September, I get a call from their sales manager saying my car will leave from their plant on 10th and I need to make the balance payment by 10th, I should get the car approximately within 10 days after that. I tell him, try and give the car by 20th or 22nd as my parents are going for another trip on 25th so I want to gift them before this date. But like always, he was noncommittal.

I made payment on 4th, they got balance amount from the bank on 7th.

The sales manager had given another team leader’s number for regular updates. So on 15th I call their team leader about status of the car, he informs me, the car never left on 10th, it left the plant on 12th.

I remained calm thinking I do not want anything to go wrong anymore. So I called him up for the update on 17th-18th, he tells me the car is still in transit. No updates yet.

On 19th evening, I call up the sales manager for the update and guess what? The car had arrived in morning at their warehouse in Panvel and we were waiting for you to inspect it.

I was like, I had asked you for VIN, you guys handle the inspection and on the top of it, why you did not update me in the morning, he did not have any explanation for this.

After verifying the VIN, I give him go ahead within an hour. (This was on Friday, 19th).

He told me, he will send the car for RTO registration on Monday and get everything wrapped up in 3-4 days. But as I was expecting, this was never done on Monday. I get call from their guy on Tuesday asking for few documents for registration purpose.

Upon asking him the reason for delay, his reply was as stupid as ever “Sir, my mother was hospitalized due to heart attack so I could not come on Monday”. Com’on, how many times do I have to hear such silly excuses.

At the same time, he said, you have not paid full amount of the car. I told him, I have paid as per what you had asked me to pay on September 3rd, showed up the final quote sent by their accounts guy. He said, the rates have increased and the quote they have sent you is completely wrong, insurance amount, car amount, everything is wrong.

I argued with him for sometime trying to understand why the hell they don’t cross verify the quote before sending confirmation mail to the client. Again, excuses were silly.

I gave up as I did not want to waste my time further, so gave him the cheque and asked him to wrap up everything quickly as I don’t have time and energy to waste on this anymore.

So finally, I get confirmation message from RTO informing about vehicle number (within 2 days). I set the delivery date to 29th i.e. today and FINALLY get the car.

In short, this was a pathetic experience for me, hated Honda for not being able to manufacture the cars on time. Hated Arya Honda to the core for hiring wrong people, the shocking part was, wrong, untrained guy on Managerial position.

So, if you are planning to buy any car from Arya Honda, Bhandup. Be prepared for the mess. It’s not necessary that every experience will be bad like this one but you must be ready for such treatment.

I hope the car’s driving experience and Arya Honda’s after-sales experience is good.

Update: Had mailed the feedback on to Honda on 7th October with everything what I have written in this post. Had asked them not to forward it to the dealer as I was not keen on wasting my time on discussing the same issue again. But sadly, their human bots did exactly opposite of it, i.e. informed the dealer.