[Resolved]  Hyundai Santro Xing — Complaint on Hyundai owned Service centre - HMPL

Dear Sir/Madam,
I have a Hyundai Santro Xing XG, bought in Nov end 2004. I am the only driver, single owner and have driven less than 29, 000/- Kms. I had purchased 4 years extended warranty and additional rust proof coating for extra protection. The vehicle has not met with any major accident and has minor dents and scratches, which is typical of any city driven cars. The vehicle is otherwise in a immaculate condition.

The vehicle was serviced and maintained throughout by HMPL (Company owned serviced centre), Chennai, except for the last time in Dec 2008 where I was forced to service it at Kun Hyundai, Adyar, authorized Hyundai Service centre as I was not able to get a paid service appointment for more than 2 months. I waited for the same but on the day of appointment in Nov 2008, I had to go to US and hence missed the appointment at HMPL . When I asked for the appointment again, I was given one around the end of Jan 2009. Since it was too late and the service was due, I had no choice but to go for another service centre (Kun Hyundai). After the service by Kun, I was told that the pick-up is a little less in 2nd and 3rd gears and that I need to change the tuning sprocket which would cost about 1000/- Rs.

Since the vehicle was maintained throughout by HMPL, I immediately took it to them (2nd week of Jan 2009) as I was not comfortable with any other person servicing the vehicle. The vehicle was test driven by a service engineer, coordinated by Mr. Ponraj of HMPL. He said that there are no immediate problems and asked me to take up a appointment for thorough check up. As usual the date given was a month's delay, sometime in early Feb 2009. Unfortunately, I missed the appointment again due to my work related travel (I am a S/w professional and travel abroad on business trips often). I again took the car to HMPL on the 25th Feb 2009 and was told that I need to wait for a month to get an appointment. Mr. Karthik, service engineer, was kind enough to do a test drive looking at me pleading with the service front desk. He was not able to find out anything from the drive test and used a portable testing kit to check the parameters. He said everything was ok and if required asked me to get an appointment for checking the internals of the car. I immediately booked an appointment and got a date of 27th Feb 2009 (more than 1 month since the requested date).

On the 27th Feb 2009, I left the vehicle for service at 9am and mentioned to the service engineer Mr. Nirmal, that test drives were done by 2 of their folks and specifically gave the reference of Mr. Karthik. He mentioned that he will look into the problem and I can take the delivery of the vehicle by the evening, same day. I called Mr. Nirmal twice at 2pm and 4pm but he said that they are still working on it and haven't found anything. At around 4.30 pm, I received a call from Mr. Nirmal, saying that they need to open the engine to check it and would cost about 25, 000/- Rs. I was shocked to hear the same as it has been maintained throughout by HMPL and run very less kms. I said that I wanted to talk to the customer service manager and then spoke to Mr. Vasudevan. He said that I had not done my services in time (every six months) and at times have driven for more than 7 months and hence could be the problem. I was again shocked to hear this as I have been taking utmost care of my car and check the engine oil, coolants etc every 3 months. Whenever I had asked for a service date the service person used to say that my vehicle has run very less kms and hence can wait for some more time and have given me appointments 1.5 to 2 months in future.
The same service centre folks are now saying that there is a problem as it has not been serviced every 6 months which is paradoxical.

Added to this is the vague answers given by them until Saturday evening saying that there could be a problem with the compression and if they open the engine and if there are only minor problems then it would cost Rs. 25, 000/-. I have lodged a complaint on this to Hyundai on the 27th March and haven't received any response till date. It appears that they are trying to take me for a ride without proper analysis and making me pay an exorbitant amount saying that the warranty is over in Nov 2008 and I have not serviced my vehicle every 6 months. I have retained all my service records since I purchased the vehicle.

I would like to get proper justice on this rather than irresponsible answers from the service team without being able to tell me the problem and trying to pass the blame. Also, there has been no response from the Hyundai Customer Service team for the complaint that I had lodged. I fail to understand how a vehicle which has run less than 29, 000 kms, single owner and single person driven have a problem to the extent of repairing the engine which is the heart of the vehicle. I feel really cheated, frustrated and sad for becoming a Hyundai customer