The ordeal of buying a new car in India

In 2010, Volkswagen launched the Polo in India. It is a gorgeous car and looked especially luscious in Red. I had such a crush on this car that I put my booking deposit down even before I took a test drive.

Ding.

The car arrived into the showrooms and I went in to ask for a test drive. They did not have a test drive vehicle yet and they were unlikely to have one for a while. They were delivering every car they had because the demand was so high. I sat in the car, caressed the steering wheel and after getting high on the new car smell, made full payment for the Highline version with all options.

Ding.

I was supposed to get delivery in about 4 weeks. When I called to check, they said they were not getting any highline models because VW India had anticipated higher demand for the middle variant. They could deliver one of those if I was willing to take one.

Ding.

Then one day, the dealership called. My car had arrived. It would be registered the next day and I would be able to take delivery 2 days hence. I called them 2 days hence. There was a small problem they said. It would take another couple of days.

Ding.

Finally, the big day was here. I went over to collect the car. They handed over the keys and the person in charge of the delivery process started to tell me about the features of the car. "This is where you put in the key, this is the headlight switch, and this is the radio and CD player," he droned on, as I rolled my eyes. As he got to the audio system though, I noticed there was no pause button on the console and asked him how to pause the CD. He looked puzzled, trying hard to recollect this part of this training. Then he started to push every button on the console hoping for a miracle, hoping desperately that one of the buttons would be the pause button. Then he showed me that the CD stopped playing if I switched to the radio.

Ding.

I started the car. It shuddered and rumbled like a Diesel.

Ding. Ding.

Wait. “I hope you haven’t registered the wrong car. I had put my money down for a petrol engine car. If I had wanted a tractor, I would have bought I tractor,” I said. Before he disappeared to go check, I pulled out my booking receipt and showed him the part where it said PETROL. He walked around to the back of the car, read the decals, came back to the driver’s door, and said, “Sir, this is a petrol car.” I had just bought myself a petrol tractor.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

Every time I had heard those "Ding" sounds over the last two months I had looked around to see what the noise was. Only now did I realize, it was the alarm bell going off in my head.

This was not going to be the car I had lusted after. It started like a Diesel, it went like a diesel and it grumbled like a diesel. I am NOT a diesel person. Defeated, I took the car home and started using it for my daily commute. In a few days, rains lashed Pune and I was driving home through ankle-deep water. Ankle deep, mind you, not waist deep. The next morning, the car grumbled to life and sputtered a little but did not stall. I depressed the clutch pedal, slid the gear-shift into reverse and eased off the pedal. The car did not move. The engine struggled, then stalled. I tried again. Same result. The brakes had jammed.

I drove my trusty Honda City to the dealership and they were kind enough to agree to send a mechanic home with me. I took one look at the mechanic and his unbelievably dirty overalls and said I am sorry, but there is no way he is not going to sit in my car in those grease stained clothes. I had not guarded the new car smell in my 6 year old car to have it replaced with the aroma of warm grease. The manager took one look at the mechanic and agreed to send him with a service car. The mechanic arrived in the same dirty overalls and sat on my brand new Polo’s fabric upholstery in the same dirty overalls. He started the car, put it into reverse and it stalled. He then stuck it into first gear and raced the engine coaxing the car forward. The rear wheels dragged a black strip on the concrete floor. Then there was a bang and the brake was un-jammed. He stepped out and grinned triumphantly. “Problem solved, sir.” he said, “They all do that if you have driven through water.”

They all do that, do they? My humble Maruti did not do that. My Honda had never done that. My Mitsubishi has not even considered doing that. This must be the German engineering they sold me. And it is not just me. I have a friend who owns a German luxury automobile. Every rainy season, he has to take it to the dealership to have a certain windshield overflow channel cleaned, for otherwise the rain finds its way into the car to dribble onto his shoes while he is driving. He has surrendered to this reality. What still bothers him though is the length of the queue at the dealership to get this particular job done. But I digress.

Flash forward to December 2014. I bought another new car and my experience with the sales team’s knowledge about product features was no better than my experience detailed above. In the new car, I could not find the pause button for the CD player either. But there is a workaround, a feature even, if you care to look at it that way. In the new car, if you mute the CD player, it pauses the track. In the Polo, you had to switch to the radio to stop playing the CD. In this new car, you cannot switch off the radio; you can only switch the source to CD if you do not wish to listen to the radio.

But this is definitely a better car. And I am pretty sure this new car’s parking brake is not going to jam during the monsoon. Because this monsoon, I am going to use my reliable Japanese car. Am going to leave my new pride and joy where it belongs – safe and sound in my garage under it's Tyvek cover– until the sun comes out again.