Archive for the ‘car workshop’ Category

Car Servicing & Repair Cost

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

What is the price of car servicing? Commonly asked question. Works managers are very conscious to reply the same because people confuse with “parts” and “consumable” items . Repair cost differs from normal car servicing.

Car Repair

Dealer charges 50% more labour than small workshop because of their costly labours. During warranty period, labour cost is free and customers just need to pay for lubricants and small liquid top ups. 45% cars owners even do not know or they do not take chances to get their car servicing at car workshops other than dealer service centre.

In india, cost estimation is still not exact and dealers try to be accurate during car check up. Customers are different and trusting dealer for cost estimation remains doubtful until he gets his car with satisfactory delivery. Small workshops run on referrals. That is the only way they can build trust or car owners consider them cheater.

The new trends are authorized multi brand workshops. To build trust, branding is important and corporate are coming up with good processes to give cost estimation accurate. Bosch has opened more than 500 authorized Bosch Car Service center in India and more corporate are coming up with same business model. Even corporate are trying to give small workshops technical training but making transparent cost of car servicing is still a problem for car owners. Maruti and Hyundai are opening more authorized workshops (non-OEM dealer) .

Car servicing facility for every 25 km across India

Sunday, November 27th, 2011

Affordability and convenience of buying a car in every city has increased demand. A recent estimate says the total number of vehicles in India are 60-70 million and 14% are cars and taxis (wiki).

After-Sales service would become a major criteria while selection of any car for buying. Maruti announce to add 1500 car servicing outlets by 2015 and plans to open car servicing facility for every 25 kms across India.

Maruti has a large network of MASS (maruti authorized service station) apart from servicing outlet at dealerships. Presently Maruti has 2992 maruti service stations in 1,406 cities in India.

In small town, customers need to get their servicing done from nearest major city. Opening service centers everywhere within 25 kms definitely would help customers to enjoy facilities. This approach definitely help increasing Maruti cars sales.

Last year Tata Motors focus on after sales service to increase sales of Nano in small towns. Now for every car manufacturer, building a network of car servicing outlets also is become important while opening sales outlets.

Source:
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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Why Do Majority Buy Maruti? Not because of features, it is servicing

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

Maruti is a large producer of cars in India, nearly 10 million maruti vehicles. Over the 27 years of its life, Maruti has become the bedrock of India’s emergence as world’s second-fastest growing automobile market.

Maruti spokeperson says “A person can travel some distance to buy a car… but how far he has to travel to get his car serviced thereafter, often forms the basis of his decision on which car to buy” (HT)

The company is opening car workshop at highest altitude of 3,740 meters above sea level in Himachal Pardesh.  In hill stations, people prefer maruti because of availability of Maruti service centers. Managing logistic at hill station for servicing is not easy when vehicle needs spares.

Maruti has a network of Maruti dealers, Maruti Service Zone and Maruti Authorized Service Stations. They follow Maruti standards and regular auditing for maintaining quality servicing. Spread across 1,406 cities and towns of India, Maruti Suzuki’s 2992 workshops is the highest number of service centers, that any car maker has in India.

Related Links and Source:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Maruti-in-sight-of-10-mn-peak/Article1-672332.aspx

http://www.indiancarsbikes.in/auto-news/maruti-opens-worlds-highest-car-workshop-kaza-himachal-pradesh-45498

Tips to choose a better car repair shop

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

It is obvious that you have spent countless minutes before you bought your car. Your car, of course, is a prized possession and you wanted to make sure that you know all the important information before making the decision. Unarguably, you considered a lot of things before you zeroed down on a particular model.

But seldom, or perhaps never, you took too much care about the garage, service center or the workshop which will handle your car once the warranty period is over, and you no longer want to go to the company’s outlets. Why is it so?

Without doubt, you should take care of who handles your car. There is a lot of trouble if it falls in the wrong hands. Car owners in tier-2/tier-3 cities should be more careful about this. We will discuss briefly about what you should consider before you choose a workshop for your car.

The best way to start is to talk to car owners around your area. Ask their reviews and what they do while they have to choose a workshop. The word of the mouth rating serves as the best source to get your first list of good workshops around your area.

The second step would be to visit 2-3 workshops. If possible, try to get a small job done by them. This would give you access to their functionality and facilities. You should also try to talk to the service adviser and try to know the depth of his knowledge. The technical skill of the people who will actually execute the process is of utmost importance.

The third step would be about the convenience and the facilities. A good workshop should have a separate waiting room, restroom, availability of drinking water, and perhaps even the location.

Once you have finalized these preliminary checks, you can go for pricing. Of course, smaller and lesser known workshops would be cheaper. But make sure they have proper technology to handle the machine. There is no point in opting for a cheaper service while it leads to more damage than protection.

At the end, if you like a particular workshop, recommend it to others. This practice serves as a common pool of knowledge where some best workshops in the area are referred and recommended by people with each other providing some valuable information.

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About the author:

Vivek is a mechanical engineer and has more than 7 years of experience as a writer. He blogs about various topics; entrepreneurship being one. His interests range from poetry, music to photography and travel. He can be reached at sdkrdk@gmail.com

Repair costs hit car owners hard

Monday, July 4th, 2011

Many of us buy a new car because we presume that the chance of something going wrong is less likely, plus for the first three years your car should be covered by the manufacturer’s warranty. After warranty expired, we have no choice but find another car service center to save costs. Manufacturer dealers offer extended warranty but overall labour costs and repairing costs are increasing.

45% motorists retained by dealers even after warranty. They are more quality conscious and ready to pay heavy, but trend is changing now. With increase in petrol prices, car owners could be feeling more strained than ever and would like to save repairing costs.

In India, on an average car owners spend Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000 annually after warranty for servicing and minor running repairs. Major repair costs are very high. In UK, research shows thousands of three and four-year-old cars cost an average £338 to repair after the manufacturer’s warranty has expired.

There is no other agency to cover for car warranty, but UK has company like warranty direct which claims providing better warranty after manufacturer;s warranty expired.

Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk