What Honda does not understand Maruti does!
I think anybody who has had a premature failure of the clutch of his car has heard the excuse that all car manufacturers give immediately, that is, they tell you that the fault is yours because you have been overriding the clutch. They have now added another excuse, that is, the bumper to bumper driving conditions in the city you live in. Honda gave me these excuses when my Honda car’s clutch and flywheel failed at 30,000 km and just a few days back Maruti dealer gave me the same excuse also when my Swift car’s clutch failed at 20,000 km. Some of you who had responded to my blog had also complained of Honda’s clutch problem.
Now with both the companies, I had raised the following points:
(a) One cannot override the clutch unless one is crazy or totally drunk. Why? Simple. It is very inconvenient on your feet and legs to override the clutch. Also, overriding the clutch will hamper the acceleration of the car and you will get to know that you are doing something wrong. In any case, I asked both the companies to demonstrate to me how a sane person can override the clutch but no one has accepted my challenge.
(b) If the traffic conditions are bad then they are bad for practically all the Swifts and Honda City cars being driven in Delhi. As such, there should be premature failure of clutch of at least 50% of the cars. If this is true, then I have no issue to discuss. However, if this is not true then there was something wrong with my clutch and it should be replaced under warranty.
I told the service engineers of both the companies that engineers are supposed to be logical and as such, they should logically explain the failure of the clutch. Honda engineer could neither explain logically and nor could its CEO. However, Maruti engineer understood my logic and agreed to replace my clutch FOC even though my car was out of warranty.
One of the cars in our family has always been a Maruti and we have been very satisfied with not only their cars but also with their service. I have found that they are willing to at least listen. I am sure they also have dissatisfied customers but I think if one pursues the problem with them, one can expect to get it resolved. One thing that I like about Maruti cars is that they are low on maintenance and also their service costs are low.
As some of you who have read my blog about my problems with Honda City, I even approached their CEO a number of times. I even sent them my innovative customer dissatisfaction cards but they do not listen. No wonder they are recalling their cars to fix problems. I thought the Japanese wrote the book on customer satisfaction and relationships but my experience suggests otherwise.
Taking my experience into consideration, I would recommend you buy a Maruti car and don’t touch a Honda car with a 10 foot pole. This is my way of thanking Maruti for taking care of their customers when they needed help. For a change I have seen a company walk its talk unlike Honda which brands it service One2One but is actually just ONEway, that is, you talk or send email but they don’t listen. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to let Honda CEO know that they need to learn from Maruti how to resolve clutch problems.
By the way, now you also know how to deal with auto companies when your clutch fails prematurely.
Avinash Narula
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Loading ...
Both Honda and Swift (Suzuki?) clutch premature wear problems could be solved with a 100% Kevlar commposite clutch disc. Tell your dealer to “think outside the box” and have a re-builder use Clutchtex from http://www.Tribco.com
Reply