BMW BMW Bavaria Motors Navnit Motors dealer advertises luxury car We took many initiatives to address his problem and have even asked him to send his car to us, so we could check it. We also sent expert mechanics to attend on his car. We were open to discussion but now we will be responding through our legal team — Anjali Jain, general manager, customer relations, BMW India Itsit as the bigger, stronger, meaner car, and sure enough, for 28-year-old businessman Ashay Sawalkar, the BMW X1(priced at Rs 36.40 lakh) was an aspirational buy. But the woes his dream car has inflicted on him and the ineptitude of the automotive company and its dealer in diagnosing the problem and servicing it right, have pushed theenthusiast to issue legal notices to them, a year after buying the vehicle.Ruing his decision to buy the car, Sawalkar sent legal notices to BMW Bavaria Motors, BMW India and Navnit Motors Pvt Ltd on Saturday, December 15, for the dismal service provided by them, turning his car into a showpiece, keeping it off the road. The problem started within three months of the purchase.Sawalkar, who bought the luxury wheels in December last year on his mother’s birthday, was on the Mumbai-Gujarat Expressway in March this year, when the car broke down for the first time.“The car was sent to Mumbai for servicing at Navnit Motors Pvt Ltd. They told me there was a tyre burst, which was fixed. I picked up the car and was headed home to Pune the next day, when the car gave up again. At Pune, I was told they found a problem in the transmission and needed more time to work it. They blamed me for not briefing them properly,” Sawalkar told Mirror. The rounds of the workshops have not ended since.In the past year, his car has gone for repair five times, adding up to a cumulative of 100 days of inaction, and is still not well. “Despite getting the car serviced repeatedly and also red-flagging BMW on the issues I am facing, nothing has changed. Sometimes they claim the problems were misdiagnosed during the previous servicing, and then they come back with the same issues as pointed out earlier. Can you imagine driving a BMW that sounds like hammering something every time you drive? There is also a constant problem with the pick-up. It really hurts to drive such a vehicle after you dreamt of it all your life. I don’t think I will ever buy a BMW again after this horrifying experience,” he added.It has been particularly frustrating to have the car handed to him with the certification that it was absolutely fine by the engineers, only to have it break down shortly after. “I am paying Rs 62,000 as equated monthly instalment (EMI) on the car and am unable to drive it. My business has also suffered on account of the unreliability of the car,” Sawalkar pointed out. Unimpressed by the BMW experts’ inability to pin down the problem, his prognosis is that they are doing an ad hoc job each time that is not sustaining. When he pointed out that the car lags in acceleration, he was told the car is too advanced and takes appropriate acceleration.Refuting his allegations, officials at BMW Bavaria, Pune, insisted they are willing to pursue the case but Sawalkar has been holding them back. “We asked Sawalkar to give us his car for further diagnosis of the problem, but he refused. The initial diagnosis showed that the car was making a sound and we tried to sort it,” said Prashant Deshpande, general manager at the local dealer’s office. The automotive company acknowledged the receipt of his legal notice. “We have forwarded it to our legal team. We took many initiatives to address his problem and have even asked him to send his car to us, so we could check it. We also sent expert mechanics to attend on his car. We were open to discussion but now we will be responding through our legal team,” said Anjali Jain, general manager, customer relations, BMW India.

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