Polo stuck at authorised service center for 16 months: Owner stages protesr

German car manufacturer Volkswagen’s Polo was as very popular car in its segment. The car has now been discontinued from Indian market but, it is still very popular among enthusiasts. We have now come across an incident where a Volkswagen Polo owner has been protesting in front of dealership in Kerala after his car is stuck with dealer for over 16 months. The car had an issue in 2021 and since then it has lying in the dealers yard as the service center is not willing to fix the issue under warranty. The owner of the Volkswagen Polo is a serial and film actor named Kiran Aravindakshan.

The video has been shared by asianetnews on their YouTube channel. As per the report, Kiran who is an actor had bought a Volkswagen Polo 1.5 TDI back in 2019. When he bought the car, the car had 4 years r 1 lakh factory warranty and other than this, the actor also opted for 2 years extended warranty. He used the car for over an year and clocked almost 58,000 km in the car. On 27 August 2021, the same Volkswagen Polo TDI stopped working and the owner rquested for an RSA. The car was then brought to EVM Kochi, which is one of Volkswagen’s authorised dealer in Kerala.

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The car was brought to EVM Kochi Marad service centre and is said to be inspected. After inspection, the service centre personnel claimed that the fuel tank had water content in it and that is the reason why the car had stopped working. The service centre provided the owner with an estimate of Rs 2.7 lakh to fix the issue. They refused to fix the issue under warranty as they said it was driver’s fault that the water went into the fuel tank. Kiran was asked to go and check and petrol pump from where he had filled the fuel before the issue occured. He mentions that the car had not stopped immediately after refuelling and after inspection, they were unable to find any issue with the fuel as well.

The owner now claims that the service centre is denying him the warranty on his car and are hiding the exact issue of the vehicle. The car is parked in the yard of the dealer in Kochi itself and is collecting dust both on the outside and inside. The exterior panels on the car also have couple of dents and scratches. On 7 September 2021, the Volkswagen service centre came up with a revised estimate of Rs 1.2 lakh and they were still not willing to fix the issue under warranty. The owner of the car even wrote to Volkswagen about the issue but has not received any response yet.

The owner then filed a case by mid September 2021 in Consumer court. In March this year, the court ordered to collect fuel from the affected car and sent it to a lab for testing. The sample was sent to a Govt. labratory in Kochi and in May, the report revealed that there was no water content inside the fuel tank. Even after the test results have come out, the service centre is not willing to fix the car under warranty. Volkswagen has asked court to sent the sample to a test laboratory in Pune, recommended by Volkswagen as the Govt. lab report is not admissible for warranty.

Since December 8th, Kiran -the owner of the Polo TDI is standing outside the EVM Kochi dealership with a placard in his hand for justice. The owner had bought car on loan and is still paying EMIs for it while his car is denied warranty and parked in a service centre for the last 16 months. Recently, a customer from Kerala got Rs 3 lakh compensation after she filed a case against Ford for false mileage advertisement for Ford Fiesta.

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