I own a magnesium grey 2009 SDX. Recently i noticed that the rear left door and the front left fender happen to be of a different color than the rest of the car. This was confirmed (by the service manager) to be a mfg defect the last time i took my car to Concorde (last sat'day). This looks like a gradual fade out bcoz the color difference wasnt so obvious at the time of purchase. But in the last two weeks, this diff has bcome glaringly obvious. My 6 month old car is now looking like junkyard scrap.
The intriguing part is FIAT REFUSED to re-paint this under warranty. The reason they are citing is that my vehicle has met with an accident once and that the warranty for the body parts are void after an accident!!!
This is totally absurd because the accident happened due to scraping with a bike on the RIGHT hand side. And the faulty paint job is on the LEFT door and fender. Since the vehicle was bought, i didnt have even a tiny scratch on the door and fender for which am claiming warranty. Any idea abt who at FIAT/TATA motors is responsible for such mindless warranty policy??
ou should not accept this excuse! Its a well known fact that Fiat has paint issues, please take it up with them, if necessary in a consumer court. Getting it repainted at your expense can set you back by almost 10k!
Who in fiat told you that they will not do it under warranty?
I never heard of any Stile having paint issues, did you? I've heard SOME of the older Palio owners complaining abt the paint fading/peeling away. I personally didn't speak wid anyone frm FIAT yet. The service manager says there is someone from FIAT at TATA motors who takes such decisions on warranty (or so i understand). Yesterday, the service manager said that a higher-up official from TATA motors is scheduled to visit concorde next week and they will show my vehicle to him and get his opinion it seems! I don't know if this higher-up frm TATA motors can over-rule FIAT's warranty policy!
When i told the service manager that i will talk to the FIAT officials myself, he asked me not to do that until after next week. Something looks fishy here....
Getting it re-painted myself might cost around 10,000 but not sure how much it costs to take this to consumer court. I am hoping the issue will be resolved without resorting to such extreme steps.
The Stile version does come with poor paint quality. It will be 2 years for me this September but havent observed fading but issues with scratches. That shows the depth of the paint quality. A slight scratch in my F.Red displays the white background. A little scratch in Plastic components exposes the black portion. It is just very poor I should say.
I'm not sure how the Mag Grey fairs in such cases.
The Palio Stile doesn't reflects the superior quality of the retro Palios in all aspects. At the early launch of Punto and Linea, I heard FIAT got a separate Paint booth in their plant so that should be doing good job now in new cars.
Incase of your problem, what I would suggest you is take snapshots of the door and fender with the obvious differences and send this to FIAT Service as well as the Dealer manager. Let them be aware that xyz person mentioned to you that this does not come in warranty etc and if that is true. Atleast you can get confirmation if that info is true from the horses mouth and what can be done to resovle your matter.
Also submit your accident and repair details where it was done. This leaves them with no chance that ur claim is false. I assume they should treat this under warranty and acknowledge as factory paint defect. If you want to wait, you can meet up the TATA guys and mention about your problem and see what they say so the stile version does have paint issues too! I never knew that small scratches resulting in black scratches shud b attributed to a poor paint job. In dat case, its even bad wid mag-gray, the smallest of black scratch becomes very obvious
The accident repair was carried out at Concorde. Infact this color difference was noted when i was taking delivery of my car frm them after the accdnt repairs. When i pointed it out to them, they took a snapshot immediately and sent out the mail to FIAT. I just asked my service advisor to give me some doumented proof that paint/color warranty stands void incase of any accident to any part of the car.
I went thru almost every line in my warranty policy and service manual booklet. It just mentions that color/paint warranty is valid for 18 months provided the car is properly stored and maintained by owner. For accidents, it mentions that any damage to the parts involved in accident or any other consequential damage will not be covered by warranty.
One more thing, i can't say for sure that it's a fading issue. The other day during PUG meet, Raveendra was looking at my vehicle and spotted this difference and was saying that it might be because of batch variations. It looks like there is an initial color diff due to batch variations, but that got more prominent as the faulty color gradually faded out while the rest of the car remained shining..
You are right in your assumption about Fiat specialists at Tata Showrooms. At least, that is what I experienced at Concorde Dairy Circle (Bangalore). You should contact them for a trouble-free experience.
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