Showrooms & Workshops

Everyone who owns a bike or a car has dealt with showrooms and workshops. Showrooms supply our favourite machines and on the other hand workshops maintain them. In India every Authorized car or bike dealer has a workshop as well, as from companies perspective these two are inseparable and there is no issues with that.

The main source of income for a bike or a car dealerships are workshops. Showrooms operate at quite reasonable margins and if you are good at bargaining you may get amazing deals at the showroom.

I wanted to talk about workshops and my experiences and observations at workshops. Everyone is emotionally attached to their vehicle, and just like religion it’s the business of fear. A vast majority of people do not know how an engine functions; they just want that their vehicle should function without any problem. This where the workshop people step in and exploit your fear and emotion.

The service advisor will suggest n number additional things that MUST (according to him only) be done in your vehicle, without which your vehicle might not function correctly like a more expensive synthetic engine oil, engine flushing, Teflon coating, etc to name some. However, some are good and some are totally useless, we shall discuss that in future blogs.

The Thumb Rule

I use a thumb rule to escape the tactics used by service centres/ workshops to rob you (this rule works for preventive maintenance only),” just get everything done as per the scheduled service as mentioned in the service manual”. If something is so important that it is essential for your vehicle then manufacturer would have included it in the scheduled service itself, after all they are the ones who have made the engine and the vehicle. Manufacturers carefully choose the things that are quintessential for smooth functioning of your vehicle and the panel includes senior engineers and other technical staff who are experts in their relative fields, and in my opinion they have a better opinion about your vehicle than the mechanic or the service advisor.