Automakers come out with exchange offer for flood-hit vehicles

Honda also announced that it will be offering loyalty points of up to Rs 20,000 to the existing customers if they buy a new Honda car

The passenger car manufacturers have come up with exchange offers to customers who were affected during the recent Chennai rains. Maruti Suzuki and Honda recently announced offers to exchange the flood-damaged cars along with some other discounts. However, some car owners complain that the charges for repairing has gone up substantially after the floods including for those aspects that are not covered under the insurance plan.

Last week, Maruti Suzuki organised a sales initiative where it offered exchange for flood-damaged cars, whatever the status of the car may be, allowing a discount of around Rs 20,000 subject to various conditions. It has also announced that some of the allied charges related to the purchase would also be waived off for such customers. This is apart from its other initiatives including offerings to repair the cars that were damaged.

The move is expected to help the customers to exchange their cars that are beyond repair.

Japanese automobile major Honda also earlier announced that it will be offering loyalty points of up to Rs 20,000 to the existing customers if they buy a new Honda car. Taking cognisance of the point that a large number of cars have been damaged by the floods, the carmaker is giving an exchange bonus of Rs 30,000 to customers who are willing to exchange their old car with a new one.

While the companies are looking at such initiatives to support their loyal customers, a few customers have complained that the dealers are charging exorbitant amount as parking fee and other charges, which are not covered under the insurance policy. According to reports, customers also complained that some of the dealers are also charging around Rs 4,000 or above for preparing the estimate for repairing and higher charges for related jobs such as towing the vehicle to the workshop.

However, the service providers explain that the higher charges on parking would be due to the higher charges to be paid towards the land where the cars are temporarily parked for repairing. Various car manufacturers have came forward offering services to these cars as a measure to support their customers in the past few weeks.