So I scheduled for the home pickup of my Kylaq for the welcome service (my car had just hit the 1000 km mark). The driver from the service Center arrived early morning, made me sign the form for handover (this part haunts me still), and then proceeds to take photos of my car and prepares to leave. As he’s leaving, I gently say “pls drive the car carefully”, to which I receive a hollow nod of acknowledgement.
Not even 30 minutes later, I get a call while I’m sitting in a work meeting at home that the driver of my Kylaq has gotten into an accident with a cab driver not even 20 meters outside my society gate. I rush out, only to find my precious car’s pieces scattered on the road.
Luckily, neither of the drivers or anyone else around was injured. I am told that the service Center driver was at clear fault, and that the service will bill my car insurance for the repairs to my car (because I signed the waiver during handover which says - “Vehicle will be driven at owner’s risk, any damage will be debited against the consumer’s insurance. The dealership only provides pick up and drop service as a courtesy”. That means - no claim bonus for subsequent insurance years is GONE, and a record in insurance history of the car being accidental for the rest of the period - even when I myself wasn’t the person behind the wheel but the driver from the dealership. All this because of the waiver which conveniently mentioned a disclaimer in tiny letters.
To add to this fiasco, the cab driver that my Skoda hit (while being driven by the service Center driver) is demanding money for damages. Police arrives, and the matter shifts to the local police station. The Skoda representatives arrive at the station (extremely late might I add), only for them to advice me that let the cab driver do whatever they want (including starting a court trial for this), and that they’ll get my car out on superdhari and fight in court. I could NOT afford this, given the car is in my mother’s name and I can’t ever extend the stress of all this on her shoulders.
So what do I end up with? A car that’s damaged badly. Money that I’ve contributed (along with Skoda reps) to pay off the cab driver to arrive at a settlement (willingly so, but only because I was at the police station with them for over 6 hours and wanted this settlement to go through at any cost to avoid legal troubles in future), and no car to drive to and from work for 2 weeks. God knows what the condition of the car will be when I do get it back + what the future of this car’s ownership looks like. But, in all honesty, all of this seems too convenient for the Skoda dealership involved.
I could take them to court. I doubt the waiver they made me sign during handover has any legal standing in consumer court - but is it really worth the effort and time?