Mr. Ranganathan who is based in Delhi approached the District Forum with complaint against Ford India seeking Rs 4.30 lakhs claim. He also demanded the replacement of the vehicle or refund of amount.

He approached the Forum on the basis that within a period of two weeks of buying the car on December 7, 2004 for Rs 4.95 lakhs, there was some trouble with the central locking system and since then, along with this problem various other problems had been reoccurring. He found that the central locking system of the vehicle got jammed while he was travelling in the middle of the road. He then had to take the vehicle to a dealer based in Delhi. The dealer called this problem as “mechanical defect.” In the following month, the same problem in locking system arose. Adding to this an additional problem in brake shoe also troubled the consumer. This problem too was rectified by the dealer. To the dismay of the vehicle owner, during his trip from Jaipur to Delhi, in the same month, the vehicle broke down again and he had to take his car to a dealer in Agra who rectified the problem.

Mr. Ranganathan also reported that the rear side glass of the car broke down on April 12, 2005. He then alleged that it was due to lack of quality, loose implantation and wrong fixation. Since then the owner of the vehicle faced these problems, which kept on occurring again and again. In order to fix these problems he had to spend his own hard earned money.

The District Forum directed Tamil Nadu based Ford India to pay the compensation to Mr. Ranganathan. Challenging this decision of the Forum, Ford India moved to The Delhi Consumer Commission.

The Commission headed by Justice Barkat Ali Zaidi dismissed the petition filed by Ford India stating that “It is the duty of the dealer/manufacturer under the law to provide a defect free vehicle to the purchaser. It becomes clear form the facts that the vehicle was suffering from various defects, which were most likely manufacturing defects. None of the opposite parties led any evidence in support of their contention that the defects were due to rash and negligent driving and were result of external impact.”

This decision of the Consumer Court serves as boon to the consumer as it will help him/her get compensation if there exists any defect that reoccurs again and again in the product that will annoy the owner of the product persistently.

File your consumer complaint here.

Picture from here.