Fiat India to set up its own sales and service company

Fiat India Automobiles Limited is a 50-50 joint venture between the Fiat Group of Automobiles in India and Tata Motors India. Tata and Fiat had agreed to produce, sell and service Tata and Fiat vehicles under the same umbrella. 

However, any Fiat customer and/or loyalist in the country will tell you that while the Grande Punto and Linea are rather good products, their sales have been hampered due to poor after sales service at the Tata-Fiat service centres. Servicing both Tata and Fiat cars under one roof was pushing the capacity of service centres a bit too far (Report).

Fiat and Tata have now mutually come to an agreement that a separate Fiat-owned company to handle the distribution and after-sales service of Fiat vehicles in India – a step that the Italian car maker feels is important to improve the brand’s performance in the market. Tata Motors will hand over the distribution and service responsibility of Fiat vehicles in India to the Fiat-owned company being set up for creating an exclusive Fiat experience. 

Tata and Fiat will continue their manufacturing activities at its Ranjangaon facility in Maharashtra. Currently, the Grande Punto, Linea and Tata vehicles are manufactured at the plant along with engines and transmissions. Fiat has also come to an agreement for supplying 1 lakh units more of its 1.3-litre Multijet diesel engine to Maruti Suzuki per year over above the number of engines already supplied to Maruti Suzuki. The agreement has been signed for the next three years until Maruti Suzuki’s upcoming diesel engine manufacturing plant is up and functioning. 

So far, the Tata-Fiat joint venture has produced some 1.90 lakh vehicles and 3.37 lakh powertrains since the JV was signed on October 19, 2007. The company plans to double production of both vehicles and powertrains in the coming years.

Fiat’s new company will work towards creating new facilities for the existing 178 Fiat franchised Tata dealers across 129 cities into exclusive Fiat centres that will take over all commercial and service activities currently handled by the Tata-dedicated team managing Fiat sales and service. This will mean, finally, Fiat will have after sales service levels that can match the quality of its products.