What do you do when you buy a $80,000 car and it fails to perform up to your expectations? You take it to your dealer and have it fixed under warranty, right? What if even after repeated attempts to repair the fault, it continues to persist? May be you would choose the legal recourse? That clearly wasn’t the choice for Rahul Thakar, the owner of a shiny new Jaguar XF luxury saloon. The man who lives in Ahmedabad city in the Indian state of Gujarat was so miffed with the apathy that the dealership and Jaguar showed to him, he came up with this unique way to protest against it.
According to Luxury Launches , the previous week, people in the prosperous Indian city of Ahmedabad were privy to a bizarre sight. The city which is used to seeing luxury saloons zip past them at three digit speeds, stopped and gawked when they saw a white Jaguar XF covered in hay being accompanied by seven donkeys. The destination of the Jaguar was the dealership that sold the car to its owner.
Affixed on the front grille,windscreen and the windows of the Jaguar were graffiti written in the owners local language, Gujarati. The literal translation of some of those went like these. On the grille, it was written “Bogus Car, bogus company, bogus service”. On the front windshield of the Jaguar, there was some English bit which read ” It’s better to buy Donkeys than a Jaguar”. On the right side, a poster said a six seater rickshaw would perform better than the Jaguar XF. In all, this surely was an embarrassing sight for officials of the dealership and not to mention, Jaguar.
In the past, we have seen angry car owners resorting to more violent means in order to express their dissatisfaction. Last year, a man had used a sledgehammer to destroy his BMW M6 after he was unhappy with it. At around the same time a Chinese Maserati Quattroporte owner hired four men to smash the car into a mangled pulp. The Indian man, staying true to the non violent means preached by Mahatma Gandhi who once lived in the same city, showed that you can be non violent and be effective at the same time. After the incident went viral on social media, Jaguar seems to have taken note of the issue and has promised to look into the matter and solve all the issues with the car, reports Rush Lane .
That said, this certainly wasn’t the first time an Indian has tried this method. Not long ago, another Gujarati citizen had tied cows to his Mercedes E Class after he received shoddy service from the company. Also pertinent to note is the fact that Jaguar is now owned by Indian auto giant, Tata.
Anyway, the next time you face an issue with your Jaguar, you know what to do!
[Image Via Rushlane]