Hyderabad: Car service at your beck & call

Hyderabad: For car owners, getting their vehicles serviced can turn out to be a harrowing task. And if a car breaks down in middle of a journey in unknown terrain, the motorists are at the mercy of local mechanics who see it as an opportunity to fleece the stranded customer. To address this problem, Vamshi Krishna, Rakesh Varma and Nagendra founded UnclePi in December 2017. An online platform where people can book quick, affordable and quality servicing of their vehicles.

The Hyderabad-based start-up leverages technology to assist car owners to find repair and maintenance providers, while also partnering with service providers to train them and provide original spare parts.

While most prefer authorised service centers rather than the more affordable local car washing services because of lack of quality and transparency in services, UnclePi comes to rescue with trusted and industry experts for car services. "For residents of traffic-ridden and highly migrated cities, finding the best car service center is cumbersome. The authorised service centers are very expensive whereas multi-brand workshops do not follow standard procedures. The cost and quality associated with vehicle service is a pain and most of the time it is a mystery for the vehicle owners," said Vamshi Krishna, CEO UnclePi.

"Lack of trust and transparency, compromised quality of service and disparity in pricing are the major issues faced by the consumer and eventually, they end up compromising on their vehicle's servicing," he Krishna.

It has been three years when Vamshi met with an accident in which his car was damaged badly. He took it to various showrooms and the bill was unimaginable. Sharing his story on how the idea to start UnclePi struck, Vamshi says, "I took the vehicle to multiple local workshops but nowhere the price was consistent. With the budget limitation, finally, I reached a small workshop with full doubt on workshop quality and he accepted for Rs 9,000 to repair complete damage. He made my car new again. This incident made us think about establishing a company which solves the problem to end vehicle owner's woes. Because there is a huge gap between what customers know and what happens."

Currently operating in Hyderabad, the start-up is all set to launch its operations in Chennai next month. "We have around 5,000 plus customers in Hyderabad along with cab companies like Uber and Ola. In the next five years, we plan to expand on a full-stack workshop network model, where you can find a UnclePi service in every tier I and II city. This will change the ecosystem on how the car maintenance and service is handled and position us in a segment where we can embrace the future of electric cars," explains Vamshi.

UnclePi vision is to bring all the automobile service providers (ASPs) on to a common platform where anybody can easily find the best service centre nearby and book the service online. Further, to ensure that everybody has a healthy and smooth-running car. "We want to be the Google for the automobile service industry," says Vamshi.

UnclePi is an aggregator ASPs. The user can find the best car wash, car service, and wheel alignment and balancing centers in the city. Currently, specialising in the category of four-wheeler servicing the start-up is working on the preliminary design for bike service model which may launch soon.