Who’s callous? Company or dealer? My colleague wanted to replace his wife’s old Maruti 800.
Duties for the car to perform are simple. It’s for her short trips to local market. Dropping her son for tuition and guitar class. Going to meet her parents few kilometers away. And once in a while go out for those weekend evening trips here and there. For long drive, they have a Baleno.
My colleague asked me for my opinion. I told him to go for any one of these: ALTO, WAGON R, SANTRO.
All these are ok and time-tested. In short a no brainer.
He agreed and possibly narrowed down his focus on SANTRO. But his wife and son had other plan. They wanted to go for dumb, dumb, dumb.
Last Saturday afternoon car arrives from showroom to our office. From third floor’s balcony while having my after lunch smoke, car did look shiny and cute. Our office driver took it out immediately to SOUND FACTOR for ICE fitting.
Surprise surprise. Car sounded rather rough for a petrol engine from third floor.
After it came back, I went down to see the car and listen to new ICE set up. While having an overall glance, I found:
1. Front wheel arch inner PVC cover jutting out.
2. Front wheel’s tube nozzle is bent due to wrong fit.
3. Paint finish is not the same across the body panels.
Our office driver told me reverse lights were not working properly. In fact one was working. During pointing that out in showroom (PRERANA), salesman told him this is normal and that’s how it comes nowadays.
With newly fitted ICE and fresh upholstery and plastic smell, my colleague drove back home proudly.
Next morning (Sunday) car wouldn’t start! After multiple attempt and considerable amount of battery drainage, they call service help-line. Over the phone instruction says that press a button under driver’s seat. Upon doing this, engine gets back into action.
But after few kilometers of running and abnormal pressure on tube’s nozzle, tyre gives up. So my colleague ends up his Sunday by having a flat tyre and abnormal cold start behavior!!!!
For me it’s pretty new to know that a MPFI engine needs a cold start and that too in Bangalore kind of temperature! He told me that dealer is describing this as cold start and he may encounter this problem in future also. To avoid this, there’s switch under driver’s seat known as ‘Inertia switch’. This needs to be pressed if starting problem occurs.
‘Inertia switch’ is mentioned on trouble shooting section on dumb, dumb booklet. But you’ll never find it about its location. Apparently it’s a fuel cut off switch (from google search) but I’m still in dark to find out why it’s there in the first place? And why other cars don’t have it? Anybody can throw light on this, please may do so in a separate thread. This thread is not for fuel cut off switch discussion.
Today (Monday) my colleague’s day starts with the same problem. Car wouldn’t start! Even after pressing ‘Inertia switch’! After sufficient trauma, car reaches our office. Calling service center reveals the fact that nobody’s there to come and collect the car. It’ll take around two hours to send somebody. Our office driver takes the car there only to find out that they’ve no tube in their stock. They say that they’re putting up a complaint and waiting for the tube to come from the company.
After getting a mouthful from my colleague, they send someone to J C Road to buy a tube. When he gets back with a new tube and a huge smile, they find that one other tyre is also flat…
At 6.30 in the evening they decide to keep the car there and wait for a messiah to come from TATA tomorrow.
If tomorrow comes!!! |