[Aney Kadam]

update on my previous post-
I went to vitesse prabhadevi workshop today SA told me, my car's engine is misfiring while starting car from standstill (when it is in low revs probably). I did not get to experience it myself because my car was parked way behind the other cars.
I mentioned him that i got my car checked just the before the accident. He said rats may have eaten the wires or something. but i am not convinced about this rat theory because where i park my car there has never been any rat problems with my cars or any of my neighbors cars. my car is in this workshop for almost past 20 days.
For now i have told the SA to diagnose this issue.
when i asked about the dent on the front bumper the SA said that the whole car absorbed the shock(from back to front) and it has nothing to do with the engine.

If something is wrong with my engine do i have to pay it, or it will be covered under the warranty my car is only 2 years old and its still under warranty.
I asked SA about it(if its covered under warranty or not) i did not get a satisfactory answer. (i am a complete noob)
Thank you teambhp

[puneetakhouri]

Originally Posted by Aney Kadam

If something is wrong with my engine do i have to pay it, or it will be covered under the warranty my car is only 2 years old and its still under warranty.
I asked SA about it(if its covered under warranty or not) i did not get a satisfactory answer. (i am a complete noob)
Thank you teambhp

If the engine misfiring can somehow be linked to the accident, then I think it will be covered by insurance and should not be your problem. Also warranty will not be covering this. Do try starting your vehicle wherever it is parked in his workshop to experience this. If the service advisor is saying that this will not be a part of insurance claim and you are not convinced by his answer to the misfiring thing, then tell him to skip that and get it checked by some other workshop.
Also I will PM you and get you added to the Mumbai Baleno Owners Whatsapp group. They too are a very helpful lot.

[puneetakhouri]

Not a lot of updates since the lockdown, but came back to Mumbai after 5 long months and the first thing I did after keeping my luggage is to go down to the car to see how it is.
The exteriors looked just fine because the washer guy is regularly washing the car. But the interiors were a mess. Attaching some pictures for reference






Also even though I had disconnected the negative terminal from the car, the car still did not start and I had to call a guy to jumpstart the vehicle. He charged me 200/- but did the work.

Also for the car, gave the car to 3M just now for the Germkleen plus treatment and they said that the car would be handed over to me in around 3 hours time.
Let's see how it turns out.

[vnabhi]

How did the interiors get so dirty? My Fiesta's interiors look like this after it got drowned in the cellar parking for a week under 11 feet of water. Prior to that, they were sparkling like new.

Are you sure the car did not go through any flooding?

[boniver]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

How did the interiors get so dirty? My Fiesta's interiors look like this after it got drowned in the cellar parking for a week under 11 feet of water. Prior to that, they were sparkling like new.

Are you sure the car did not go through any flooding?

That isn't dirt, it's just fungi growing on the seats. Pretty common even if slightly moist/damp car interiors are left with the windows rolled up for a month or so. This can easily be cleaned with a cloth.
I had faced the same thing when I left the car untouched for a couple of weeks or so during the lockdown. There was slight fungal growth on the hornpad, the hazard light switch, and the glovebox lid. The last time I had driven the car before that was on a rainy day, and I remember touching those places with a wet hand.

[puneetakhouri]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

How did the interiors get so dirty?

As boniver pointed out, this is all fungi on the seats and interiors.

Originally Posted by boniver

That isn't dirt, it's just fungi growing on the seats. Pretty common even if slightly moist/damp car interiors are left with the windows rolled up for a month or so. This can easily be cleaned with a cloth.
I had faced the same thing when I left the car untouched for a couple of weeks or so during the lockdown. There was slight fungal growth on the hornpad, the hazard light switch, and the glovebox lid. The last time I had driven the car before that was on a rainy day, and I remember touching those places with a wet hand.

I get a few patches here and there every monsoon which I just wipe away with dettol + water and it works just fine. But since this time, the duration was quite long, plus I had never pampered the car a lot, so thought of getting a 3M Germkleen plus treatment done.

[puneetakhouri]

Update 1
So the car is back from 3M after a Germkleen Plus treatment for the interiors. They charged me 4200/- for the same and handed me the car back in 2.5 hours flat. I did not even take an appointment and simply went and dropped my car to them after getting the car started. They did try to push me to take the yearly contract but I decided not to go ahead with it.
Pics from the interior detailing service attached below:

The dashboard looks shiny and new.


The doorpads also have been thoroughly cleaned, they even cleaned the door pockets very well.


The seat is fungus free now. Reminds me that I also need to get my seatcovers changed very soon.



The seats are clean. If you notice that there are no belt buckles for rear passengers. When I purchased the car (in Dec 2015), nobody had seat covers for Baleno outside the showroom. Hence the local guy fitted the seat covers of some other Maruti. I also did not bother a lot as my rear seat is hardly used. This time will get proper ones without fail.

The 3M guys clean the spare wheel as well

Observations

• The interiors definitely feel very nice, but it is also due to the liquid that they have applied. I will wait for the liquid to dry out to see how it looks.
• At 4200/- it seems a bit pricey to me, though it can be argued that they clean the AC vents as well and it is anti-bacterial treatment.

Update 2
Post the interior cleaning, when I went to pick up the car, the AC was on but is not cooling at all I have been facing AC gas leaks for past couple of years and everytime I would simply top it up and it would serve me well. But this time it seems that the entire gas is gone and the leak needs to be thoroughly inspected and fixed once and for all.

Update 3
My insurance is due in the last week of December. I have always been using Maruti Insurance and have found their service to be fantastic (even though I have claimed just once and numerous times on warranty). Since this is the 6th year of ownership, very few companies were offering zero dep facility.
Maruti quoted my IDV to be 2.68 lacs and gave quotations accordingly.

• Except ICICI, TATA Aig, Go DIGIT, no other provider was offering zero dep for the 6th year
• Yes you read it write, Go Digit is officially tied up with Maruti Insurance.
• ICICI was quoting the highest at 13.5k for zero dep, while Tata Aig and Go Digit were the lowest at 11.1k.
• I chose GoDigit simply because I wanted to try them out. When I made the payment, the payment recipient in the sms was ROYAL SUNDARAM, dont know why.
• GoDigit premium for zero dep and greater IDV is lesser on their own website than on Maruti Insurance. However, they were providing a clause that they would be inspecting the car first and then offer the insurance.

Update 4
Also my EMI on the vehicle is over and the bank (HDFC) has already sent me the Form 35 along with the NOC for hypothecation removal. I am contemplating trying it out myself but if it is too much of a hassle, will go via a broker. A fellow Baleno owner in the Mumbai Baleno owners WhatsApp group did all of it by himself and commented that the process is fuss free. Will keep this thread updated.

[puneetakhouri]

Got the battery replaced yesterday. The car was giving starting problems and it was the battery that was the culprit and I knew it. But I thought that maybe carbon on the terminals might be an issue so disconnected them and washed them with boiling water and sanded them yet there was no difference.

So I went to a local Exide dealer and got my battery tested. He used some tool which he connected to my terminals and after 10 seconds of doing some test, it showed BAD on display. I was unsure of how genuine/untampered that machine was so I told him to check the gravity of the cells. To his good luck and bad for me, one of the cells was gone.
He quoted 3600/- for a November manufactured Exite Mileage battery with buyback for my old battery. He also offered a 5 year warranty with 3 year replacement and for next 2 years pro-rate buyback.
Attaching some pics:

Exide Mileage as we can see.


Month of manufacturing, Nov 2020 so pretty recent.


This is how the new battery looks.


And this is the departed soul.

I also took the opportunity to get my A/C checked. The guy said that there is leakage somewhere and the testing might lead them to opening the dashboard to check the cooling coils. I did not want that to happen so told them to topup the AC gas for which they charged 1000/-. The gas was totally empty but the cooling is back now.

Next up - tyres and seat covers.

[puneetakhouri]

Replaced the OEM tyres (MRF ZVTV), which served me loyally for the past 5 years and 60k kms, with the newly launched Yokohama BlueEarth GT. I was also considering other tyres for the car but finally decided to go ahead with the Yokos. I had decided not to upsize or shift to alloys so it was just the tyres that I needed to change. The other tyres I considered were

• Yokohama Earth-1 - A fellow BHPian and Baleno owner has this on his Baleno and his reviews were mostly positive. But since the BlueEarth GT was also an option, this was quickly dropped.
• MRF Perfinza - I really like the looks of it to be honest. I was heavily inclined towards Perfinza as well. But Perfinza was not availabe in 185/65 for 15" but was in 195/60. And since I was replacing 4 tyres and not 5, and my spare wheel was 185/65, I did not want to have a size mismatch and so decided to let it go.
• Michelin XM2 - If this was available, this would be it for sure. But post COVID, Michelin imports have been suspended so this was out of option.
• Bridgestone B290/250 - These were available in the right size, but somehow I was never inclined towards Bridgestones, also read a lot about sidewall bulges on these so dropped them.
• Yokohama BlueEarth GT - This was a new entry into consideration since these were pretty new in the market. Even the reviews available on the internet were far and few, but read a few articles about it and decided to take the plunge.

Installation -
The BlueEarth GT cost me 5100 per tyre for 185/65R15s. The tyres are all 2021 manufactured and have an asymmetric pattern. The tyre guy also charged me extra for Wheel alignment and brass nozzles (200 + gst) per piece. So the total cost of replacement with WA+WB+weights + nozzles set me back by 22312/-.
I did a test drive for around 5-7kms and here are my initial observations.

• Definitely a lot more silent than the outgoing ones. Sometimes it is not easy to comprehend how much difference a tyre can make unless you experience it.
• I could feel some weight on the steering which is nice. But since the steering has no feedback so the weight does not make the drive better.
• No change in ride quality as compared to the outgoing ZVTV. I felt it to be exactly the same.
• Yoko claims that this tyre offers superior dry and wet grip. I did not get a chance to check this as of now. Hopefully they stay true to the claim.
• Too early to comment on fuel efficiency.

Too early to say but overall I am not very impressed. Maybe my expectations were a bit too high, or maybe it is too early to say. Let's see how it goes.

The alignment machine was the latest one and worked very well. Notice the machine has MADHUS written on it. Anything to do with the famous Bengaluru WA/WB shop??


The asymmetric tread patterns on the tyre. Not as attractive as the Perfinza but still I can at least say that these are asymmetric


Three tyres are manufactured in 2nd week of 2021 and One tyre is on 1st week of 2021.


They certainly look better than the outgoing MRF ZVTVs.


Good bye old friends, you did your job very well.

[puneetakhouri]

Horn Upgrades
Even though Baleno gets a dual horn setup, literally nobody moves when you use them. I am usually not a horn user a lot, so when I honk, I really need to honk. And when nobody listens then it is a big downer

Had read and heard a lot about Bosch Symphony, Hella Chrome Trumpets, Roots Windtones and wanted to get one of them installed. So on a Sunday morning headed out to a nearby shop and enquired. None of them had Hella or Bosch with them. One of them had a Minda T90 Trumpet set, and he quoted 1000/- for it + 250/- for relay + installation inside bumper.
I quickly checked the price on Amazon + Boodmo and the price online was 700/- so I moved to another store. Luckily the neighboring shop had it for 700/- but he did not have any electrician to fit it and the third party fitting guy wanted 1000/- to set it up. Since there were no more shops nearby and I did not want to order online and wait for a week, I decided to go ahead. Also with the rising fuel prices, spending a couple of litres of petrol just to find another store made no sense to me. I did a quick cost calculation. The second shop was selling the horns cheaper but overall the price including installation would set me back by 1700/-. While the first shop would get it done in 1200/- plus he was giving 6 months warranty on the horn as well. We stuck a deal at 1100/- and the electrician quickly opened up the bumpers to install the horns.
Here are the Minda Horns

Minda T90 Horn box. Rated at around 105db.


The horn set, these are huge and not as compact as the Hella or Bosch Trumpets. The electrician tried to fit them in the original place but they did not fit and were hence fit inside the bumper and in front of the left wheel well. The electrician claimed that at this location, it is totally safe from water splashes plus pressure wash as well. The relays used were also from Minda and so the work was fine.


The original horns that are used in the Baleno.

Once the horns were fit I tested the connections and all seemed good. Forgot to take the video of the sound but took it recently and here it is.

Sound from Inside the vehicle.

Sound outside the vehicle.

Let's see how long they last but the effect is clearly visible out on the streets. You honk and get a clear road ahead of you rightaway

[puneetakhouri]

Seat Cover Changes

With continuous usage of around 5 years, the front seats which are the most used had started showing the typical peeling of the rexine seat covers on the sides as displayed here. Also when I had purchased the vehicle back in 2015, my car was one of the earliest batches of Baleno out there so there were not a lot of accessories available. So when I went to get the seat covers fitted, they just put in some generic covers which were not specifically designed for Baleno. The cover held pretty decently and never gave any issues and I was fine with it. However, because of the generic nature of the covers, the rear seat belt latches had been pushed inside. So you cannot put the belts in the rear even if you wanted to. This had been bothering me for a few years now.

So the last weekend I decided to get the covers changed, I quickly enquired on the Baleno owners Whatsapp group and they informed me about a shop Planet Accessories close by. I called them and confirmed they had seat covers ready and so I went to get the covers changed. The owner is a very amicable guy who showed me all the options and also explained which one should look better. I told him that the seat cover I am looking for should ensure that the rear seatbelt latches should be out so that anybody can wear the belts. He told me that of all the years of him selling seat covers, I was the first guy to have requested for the rear seat belts to be out, otherwise everybody wants them to be pushed inside . I also asked for fabric seat covers and he said that he could get them made to order but they will be very hard to maintain which I totally agree. So we went ahead with the rexine one similar to what I had earlier. His guys quickly got on to it and the entire process of choosing to fitting the covers took an hour and I was off.
Attaching the pics of the new one.

New front seat design.


The old seat covers. Sorry for the poor photo, I liked the understated design, black covers with white/silver stitching. Kind of went well with my silver car with black interiors. Notice the peeled off cover on the left side in the seat.


Rear seat with the red seatbelt latches protruding just as I wanted.


There was this flap dangling on the side of the front covers and when I enquired, the workers said it was to hide the pins used to hook the covers. I told them that I did not like it and the owner quickly got them pasted using fevikwik and here is how they look now.


Looks odd but still better than the loose hanging stuff.

Verdict

• Since the seat foams are new, so they have raised the height of seats a bit which feels nice, given that my Delta Baleno does not have height adjustable seats.
• The covers are nothing to write about but definitely look better with the contrast stitching.
• Since the height has increased due to new foam in seat base, if I sit on the back seats, my head touches the roof. So I need to slouch a little for my head to fit properly (I am 5'10" for reference). This should slowly normalise as the seat gets used frequently, which does not happen in my case usually.
• Best part is that the rear base had holes for the seatbelt latches to protrude. This is one thing that was a very strict requirement from my end.

Overall I am pretty satisfied with the new covers, with the lockdowns looming over the head, no trips can be planned so can give a long term review only on using them for a few weeks.

[puneetakhouri]

AC Repairs
I had been having on-off AC gas leaks since 2019. Initially would hear the hissing sound and whenever I would feel the cooling getting low, would topup AC gas and things would be fine. Also before lockdown, my car was continuously doing 25kms a day with AC so things were fine, but ever since the car had been lying idle since 2020 March, the problem seems to have escalated. I had recharged gas in December 2020 as updated in my previous post, but now I can see that the cooling is gone completely. And this time I was determined that I would get the issue fixed once and for all.
Went through a few posts here, messaged and sought help around some doubts from DBHPian leoshashi and then decided to go ahead.
Went to a local AC guy just near my house and enquired, he said that almost 90% of Balenos with AC problems suffer from a condenser leak but he would still check. Let the pictures show the entire process.

Bumper Removal started


First Leak Visible


Slowly Many Spots Appearing


Full Picture Clear


Upon seeing so many spots, the AC guy was sure that it is a condenser problem. He told me to procure the condenser or he has a guy who could procure it. The MGP condenser was INR 4200 in their online portal, the MGP store nearby was closed. The AC guys had a guy who had a Subros condenser for INR 3500. I know that Subros is one of the official AC suppliers for Maruti but my only concern was the quality of the product. Seeing no other option and trusting the AC guy, I decided to take a leap of faith and bought it.

New Condenser Box


Condenser being fitted

Apologies for the missing photo of the unboxed condenser as I totally forgot about it.

Shashi had told me to to get the O-rings changed as well and I instructed the guy to do the same. However, the quality of O-rings that the guy had were not good and even he too believed that the original ones are in good condition and also they are flush fitting so they should be good.

Post attachment of new condenser, I instructed him for the pressure test, and he set the pressure at 250psi and went for lunch and so did I. We returned 30 mins later and the pressure was holding well.


After that the air was removed from the system and I told the guy to setup vacuum at -76cm and hold it again for 30 mins. We did the same and the pressure was holding well, also while the vacuum was being created, the guy added condenser oil into the tubes.


After 30 mins the bumper was fit in and the gas recharged. Shashi had pointed out that Baleno takes approx 400gms of gas. The guy had a can of 450gms and he put that in, the pressure in the low pressure side was around 25psi post that and looked stable.


The total price hit that I took was 3500 for the condenser and 2000 labour including gas, which comes to total of INR 5500/-.

The AC seems to be working very well now and even the engine sounds a lot relaxed. The cooling was good and I hope that this marks the end of my AC troubles

Thanks a lot to DBHPian Leoshashi and Vigsom for their valuable inputs.

[Leoshashi]

Originally Posted by puneetakhouri

. I know that Subros is one of the official AC suppliers for Maruti but my only concern was the quality of the product.

Quality of Subros(in OE or Aftermarket) is very good provided its genuine.

Condenser was one of the many parts Maruti had updated with the facelifted Baleno, now we know why. It was disgusting to see so many leaks without much visual impact.

Regards,
Shashi

[puneetakhouri]

Indicator Stalk Issues

With the lockdowns and the literal stopping of usage of vehicles which were otherwise being used daily, small issues and problems are continuously cropping up in vehicles. Yesterday decided to take a casual drive down to Marine drive as it was a Sunday afternoon. The joyride was fine but I noticed a weird behaviour of the indicator stalk. Whenever I would use the right turn everything was working fine, but whenever I used the left turn signal, the indicators would sometimes blink normally, then stop blinking, then would either start again or not start at all. Now based on the fact that the right turn signals are working fine and it is just the problem of the left side, I assume it is the indicator stalk that is causing problems here. Attaching video for better idea, notice that the indicators stop blinking even when the indicator stalk is set for left turn.

https://youtu.be/6EEAwlNL0I0

With the recent condenser issue and with this new issue cropping up, it seems Marutis of today are just a shadow of the yesteryears when it comes to quality. In this case the indicator stops working which is not a big issue, but if stalks are culprits here, then nothing is stopping the headlights to have stopped working randomly as well which would have been a very big problem.

[puneetakhouri]

Update - Door Fabric peeling, Indicator stalk issue fix and Brake pad and shoe and fluid replacement

So took my car out this week and a new issue, the door fabric has started to peel off.

What is going on with my car!!! Back to back issues arising out of nowhere. First the condenser issue followed by the indicator not working properly to this now. Went to a local mechanic who stuck it for now (shoddily) with glue but recommended going to any car accessory shop and getting it replaced with some leather material. He also pointed out that the interior detailing chemicals also cause this, I am not sure but cannot deny it either.


Indicator Stalk Issue Update
Since the indicator issue was happening only for left turn signal while right turn signal and hazard lights worked fine. The electrician decided to inspect the wiring and he opened up the steering column cover. Turns out it was a loose connection and that was it. He tightened the electric socket and sprayed some WD-40 near the end connector of the stalk and everything seems to be working fine now.

The mechanic checking the wiring socket where the problem was.

Brake replacement
So my car is over 5.9 years old, run 62k kms as of now and had undergone front brake pads replacement once at 40k kms service. Apart from that the brake oil gets flushed and replaced every 20k kms as per the User Manual. However, I had never gotten the rear brake shoe replaced and after driving a friend's Skoda Octavia recently, I started to loathe my brakes.
So I decided to take this opportunity to replace the brake pads and shoes along with the oil flush (not needed but did it so that it does not require any revisiting later on). Purchases all the items from the nearby MGP store and the bill is attached below.

500ml of oil, brake pads for the front and shoes for the rear set me back by 4240/-.
The mechanic who stuck my door fabric quickly got to work along with his minions and replaced all four along with flushing in under an hour.

The part numbers or brakes for the Baleno along with price.

The brake fluid used was 500ml in total volume.

One significant difference I feel is that the brakes have become progressive now. Earlier the pedal would do nothing until a certain point and then would grip suddenly. But now it seems to be better spread out. Overall, a weekend spent well but the way interiors are failing, I have started to question my plan of holding on to my car for long.