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68000 km up on my Safari Storme: AC cooling coil change & other updates

3rd August 2023, 11:02 by Dev Shah

Dad felt Storme is being abused by the driver. Now it is back to my garage, off limits to drivers.

BHPian PrasannaDhana recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

AC issue - Cooling Coil Replacement:

20 days ago, my driver complained that there is an extra hissing noise from the AC vents. As suspected, the cooling coil went kaput and required replacement.

I sent the car to Kaveri Tata and they asked me some time as they have to order the part and it might take time for it to reach. Well I was told that the coil was sourced from 4 different vendors for storme and it had to be opened up and seen to place the exact part from the same vendor.

I agreed and the work started. It took almost 10 days of downtime. Finally it arrived a couple of days back and the work has been completed.

My driver sent a few photos from the service center, which almost shook me. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the dashboard removed and shoved up in the rear bench lol:

Looking at the sheer number of clips/fasteners from the dash, I was pretty sure the A.S.S will not be able to reassemble it like factory and I will be facing a lot of rattles after the work has been completed.

But to my surprise, there aren't any rattles. Kaveri Tata TVKoil branch had done a wonderful job I must say.

Dashboard back on:

AC works like it was when new. Total damage to the wallet was close to 17k:

Labour charges exceeding the parts cost. But totally justified in my opinion.

But then, repair work wasn't totally flawless either. There are a few minor imperfections like:

A small scratch on the speedo console. My cars are always spotless, inside out. This scratch sadly, will be seen daily lol:

The felt lining on the storage space beneath the ICE was missing, and it just looked like this:

I searched and found the felt lining stowed away in the driver door pad:

I was pleased that Tata didn't just simply use glue, but had a well engineered lining with these provisions to be fit snug into the holes on the surface:

And it was done:

Interiors weren't cleaned properly, specially the matte silver part of the dash. Smudges everywhere.

Other than that, the exterior wash was very neat:

The car has run 68,000 km. Next scheduled service will be at 70,000 km. Dad felt Storme is being abused by the driver. Now it is back to my garage, off limits to drivers. Since Storme was out of action for most of the month, the usage has been pretty low in June.

Less than 1000 km:

And the little Tata Altroz diesel ended up being used all days, clocking 3000 km this June:

Storme with the most underrated Tata car ever:

A parting pic of both the workhorses which are going to be driven only by me(Altroz has been so since day 1). Storme got new tyres in the beginning of this month. Altroz got new tyres yesterday . I will update about that in the Altroz thread: