Entries from November 2007 ↓

Preamble
So far, I’ve written about car electrics/batteries on four earlier occasions in these columns but going by the number of queries that I continue to receive on them, I find that they form a good percentage of car owners operating problems across the country.

So here are some recent QnA’s that stand out in my mind and archives – hoping that they’ll be of interest and use to most car owners. Incidentally, the first question was from a gentleman who’d been trying to get an answer to it for quite some time from leading auto magazines and other websites but none responded…

Question
When a car battery has run down, why is it difficult or even impossible to push-start an automatic transmission car as against manual transmission car, which easily starts on pushing? In absence of a jump-switch, how does one start an A/T car anyway?

Answer
An A/T has to have a ‘fluid coupling’ to enable it work the way it does, instead of the conventional clutch in an M/T. As a result, there’s no ‘coupling’ at all between the engine and the GB when the engine is not spinning above its minimum/idling rpm. Consequently, when attempted to push start, the ‘reverse torque’ from the road wheels doesn’t get transmitted to the engine coz of the fluid coupling in between and therefore, the engine doesn’t ‘crank’ the way a starter motor does it.

In other words, a battery-stalled A/T can only be ‘jump-started’ from another car/healthy battery and these days, all OEM ‘on-road-service’ vehicles are equipped to do so. Btw, an M/T Mpfi/Crdi vehicle with a flat battery may not push-start either, depending upon the state of charge on the seemingly dead battery. Therefore, such vehicles are also advised only to be jump-started, like A/T’s, so as not to damage their ‘ECUs’ in the process.

This QnA reminded me of a saying that ‘never buy a car that you can’t push’!

Question
I am a Bullet enthusiast. I want to know what is the use of the ‘Amp’ in my Bullet and why should it be brought to ‘0’ before starting? Why is it not present in other bikes?

Answer
The ‘Amp’ or the ‘Ammeter’ is an old British automotive tradition, like the engine oil pressure gauge, where cars as well as bikes that have a battery/charging system were provided with it on the dash, so as to give an easy indication of the state of the battery and its charging system at a glance. Over a period of time, as the vehicles’ cruising speeds went up, the philosophy of ‘minimum instrumentation on the dash’ took over, so as not to distract a driver’s attention to the extent possible - besides cost cutting of course. So instead, only warning lights are provided nowadays for such purposes.

As far as a Bullet is concerned, it has a battery driven ignition coil, quite like cars, unlike a ‘magneto-driven’ one on most other 2-wheelers AND a powerful headlamp on top of that, though its battery is relatively smaller in capacity due to space constraints. Therefore, to ensure that full battery power is available for the ignition to kick-start, recommending one to bring the ‘Amp’ to ‘0’/zero is a way to tell the rider to ensure that all the lights etc are switched off before attempting to kick-start.

On the other hand in present day cars, the battery is relatively of larger capacity and in any case, their starter motors draw such a heavy current, of the order of a few hundred amps, that even if the head lamps that draw 10-15 amps only are on at the time of cranking the starter motor, it’d make no difference – provided the battery is not already dying of age or whatever other reason.

Preamble
Almost all of us who own a car and care about it have or continue to face this irritant at the hands of insensitive/non-family passengers. Needless to say that the latter already stand rebuked into place.

Some morons do it with such a vigour that it can send a shiver down the spine of even a built-like a-tank Amby - leave alone a feather-weight M800 that could easily turn over in disgust.

So it was, perhaps, inevitable that some time back one of my close friends and a car lover asked me for a possible remedy to save his beloved possession from such recurring assaults. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat like trying to finding a cure for common cold but this is how the dialogue went…

Ailment:
Dear SKG: Have you ever come across any article on how to close car doors effectively and ‘properly’. I wish to forward it to my friends, aiming especially those who slam the doors with all their might. This is one issue which has irritated me since childhood. SB.

Prognosis:
None that I know of SB but I have some thoughts about it, with myself having been a victim all along. There’s no empirical formula that one can make others follow when it comes to closing car doors ‘properly’, coz the ‘basic’ variables are beyond any one’s control, if not comprehension - viz -

a) I guess it’s been the experience of all of us sensitive types that people who bang them the hardest are the ones who either don’t own cars themselves or care about them even if they did, coz they’re insensitive to the hurt it causes to others who own and care about them.

b) No two car/models’ doors’ will ever require the same ‘effort’ to close them ‘properly’ i.e. without a jarring bang. In fact on my new Baleno, from day one, the driver-side door closes harder compared to the rest due to some misalignment that I’ve not bothered to get fixed coz - i) it’s reasonably rattle-free, and ii) I’m at its wheel most times and by now I know how hard to bang it!

c) In my younger days, when pitted against such a lot, I used to leap out of the car before they could and do it myself for them so that they couldn’t over-bang them, making it look like a courtesy gesture at the same time. Telling them to do it softly before letting them do it would have been rather impolite and above all, a waste of breath most times!

d) The cabins of present day cars are quite ‘airtight’ due to AC and other/dust-free requirements. This requires the ‘last’ door a significantly harder bang to close it ‘properly’ when ‘all’ other windows are rolled up including its own - especially with the AC control in ‘re-circ’ mode.

e) Incidentally, the Santro I have has a small/conical rubber piece mounted on the door/body frame, tho’ vulnerable to getting yanked-off when mulled by crude car-cleaners. Hyundai call it ‘bumper-door-anti-slam’! I really don’t know how effective it’s but it’s heartening to note that at least some OEM has given the matter some thought!

f) Btw, some of the higher end Merc’s have had a push button/electric door closing mechanism now for quite some years, designed not so much I reckon as to take the sting out of a possible bang but as an up market luxury feature.

g) However, during my recent visit to France, I saw that a 1.3 lr Peugeot delivery van, somewhat bigger than our Omni, had a push button on the Dash to enable the driver close the rear sliding door electrically after his cargo was picked up, so that i) he didn’t have to get out on a busy street to manually do it himself and hold up the traffic behind him in the process and, ii) there being no ‘chhotu’ to do the needful in their scarce man-power scenario.

To sum-up, till such time the ‘auto door close’ features trickle down to our affordable levels, I guess we’ll have to just grin and bear it. And where does it all leave us the oppressed minority - back to square one - unless one is prepared to get out and do it oneself as a ‘courtesy gesture’ and hold-up the following traffic in the process?!

Preamble
Although the country’s largest car maker has well laid down servicing norms, by way of approved service stations’ layouts, stocking of genuine spares and hourly labour rates, that vary from Metro’s to sub-metro’s to other smaller towns for justifiable reasons, yet some car owners feel that they’re getting fleeced. The following real life QnA attempts to clarify the picture…

Question
My Wagon-R is due for its 4th Service. Although it’s only 15-months old, I have crossed the 20-kkm mark. Regrettably, I have not been able to get a justifiable estimate on the costs of 4th Service and have been further confused by quotes from some of the Maruti authorised service stations in Delhi. ‘Marketing Times’ estimates labour to be Rs: 675/-, whereas ‘Maruti Service Masters’ puts it at a fixed Rs: 1400/-, which is funny because when I’d called them earlier on, I was told that it’d be @ Rs: 190/- an hour.

I’ll appreciate your inputs on this, as don’t mind spending the money but I don’t want to get fleeced at the same time. Further, I was wondering whether a Service is required at all as it’s been only 15 months - as opposed to 24-months at which Maruti recommends the 4th Service be done at.

Lastly, I have been trying to figure out how I can clean the air filter…since that is something I can do. I am yet to go through the service manual but I was not able to find anything on the ‘net either.

My response
I’m not clear as to what your problem really is. The servicing schedules are clearly laid down by Maruti in one’s ‘Owners Handbook’, on time as well as distance basis, whichever is ‘earlier’. Next come the labour charges. All Maruti Dealers, Service Masters & Authorised Service Stations are supposed to strictly follow norm’s in this respect laid down by Maruti and the variation is usually not more than 15~20%, depending on their geo-location and ‘star ranking’, as assessed by Maruti from time to time.

Further, for ‘paid’ Services for a vehicle like the W-R, there’s a fixed labour cost like Rs: 650/- covering most items mentioned in the ‘periodic maintenance schedule’, such as routine washing/valeting, oils/filters’ changes, engine tune etc. But on top of this if the ‘nth’ service schedule from Maruti also prescribes some additional works like brake fluid change, coolant change, all 4-brakes’ service, wheel alignment/balancing, besides material, these are charged extra for labour, based on hourly rates fixed by Maruti in a detailed labour schedule manual available for scrutiny in the front office of all Maruti authorised workshops. For example, one MASS may charge say 1-hr for the brakes service and the other 2-hrs for the same job, depending on how difficult it was to open the assemblies of a particular vehicle.

Over and above all these, the consumable materials costs like oils, filters, and other spares reqd such as spark plugs are billed for extra - as per Maruti’s official spares price list. Most authorised workshops use Maruti approved engine oils at Maruti fixed prices, but next higher grade oils are also available at some workshops, naturally at a higher cost, should a customer so desire.

If you’re still in doubt, I’d suggest you speak with one Mr. Jayesh Desai on his phone +91 9810708000. He runs a chain of 4-premium and oldest MSM Workshops in the NCR/Noida. You can give him my reference and if convenient, even get your vehicle serviced there and see the total transparency in their operations your self. As a special case, they may even offer a free pick up and drop off, depending on how many hours away you’re from their facility nearest to you.

As regards cleaning the Air Filter your self, it’s easy and yet not so, for a good job one requires ample compressed air. I’d suggest you first ask to be allowed to watch the process during your next service and thereafter, say every 2.5 kkm, attempt to do it your self if you have a suitable vacuum cleaner at home, ensuring that you operate it on the dirty/ingress side only and not the other/clean engine side.

Preamble
The Electrical Systems of present day cars are a far cry from the Amby’s and Fiat’s of yore, where WW-II vintage ‘Dynamo’s had a max carrying capacity of 20 Amps/12 Volts and that too at a road speed eqvt of 50+ kph and regrettably, none at idling.

The advent of ‘Alternators’ by the mid ‘80s in India with the Maruti800 changed all these limitations for the better and presently, the average continuous rating of a mid-size sedan is around 60 Amps, and suitably higher for more luxurious ones.

Nowadays, the whole electrical system of a car is so designed that the Alternator has battery charging capacity to spare under ‘all’ operating conditions, right from idling to b2b traffic with ‘all’ the designed continuously usable electrical loads on, such as the music system, air-conditioning, wipers, fog lamps/headlamps etc. And yet people have problems, invariably of their own making…

Problem:
I have a 1997 model Esteem and have problems with Car Battery. I travel to my office from Malad to Bandra and back in peak hours. While going home, around half way, half of my car’s lights, tape, AC stops working. I travel about 40KM everyday in b2b traffic One way it takes me around 1.30 hours to 2 hours. When I put off AC, music system, all the lights work fine. The moment I start either AC or the MS, lights get low. I have to keep AC and MS off for some time and when I re-start them, everything works fine together. I got my battery checked from a Maruti Authorised Service Station and also from local battery dealer. Both said battery is fine and need not be replaced. The MASS checked the Alternator also and confirmed it is working fine. This is one and half year old battery with one-year warranty, which is over. I don’t understand what to do now. Should I replace the battery or is there some other problem.

Diagnosis:
Prima-facie, it appears to me that either - a) your OE wiring harness has been tampered with by the crude auto-accessories people for installing some non-OE approved electrical accessories or, b) you have installed a high-powered music system having sub-woofers/amplifiers etc. or, c) you have higher than OE wattage headlamps, such as 100/100W instead of 65/65W ones or lastly, d) have some electrical leakage in your AC/Music System that plays up when they’re in use.

But for these, there’s no reason why your battery should keep running down in b2b traffic, when a MASS has declared your Alternator as ok. I’ve come across such a problem in an Esteem earlier on also and most of (a) to (d) above existed over there. They had to be removed to OE specs and the tampered front-end wiring harness of the car had to be replaced with an ‘MGP’ set to cure the problem, once and for all.

Music/Central Locking Systems for MPFi Cars
Given the human spinal cord like sensitivity of the MPFi Cars’ Main Wiring Harness, it’s advisable NOT to cut/splice/tape/twist-joint it anywhere, for installing any electrical accessory. In fact this is stated so in the Car’s Warranty Policy, given in the Owner’s Hand Book.

Consequently, practically all such Cars have an OE/Dealer Option of Music Systems specially produced in India for them by renowned players including 12-months warranty and assured after sales service. These are ‘model specific’ by way of ‘mating’ wiring harness couplers, which slip in straight away w/o having to tamper with the OE/WH.

Likewise, for the present day fad of Central Locking, vis-a-vis MPFi Cars. Take the Dealers’ advice on this/get him to install it too. However, it’s been established internationally that a ‘visible’ deterrent such as a Steering/pedal Lock is far more effective and reliable - more so when a good one costs under Rs:1k. One can also go in for the more fancy ‘imported’ one - ‘Mul-T-Lock’ - which is purely a mechanical device that gets installed near the Gear Lever and locks it in IV gear, costing about Rs: 3k.

Higher Wattage Headlamps
The main Wiring Harness of an MPFi Car is sacrosanct and as such, it should never be mutilated to install various Relays etc. necessitated for using higher than OE Wattage Headlamps or additional ones. If you do, you’ll end-up having insurmountable problems later on, such as flat batteries for no apparent reason, as in the case above. Besides, this will closely be followed by burnt out headlamp couplers built-into the main wiring harness and distortion of their all-plastic reflectors.