Wheel Alignment & Balancing

After some 30 months of ownership and 21,000 km + I got my wheels balanced, aligned and rotated today at Minku's. Total damage came to Rs 1000. Perhaps because they didn't require too much of weights. I also got the 5th wheel checked for air pressure for the first time (it was found to have 22 psi pressure). The wheels were made to rotate in a straight forward front to back fashion. No cross over. 

The car's driveability improved right away, as it always does after wheel rotation and alignment.

I also learnt exactly how to align the wheel while replacing it on the body of the vehicle. 

Checked the exact difference between the lug nuts for the steel wheel and the alloy wheel. The one for steel wheel is marginally smaller by a few threads perhaps. Also these lug nuts come with a conical washer kind of thing fitted near the neck. On the nuts for the steel wheel, that washer is fixed. It can be moved on the nuts for the alloy wheels. Will one work for the other? I don't really know. I would rather not try to find out. 

Wheeling Dealing

For thirtly long months I had no clue about how to take out the spare wheel of the vehicle from under the body of the car. In the mean time I had gone to Delhi and Bharatpur in the north and Jagdalpur in Central India, not to speak of the umpteen number of sorties to Katwa. While taking delivery I had taken a basic look at how it is done but after that I had quite forgotten everything about it.

This morning I tried to give it a shot. There is a bolt on the floor of the boot which you turn anti-clock wise with the other end of the OE spanner. I did. I had expected the cradle would come down slowly. Well nothing happened. The cradle was exactly where it was. I tightened the bolt back and came home. After seeking some online help I called Abdul - the Renault workshop driver who takes my car for service. He said just turning the bolt is not enough. After that you have to hold the wheel and jerk it up a little to unhook it from the J type hanging latch and then lower the wheel on the floor. 

This worked perfectly. I took the wheel out completely. It has gathered a lot of dust obviously. I wonder how much air pressure it has. Anyway, I now tried to push it back up. This is where the challenge is. Putting it back up is quite a task. You have to find out the J type latch blindly (that is, without being able to see it) and engage the iron hoop of the cradle there. After some struggle Monisha and I managed to do it. 

I felt quite a sense of accomplishment. So the steps are as follows

1. Take out the OE spanner. Locate the bolt on the floor of the boot. 

2. Unscrew it by turning anti-clockwise. Nothing noticeable will happen as you unscrew. It will just stop turning at one point. 

3. Hold the spare wheel with two hands and jerk it up a little. It will get unhooked from the J type latch hanging behind the bumper.

4. Lower the wheel gently to rest on the floor and then slide it out. 

5. Put the wheel back on the cradle and push it up. This part will take some getting used to, as you will be doing it blind. You cannot see the J type latch. But you have to engage the loop over it.

6. Screw the bolt back tight.

The cradle is made of GI wires. Quite fat and adequate for the job. However, there is a plastic tray where the wheel sits. The hoop is flexible and can fold ninety degrees. The photograph is taken from the website of motoroids. Even that website has a small error that will cause problems to people trying to do it on their own. It says as you unscrew the bolt the cradle will come down. It doesn't happen like that. You have to jerk it up a little to unhook. 

Going Nuts

The other day I had posted a question on the HVK forum about my Duster's spare wheel. My question was - does the same bolt work for the steel wheel as well as the alloy wheel when you put it in the cradle? Someone said yes but it requires a different set of lug nuts.

I got one of the biggest jolts of my Duster ownership life. Now where the hell are those different nuts for the steel wheels? I was never explained this during delivery, some 30 months ago. I cannot remember this at all. I have to buy these before leaving the city. Not only that I have to use them at least once to see if they fit. So many thoughts were racing through my mind. Like where do I buy them from? Chandni or Maheshtala workshop?

Somehow, I thought let me give the boot a try !! I mean I literally gave it a boot !! And sure enough I found a small plastic blister pack with five lug nuts neatly tucked in a corner of the boot for the last 30 months. Made in Italy !! And I never knew anything about it. Come to think of it.

In this period I have done umpteen Katwa-Kolkata trips. One trip to Delhi and Bharatpur and another to Jagdalpur!!! I had no idea that the spare wheel uses a different set of lug nuts. I just cannot imagine this.

These lug nuts are a little different from the type I had for my Esteem. They were just four fat nuts. Perhaps a little cylindrical. These are like hex nuts on top of a fat screw. More like a bolt. I don't know what they are or should be called. Perhaps lug bolt.

I have to change the wheel at least once before I start off on the journey to Ranthambore on 6th October. I guess I will do it tomorrow (Mahalaya holiday) at the Deshapriya Park petrol pump, after filling in air in the spare wheel.

I intend to replicate an exact puncture situation without the puncture. That is take out the spare wheel. Take off the alloy wheel after jacking the car up. Put the spare on. Put the alloy on the cradle and drive off.

This will answer a lot of unanswered questions like is the jack strong enough? Is the spanner good enough? Or do I get some after market solution from Chandni?

As of now, I have another unanswered question. Is there any notch where you place the jack? My Peugeot had them. Does the Duster have them too? Have to find it out.

Setting The Clock

One of the problems of using any gadget these days is the lack of finer details in the user manual. They expect you to work it out from youtube. Indeed there is a how to video on virtually any and every gadget. I think the manufacturers know about it and don't invest in the manuals. 

The problem with a car like Duster is that there aren't too many youtube videos on it. So I was really at a loss to find out how to adjust the time in the dash board clock. I had actually sent the car for a brake overhaul (they changed the front brake pads at 21,000 km). It came back with the time quite off on the clock. The intuitive thing to do is push the trip meter reset lever. And indeed that's the only thing to do. But when you do that the minute side starts flashing. So how to adjust the hour side?

I just couldn't work that out. The manual as usual was of no use. Nor did youtube have any entry on the subject. So I asked team-bhp after trying in vain for two days. The answer is you keep the lever pressed hard. First the minute flashes, then the minute side changes one by one like 12,13,14. Keep it pressed. It changes by 10s. Like 23, 33, 43 .... Then the hour side starts changing. The entire movement is one way. You cannot make it 3,2,1. If you want to change it from 3 to 2 you have to run through the entire 24 hour. It takes a few seconds really.

Once you do it, it obviously looks very simple !!!.If you don't you might need to spend the entire life time. 

Mahindra XUV 500 has a series of official videos on youtube where they explain various small things for self driven owners. Renault doesn't seem to care, it seems. 

Registration Plate

Today I got the high security registration plate stuck to my car. Now it looks like a proper car without those ugly white A4 sheets on the windshield. I was put in touch with this guy called Gautam (9830882082) who asked me to come over at 10 am. Went with him and the job was done in about half an hour. I had to pay him Rs 250 as service charge. It was a smooth affair. The only issue with that place is it is full of cut nails all over the place. These nails are used for fixing the plates. After that they cut off the protruding part and don't bother to collect it or remove it. No one seemed concerned about it. I personally removed the ones that were lying in front of my car. Hopefully nothing has happened. Will check it out later. Some little boys come from the nearby slum to collect them. I believe that's how a mountain of such nails has not grown there.

Now the next and final step is getting the smart card. I found the touts have stopped calling it the blue book. I am supposed to give my showroom a photocopy of the receipt issued to me today declaring that the registration plate has been fixed. The showroom will collect my smart card by showing it. 

Today I also paired my phone to the media nav. It is fairly simple and quite intuitive. In fact I did the whole thing while driving down Lansdowne Road. It worked perfect except that it didn't recognise Monisha's number. I keyed in the number. After that I called Partha by accessing the phone book and searched his number by name. Worked fine. Partha said the voice quality was perfect. No boom. Monisha said there was a little hum. 

After this I will explore the satnav one of these days. Let me see how well it works. 

The Slow Documentation Process

Cars these days in Calcutta are sold without the number plates fitted in their rightful place. You are given (by the showroom) two A4 sized sheets with the numbers written by a computer. You stick that up on the front and rear windshield. After a couple of weeks or months a notice comes from the Motor Vehicles Department and you have to go to the government office at the given time to get the high-tech number plate fitted to your car.

These are supposed to be tamper proof number plates and are given for security reasons, apparently to stop theft and resale of cars.

I thought my notice would come to our house by post. No such luck. Yesterday Monisha got a call from the showroom saying the notice is ready with them. Today when I collected it, I found the date was 23rd of April !!! The notice was computer generated on 21st April and I was supposed to go on 23rd and today is 30th when I got it. So I am already a week late. I have been given the number of an MVD tout who said come over on Friday with the car and talk to me. I will tell you what to do after that. Probably spend a couple of hundred bucks.

Meanwhile, the road tax token was promptly handed over to us by the showroom within a couple of days of delivery. The ownership document, popularly known as blue book but in reality it is just a smart card with a chip, will come much later.

Keeping my fingers crossed. 

The Duster Comes Home

After planning for it for more than two years, we finally brought home the Duster on 15th April, 2014. Bengali New Year's Day it was. This blog is for writing the various experiences we gather together - the car and us. 

The initial experience of buying the car was not quite good. The boys at the dealership are thoroughly unprofessional. I wonder how they survive in this cut throat market. Customer satisfaction is the last thing on their mind. They seem to be entirely focused on sell, sell and sell. Taking care of the customer's needs, once the sale is confirmed, is a criminal waste of time. 

I bought the car from the New Alipore showroom where they gave us a very good price. But we were pretty dissatisfied with various other things that we had to suffer in the hands of the sales guys. For example, on a Sunday afternoon we were called to attend some festival where Monisha was made to turn a wheel of fortune. They said we have won gift vouchers worth Rs 4000. It is yet to be given to us !!!

At the time of delivery, we were made to wait for about two hours doing nothing - just waiting for the car to arrive. Mampu started reading her book. I started pacing up and down the road in front. As a result by the time we reached home, it was dark. That holiday was wasted due to their lackadaisical approach. 

During delivery we found there was no mud flap fitted. It was supposed to be free. I asked about it and pat came the reply that the workshop has run out of stock. They would let me know the moment the mud fllaps arrived. That call never came. I called them several times and realised they were trying to dodge me on this. I was finally told that the mud flaps would be fitted when I went to their workshop for the first servicing, which is after 2000 kms. So they expect me to drive the car around for 2000 kms without mud flaps.

I called up the workshop person. Debasish Sengupta. A very nice guy. He said, as I expected, he had it in ready stock. I knew that this "out of stock" is a blatant lie and an effort to manage a goof up. He had probably forgot to tell the workshop before they sent the car. 

I went to the workshop, without informing the showroom, and got it fitted. Of course Debasish had to get an okay from the showroom. I had to waste about 3 hours in all (going and coming itself takes more than an hour and a half). 

There are many other such small issues that I don't want to recount now. But let me just say that the total buying experience was quite pathetic. I didn't go out of the showroom smiling. I went out with a grumpy face. And believe me, I am not a difficult customer to please. All I want is honesty and upfront admission of a goof up. For example, if instead of saying, sir we have run out of mud flaps at the workshop, he told me, sir I forgot about it. I would have been happy. He not only lied to me, kept on giving me lies every time I called him about it. I don't know why he did such a thing. Because ultimately he wrote an email to the workshop asking them to fit it free of cost. 

It is possible that he himself needed some approval, which he didn't get. These small time traders who own these showrooms operate like small time grocery shops where no individual employee is empowered even to offer a glass of water.