Verna Trouble! This morning, i drove out of my apartment building in my 3 month old Verna CRDi. I drove myself as the driver was on leave today.
Within a few metres of driving i realised that I could feel a vibration at the steering wheel and a ghus ghus sound too. I figured I had a flat tyre.
I drove slowly to the nearest tyre walla. To my surprise, all 4 tyres were OK. While reversing out of the tyre guy, I took a full left and reversed out. I had a loud THAK. Like what happens when you go over a stone.
Then the car froze and would not move. I straightened out and moved forward and the car moved but made a really scary sound, like gears were slipping.
It moved for 5 metres more, before coming to a halt. All gears had stopped working. I shut down and restarted. Too many computers, I think. I thought restarting would fix it.
Now the car was behaving like it was in neutral. I could press the clutch and put it in gear but the car was behaving like neutral.
With great trouble and amazing shame, I took the help of some people and pushed the car to the side. Imagine people I know, seeing me push my brand new car into my building. Not nice.
I pulled out the service book and called my service centre at Cotton Green, Mumbai.
After making me wait for a while as the supervisor was busy, I spoke to someone, who advised (in hindi) that i call 9820023000 - their breakdown service.
I did call the number and a polite gentleman spoke to me. Theek hai do baje aaoonga said he. Meanwhile i called my driver, who got furious and got onto his bike (even though it was his day off) and found the supervisor and called me on his mobile.
Mr. Kumar spoke to me, politely and kindly and told me that his breakdown guys would arrive soon, take a look and if need be, hire a towtruck.
At exactly 2, the guys arrived at my car, where someone was waiting. I was informed by them that it was an axle problem.
"Doosri gaadion me single joint Axle hota hai, isme double joint axle hai, one joint has come open"
"What? In a new car?"
"Hota hai, sir, axle has slipped"
He called me 15 mins later to say that he had fit the axle back, temporarily, the car was now driving but not turning very well (He said) and that he had another call to attend, but my driver could now easily drive it to cotton green.
My driver has reached cotton green with the verna, I am waiting to hear what's going on after that.
I'm upset, to say the least. This is not what I expected.
Last edited by Sam Kapasi : 26th May 2007 at 15:10.
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