Re: ICE & Accessories: Sachin's Auto Shop (Koramangala, Bangalore) Voted for “NOT Recommended”, the following long post explains why.
For anyone who is a fan of their work, please understand that the narration below is my personal experience and I have written it down from my painful experience during/after the installation. It was my money, my time and my peace of mind that was put at stake.
Went to this particular shop to get a pair of Hella Rallye 3003 fog lamps installed on 17th December (two days prior to my trip to Varanasi) and the overall experience was pathetic.
I called them up on 14th to enquire about the availability of the lights and they responded positive. On checking with them whether I can come on weekend, I was told to come on Monday since weekends would be rush and the fixture would need time (two – three hours they said). So I put in a leave on Monday (17th December), me and my wife reached the shop by 12.00PM, the lamps were not available by the time we reached there and Mr. Manoj who was managing the shop, then calls someone and orders the lamps for me and ask me to wait for 45 minutes. The light came in after about one hour and then to my surprise there is only lamp and not two, he calls his vendor and tries to clear his part in front of us. In the meantime, one of the electrician starts wiring on my car and I had clearly told them not to sleeve any wires which never fell in their ears, they sleeved multiple wires even before I could stop them.
Now the worst part is that they don’t use any branded relay wiring harness and use loose wires with a Roots relay for the wiring. I was alarmed by this and on asking them multiple times why they aren’t using any harness for which the proud claim was “We have done the same on 50 other cars and nothing have happened”.
The time was about 4.00 O’clock and he sends me to another guy to get the clamps fixed, again as I have read multiple times in the forum that the clamps shouldn’t be welded to the cross member I asked the guy to get it fixed by screws and this again was rejected because of his reasoning that screwed clamps may vibrate on bad roads. I did have to agree to this one since I am not an expert on these things and to my practical mind this felt true.
From the moment they started the wiring with loose wires I kept asking them to use some sort of cable shield and I was assured of the same. When the work was about to complete they informed me that they don’t have any shields in stock, to which I responded that you may get it from a nearby shop and I would pay for it – unfortunately the nearby shop don't have them in stock and the electrician or Mr. Manoj don't really bother to check more about it. I am sure that at least one shop in Kormanagala would have had the shield in stock.
Time was about 8.00 ‘O'clock, the lights are installed and he demo the light, the first reaction was from my wife and it was “This light is only slightly brighter than the headlights and nothing close to what we had in our Sx4”. In our Sx4 we had a pair of fogs installed and they would put this current pair of hella’s to shame and the total cost was just half of that I paid for the lamps alone. I felt the same, but I was too tired to discuss more on this with people who have deaf ears and returned back home. To be honest, I was driving home scared that the poor wiring would cause a short circuit. Thankfully we reached home and on reaching home we noticed that the company fitted fog lamps were not working. We called it a long day without much research on this.
So on 18th morning I take the car to Renault service to check the dead fog lamp and change the cabin filter. To my horror, I see that a couple of wires were disconnected from the battery. The service guys check the whole thing and gives a negative feedback about the whole thing.
On 19th morning we start the trip to Varanasi, by night we reach the outskirts of Hyderabad and turns on the light. The beam was too dim and the area of light fall was not properly highlighted - the whole purpose of spending my time and money on the installation failed miserably in front of me. The WORST part of the whole thing happened the same night, when my wife tried to roll up the rear right window, the light was cutting off. I call up Mr. Manoj and he in his casual mode answers that this has never happened in any past cars and it could be a one off, the electrician says that he will need to sleeve one more wire to get this fixed. I informed them that I am in Hyderabad and would visit once back in town.
For the 4500 kilometers we covered during the trip, we could use the lights for only about 10 Kms and this was not my purpose when I got the lights installed. If you ask me why I couldn’t use them - it was because of the fear of getting stranded on an unknown highway due to a short circuit, the cut off when using the power windows was not reassuring at all.
So I visit the shop on 1st to get their observation on the issue, Manoj had this attitude that was not reassuring at all. He sends his electrician to check this and he could not find any issue with the wiring he did – not a surprise. He sleeves another wire from the ignition and repeats the claim that he had done the same wiring for about another 50 cars and this has never happened before.
The light getting cut off when the window is rolled up had been fixed now and I returned home with no other option because they were not ready/skilled to redo the wiring with a proper harness.
Lessons learned from these incidents,
• I should have thought about the lighting earlier and took my car to Kerala and worked along with my trusted electrician there
• Sachin's Auto Shop (Koramangala, Bangalore) is not the go to place for any auto electric work, at least for me
• The wiring harness is as important as the brand of the lamps
• Go to an expert for any electric installation Something that the shop management can learn
You worked on 100 cars doesn’t really mean that the 110th car should also behave same. Anything can go wrong, please stop claiming things.
Last edited by GTO : 6th January 2019 at 16:28.
Reason: No need to run down the forum
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