Hey Folks, it’s been a very long time since the last update. Apologies for not being able to find the time to write detailed posts of my experiences post booking the car. Without further drama, allow me to introduce Kanmani.
I couldn’t have asked for a better start to 2023! The D-day was scheduled as Jan 13th. But there was some miscommunication between the dealership and the bank person leading to a delay in processing the loan and I finally got my hands on Kanmani on Jan 20th. After the formalities, I was handed over the keys to the car and the SA explained the features to me. There were a few ‘cringey’ and ‘corporatey’ items that they had to do as mandated by Hyundai. There was a song that they played welcoming me to the Hyundai family and they kind of gave me no option other than to pose for a photo with the sales manager with me holding a 10 rating for my sales experience. Apparently, Hyundai consideres anything less than a 10 to be an unsatisfactory response. And all the demo that was given to me was done to check boxes on a checklist but I did ask a few questions that weren’t a part of the list and the SA was able to give me answers to them just fine. During the first PDI a week ago, I had found a couple of minor scratches on the front fender which was fixed before delivery.
Odo reading 9km during the first PDI:
Minor scratches found during the first PDI:
New car smell and feel!
Delivery Ceremony (special ceremony as Hyundai would like to call it) with my close friends in Bengaluru, I am the one in the blue shirt
January was a pretty heavy month for me in terms of my work and guess what, the first place I took Kanmani to right after taking delivery was my office, because I only had 2 hours time for the ceremony and formalities and Bangalore traffic ate 1 hr of it. I had requested for temporary registration as I planned to do the permanent registration in my hometown (Vellakoil is my hometown and the nearest RTO is 20km away in Kangeyam in TN) as I would probably be in Bangalore for a max of 2 more years only.
Some more pictures:
My work ensured that I stayed away from Kanmani as much as possible during the honeymoon week
(well, not really, but you know how newlyweds behave xD). I had driven about 60km in Bangalore city the day after delivery. I had to go to my hometown for a function and what better way to travel than with my love? (~300km one-way, 365km including a few errands that I had to cover) on Jan 26. I had to return back immediately the next day, adding another 350km to the odo and boy was I enjoying my time with her! ~800km driven in under a week of delivery! She is going to burn a hole through my pocket with all the XP95 that she’s been drinking! I’m pretty sure that as long as she was able to not burn a hole through my heart, I’d be just fine.
Crossed the 1000km mark somewhere on the Highway!
I did a few 10-15km drives within Bangalore over the next week, adding another 150-200 km to the odo and I had a trek to the Himalays lined up in Feb 1st week, which meant that I wouldn’t be spending quality time with the car until Feb 13. As soon as I got back to Bangalore from the trek, I took the car to my hometown again for registration (another ~600km round trip) and it actually took 3 days for the process to complete because the documentation required for registering a vehicle in TN was much more than what Karnataka requires. The inspector had decided to make me go in circles and I had to travel to Tiruppur RTO (~100km round trip) to get a signature approving the registration in the state of Tamil Nadu with temporary registration being done in KA. The dealership was either not familiar with the documents that were required (eg: STA approval of the design) or had not shared certain documents with customers before this (eg: load invoice aka invoice that was made to the dealership from Hyundai). But the sales folks from Advaith Motors (Mr Kavan and Mr Darshan) were extremely helpful in arranging for the documents and ensuring that I had what was required for registration.
Waiting outside the RTO Office:
Once the registration was complete, I took Kanmani back to Bangalore and she had already covered 1850km and was due for the first service. The recommended interval was between 1200-1500km, but since I was stretched for time, I had to go for the service after registration which added ~800km to the odo (600 km round trip between Bangalore->Vellakoil, 100km trip to Tiruppur RTO and some shorter drives to grandparents’ place adding another ~100km). It was a walk-in service and I had not informed them that I would be coming and I was taken aback by the service experience (in a good way, that is). I was asked to drop the car at the entrance of the service bay and I was greeted by a receptionist (?) *for the service centre*! I was asked to wait in the lobby and the entire place looked like a corporate office, not a back office for a service centre! And as I entered the waiting lobby, I witnessed something that I had never seen. It had a clear view of the shop floor below and it was, clean! Squeaky clean! This place looked like it was the place where they designed supercars. Workshops aren’t supposed to be this clean, I have no idea how Advaith Hyundai managed to pull this off. I was extremely happy seeing this and it gave me the confidence that Kanmani was in the right hands. The lobby also had a paid snacks counter with packaged biscuits and chips and I assume it also served tea and coffee. Nice touch if you are going to be spending a couple of hours while your car is being serviced.
Cleanest garage I have seen!
The space on the left is the waiting area:
I waited in the lobby for a few minutes and I was greeted by the service advisor. I asked for engine oil replacement as advised by the Team-BHP ‘how to run-in’ article but he was very insistent that it was not required until the first 10,000 km. I decided to trust the owner’s manual and gave a go-ahead for the regular service. The SA pushed me to get underbody coating and silencer coating to prevent it from rust. I wasn’t really sure if my mind believed his claims, but the heart wanted to take no risks with Kanmani and it said okay even before the mind had the chance to lay out its arguments. I went to my office after dropping her off around 9.30 am and I was surprised to see two messages from the SA on WhatsApp. He had sent me videos of the coating being done. This was again, very new to me and I was surprised at WhatsApp being used so effectively as a communication channel.
I picked up the car around 6 pm after paying ~4.5k for both the coatings and later that night I found out that they had cleared ‘waste’ that I had put in the storage space under the front handrest. The waste that they threw away included toll receipts (which is trash, anyway), but it also had fuel bills and a FASTAG from Airtel Payments Bank that I had not stuck to the windshield :( I got an Airtel Payments Bank FASTAG near a toll booth during the very first trip to my hometown a week after delivery as they were the ones that could support activating a FASTAG through VIN and without a permanent registration. I wanted ICICI FASTAG as that is my primary banking account and they told me that I couldn’t get one until I had permanent registration. I did not want to use one more app just to recharge for tolls. So I thought let me use the Airtel one temporarily (and hence I did not fix it to my windshield) until I receive the one from ICICI I did not think that the service person would throw everything away as this never really happened during the 12 years of my dad owning the Ritz. I was pretty bummed out because I needed the fuel bills (which had crossed more than 12k at this point) for claiming tax benefits and the Airtel fastag had around INR 500 balance left.
As we speak, the odo currently stands at 1975km and I will do a detailed follow-up post about my observations of the car in a few hours. Do let me know if you would like me to cover anything specific and I will cover that in detail.
Until then, here's a picture of Kanmani following the tire treads of our beloved Ritz: