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-   -   Our oops moments! When our car knowledge wasn't quite good enough... (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/201917-our-oops-moments-when-our-car-knowledge-wasnt-quite-good-enough-4.html)

Year 2011-2012, I was new to cars. Didn't own a car then, was driving my Father-in-Law's 5-6 years old Indica. Had a flat tyre, found a road side puncture repair shop. He showed me 5-6 leaks one by one and at the end I paid 2500 INR to get the car going.

Eventually came to know about the scam these puncture repair shops pull off & I also did not know then that I could buy a new tyre with tube in 2500 INR. He ripped me off and I let it happen. I still feel stupid for that day.

+1 to this... on my first biz trip to the USA in '06, we were told to rent self drive cars (and yes you can drive on an Indian license in English on a B1 visa not on a H1B ironically) as you need cars in USA for everything except for peeing.

I happily booked a Hertz car from Phoenix, AZ - After flying cattle class for almost 20 Hrs and 36 Hrs of non sleep, middle of the night - was given the keys to a car that was parked in a lot of 300, found the car a brand new Pontiac 3.0 G6 Auto after a brief search.


Lesson#1: heck the shifter wouldn't budge even after using both my hands. Called for help, that person could easily move the stick, but it wouldn't move for me - then found that you need to stamp the brake before moving the shifter - the helper was like dude are you sure you know to drive a car? Me, sighs!

Lesson #2: I tried to adjust the RVM, by accident I pushed a button on the RVM and a sweet voice talks to me middle of the night, panicked I immediately hit that button again to turn her off... few seconds later, the sweet voice calls back, "Sir, we know your location, what is your emergency?" - it took me a while to figure out this was a support call - what a technology sirji!

This happened to my friend in 2007, however the actor still was my car (Palio Sports). He borrowed my car for a drive to other city and en-route decided to shop in the near vicinity.

It would have been 30 mins or so, got a call and he was absolutely frantic. It so happened that he picked up stuff, when trying a U-turn to get back on main road. The Palio turning radius meant him needed to reverse :D Oops..he could not engage the reverse gear and traffic piling on both sides of the road. The simple reason,he been unaware of the knob that needed pulled to engage the reverse. After the call and explanation, he could complete the maneuver and started his journey.

Oh boy, next day another call from him on the knob cap coming off.It seemed when he struggled earlier day, in the nervousness has applied brute power, and almost broke the gear knob cap in the process. He fixed it at local garage.

We laugh loud remembering this even today:)

It was in 2012 I owned an Indica vista. My kid was as naughty as he could be and as a precaution I ensured that the central locking is engaged while driving and the child locks stay activated all time for both rear doors.

One Saturday afternoon, my family had gone out for shopping and I was all alone in the house. To get rid of boredom I decided to do something enjoyable and decided to clean the car myself. Whilst I was cleaning the car a thought crept in my mind “I always sit in the driver seat. I do not know how it feels sitting in the rear seat as a passenger.” So I decided to experience the experience and sat in the rear seat and closed the door. After a while of enjoyment I decided to get out of the car. Ooops, time to realize that the child lock was activated and I was trapped inside.

After trying all permutations and combinations finally did recline the front seat completely and slid onto it and then came out from front door. Got some muscles cramped while some were over stretched. Wifey had a hard time massaging with pain killer ointment for more than an hour.

This incident happened with me in circa 2005 in Dubai. I had recently received the much coveted licence to drive in Dubai and thought of putting my DL to a good use. I went to a bunch of Rent a Car companies and asked for a car. They refused me point blank as my license was just 2 days old and one’s license should be at least a year old to rent out a car.

I went to my driving school instructor and asked for his own private car for a day. After some hesitation he handed me over the keys. It was an old Mercedes C Class which I am sure he won in a poker match.

After taking the car around for a day, I thought of returning the car with a full tank of gas. I went to the petrol pump and requested for full tank. Once the payment formalities were taken care of I tried starting the car, however whatever I did it won’t start. I didn’t want to call the instructor as I was still parked in the petrol pump and it was illegal to use the phone in the vicinity of the gas station. The fuel attendant came me to and enquired what the issue was as I was holding the line. I told him that the car won’t start. He took one look inside the car and exclaimed – ‘Please put the car in ‘P’, it won’t start in ‘D’.

Ahh!! Sh**, I realised my face-palm moment, put the car in Drive, started the car and left the place without uttering a single word except for a cursory thank you to the attendant.

Remember two OOPS moments related to fuel lid:

1. Fuel lid button not working on one fine day in my Safari Dicor, was left helpless at petrol bunk. I was not a member of Tbhp then but I am following this forum from long time. Quick search on google landed me to below post.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/offic...ml#post3124407

2. Forgot to ask how to open fuel lid from SA while I took delivery of my New Endeavour. Went to fuel bunk and started searching for button to open the lid. I asked petrol pump boys if they have any idea how to open it. Somehow we figured it out, unlock vehicle and press the lid, it will pop-out automatically.

One day when I was still a novice driver, I took my uncle's Celerio AMT for a spin. The road opposite to my uncles house in Vizag climbs an incline before joining a junction. I slowed down as I approached the junction. The signal had just turned red. I was the first one to occupy the place. I pulled the handbrake and rested my right leg under the brake. Soon sizable traffic built behind my car, waiting for the go.

A couple of mins later when the green was shown, my right leg pressed the brake, released the handbrake and immediately tapped the accelerator. The car did not move. Pulled the handbrake back, tapped the throttle a little harder and released the handbrake again. No response. Repeated this switching process a few times. Still the car wouldn't move. All this while the car receded a few inches. Alarmed and irritated drivers at the back were honking continuously. Some bikers traversed my car and left the junction but other cars remained there and the stop signal was back on.

Then I realised what was wrong. What was wrong? You guessed it, I forgot to change the gear to D from N. A good lesson learned :D

CIRCA 2010

New Car Owner (NCO): Looking for sun film. What do you have?

Accessory Shop Owner (ASO): I have everything. The basic ones start from 1,500 and the branded items will cost 3,000-5,000. You can choose from different grades and hues of tints too.

NCO: I would like to have the one with the lines - in red.

ASO: What!

NCO: You must not be aware of those. All high-end cars have that; on the back glass.

ASO: :Frustrati That is not a sun film sir. Its called a defogger.

NCO: Could you fix that on my car?

ASO: :deadhorse

NCO of 2010=Yours truly

This is my second oops moment. My earlier cars did not have power windows. Since past one year, I have power windows in my car. But, 100% every time, when I turn my car ignition off, My car windows will be OPEN.

No matter what, more than 1000 times, I keep telling to myself that I have to close the windows first and then, turn off the ignition, but, this has never happened.

I will switch off the ignition, then, see the windows open, again turn the keys to ACC position, close the windows and remove the key

Is there a solution to this problem ?

Yes there is !

Go to any car accessories shop and narrate the issue, he will install some chip, which will make the windows roll up automatically every time you leave the car. I can't remember the exact name for this mod, but it is very common.

That is called as Power Window Relay. Please refer below thread for more information.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/modif...ml#post2014484

1. After taking the delivery of my Xcent, next couple of days I was facing the fogging issue in my windshield and other windows during the night driving. Still not very comfortable with my car's controls, I was driving slowly by manually wiping off the fog from the windshield :uncontrol. Then, I visited the showroom where I took delivery of the vehicle and told the SA about the problem and he duly reduced the blower control knob position to 1 from 3 and the problem vanished. Yes, I had not touched/adjusted the AC/Blower controls at all in those 2 days.

2. After a trip to Yercaud with my office colleagues in Xcent, the bluetooth phone call functionality stopped "working" - that is I am able to receive the call however unable to hear the voice. I was unable to find the cause and the solution for the "problem" and thought of waiting it out till the next service. But, then Team-BHP came to the rescue and it is documented here. My friends while fiddling with the bluetooth settings turned down the volume to "0" and earlier I never used to increase the volume whenever there is an incoming call, so never thought of that. stupid:

3. While driving my Brother-in-law's 1st gen Figo for the first time, just like my Xcent, put on the indicator stalk to take a turn. Voila, the wiper blade started working and gave me an instant shock.

This happened with me about a year back when I was travelling in my Hexa. I had purchased the car but couldn't even go through basics because of extreme work pressure. I had informed the Sales person in advance that that everything should be ready and I will spend not more than 5 minutes.
1. I took the delivery in the evening with my family and the Sales person told me that he will at least show me how to switch on the headlights. I gave him a weird look but he persisted. In Hexa, there is fan like regulator switch instead of stalk for headlights. What a weird way to do it!!! But that helped me on my way back.:D
2. I had only driven car one after my purchase in about months time to fix seat cover and anti-rust coat. I along with family went on a long drive (4,500 km). A peculiar problem was that second row AC would sometime start and sometimes won't and sometimes would start on its own. This happened everyday for few days during our trip. Then during the trip took it to Tata Motors and he checked everything and it was working perfectly alright. I tried all permutation and combinations to show him the problem but could not reproduce the problem. While on way back from Service centre, the problem started again which was very weird. But this time, I could find the cause of the problem and solution as well!!

The problem was (which was not) one has to press the button to switch on the 2nd row AC as I wasn't aware since didn't read the Owner's manual due to office workload. This I learnt at the Service centre.
But what about AC functioning intermittently. Well the story is my 7 year old son was very much excited and happy with hexa. So sometime he would take the support of front row seat and stand and then again sit. His head used to touch the 2nd row buttons that would switch it off and on.lol:

The one feature I was most excited during my recent car purchase is the Cruise Control.

Somehow, I could not able to test that feature during test drive. So after taking delivery, when the first instance came up for a highway drive and I am all about using CC. I have seen at least 1 hour of YouTube videos on how to use CC in Verna. So, confidently, I sped up to 80, slot to 6th gear and engage CC. Feature worked smoothly.


Then came a point where I must accelerate to overtake and the up toggle switch was just increasing the speed at 2KMPH rate. It was a frustrating experience in the highway. I was cursing the engineers of Hyundai by making such a useless show of such a beautiful feature:Frustrati. Also, every time I used any of A/B/C pedal, the CC would disengage and again I have to drag up to 80 and slot 6th and set the speed as it was the most logical thing to do, as per me. I wished, they have a switch to memorize my last set value.

Came back and reluctantly started reading the CC part in the manual and voila, I could keep pressing the up toggle to keep increasing speed rapidly and after breaking just one up toggle will bring me back to my previous set speed.lol:

Surprising - in the US cars I have driven, you can press the accelerator pedal to increase speed temporarily when CC is engaged. If you let go of the throttle, the car cruises at the set speed

If you touch the brake, cc disengages. And you had a single button 'resume' to go back to the same speed.

Would be very surprised if the implementation is very different nowadays