[SDP]

Some pics from a monsoon (huh... it didn't even rain) drive - Tamhini Ghat - 18th Aug 2014:

[Seran Manian]

Lovely green view. Second pic looks to be 1st one zoomed further. Very nice. Hope and wish Duma gets along fine.

[fusionbang]

Duma looks majestic between the greenery. Nice pictures SDP

By the way, is this just a ghat or a hill station?? any view points from this ghat??

[SDP]

Originally Posted by SDP

Problems to be addressed during next visit to the service center:
....
7. Fresh rat attack. No wiring eaten, but chewed the same rubber piece near the bonnet hinge as earlier. Heard that a particular SA at my service center helps with a jugaad solution. Will have to get it done next time.
....

Last week, one morning, when I opened the hood, I saw one huge rat sitting right on top of the battery. He didn't run away, but just hid in the cavity around the headlight somewhere. I had to hit on the fender a few times to make him jump out of the car and run away. What I realized from this episode was that may be a rat has started using my car's engine-compartment as a cosy little apartment and he/she stays there even when I drive the car and gets a free ride to my office and other places. That was a scary thought and I had to do something.

Spoke to a couple of friends and got tobacco and gulal recommendations. Wanted some solution that was easier to hang in the engine compartment. Then fellow BHPian and friend SiddarthDeb suggested a solution from tufkote which has worked for him. Ordered it from ebay, paid slightly less than 500 Rs.

Then I got lazy and wasted 4-5 days till one evening when I was driving back from work, I heard a fairly loud sound ...like something hitting on a moving plastic part. I was in almost bumper to bumper traffic and wasn't sure if that sound was coming from my car. Lowered the window-glass and turned off the engine. The sound went away, so it was coming from my car .
The car ahead started moving. So I fired the engine again and the sound reappeared, but was lesser this time. I got scared that something in the engine compartment has become loose or has fallen off and gotten entangled in something moving. While I started looking for a gap to pull over in the heavy traffic, the sound vanished in another 30 seconds. Drove home with the music turned off and ears tuned for that weird sound. Luckily it did not appear again. After reaching home, checked the engine compartment, especially the accessory belt. Could not find anything. Later that night, I came to the conclusion that most likely it was a rat who was hiding in the engine compartment and started exploring when the car got moving.

Next morning inspected the car again and found that the rat has nibbled on my Morimoto xenon wiring.

Cleaned up a bit and tied the rat-repellent bottles the same day.

Chewed rubber part.


Droppings.


More droppings.


The rat-repellent.




Used two bottles. One on each side of the engine compartment.




Now, fingers crossed.

[ghodlur]

Sanjay,

Firstly the Duma looks serene in the midst of the green. I have been following your other Monsoon drive thread and the pics are simply brilliant.

Sad to know that the Duma is being troubled by a puny little rat. However the arrangement you made doesnt feel 100% fool proof, was the cap supposed to be closed? I have heard there are rat protection meshes available in the market, dont have the detailed info but will try to source. Maybe the parking spot also needs a second look. I hope the rat leaves the Duma on its own.

OT: On other thoughts, was it a divine intervention during the auspicious Ganpati festival. In that case the Duma was blessed I must say.

[SDP]

Originally Posted by Seran Manian

Lovely green view. Second pic looks to be 1st one zoomed further. Very nice. Hope and wish Duma gets along fine.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by fusionbang

Duma looks majestic between the greenery. Nice pictures SDP

By the way, is this just a ghat or a hill station?? any view points from this ghat??

Sorry for replying so late. Its not really a hill-station. Although Lavasa (which is a hill-station) is on the same route.

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Sanjay,

Firstly the Duma looks serene in the midst of the green. I have been following your other Monsoon drive thread and the pics are simply brilliant.

Sad to know that the Duma is being troubled by a puny little rat. However the arrangement you made doesnt feel 100% fool proof, was the cap supposed to be closed? I have heard there are rat protection meshes available in the market, dont have the detailed info but will try to source. Maybe the parking spot also needs a second look. I hope the rat leaves the Duma on its own.

The service center guys said the rats typically cause a problem only in the monsoon. Unfortunately I don't have an option for the parking space in my building. Let's see if the rats decide to leave my car alone.

The bottle has holes on the side. Two of which are used to string the cable-tie through them, but there are more holes on the side. So the inside material is sort of exposed to the rats via the small holes on the bottle. The cap is not supposed to be removed.

OT: On other thoughts, was it a divine intervention during the auspicious Ganpati festival. In that case the Duma was blessed I must say.

HaHa

[rajathv8]

Thanks for sharing. Read non-stop from start to end over the weekend.
Please do report back on how the rat repellent is working for you. The engine compartment of our A-Star is home to either rats or lizards, hopefully not both! I end up checking under the hood before every drive out of the parking spot. So far no damage done except the "gifts" left behind.

It is very encouraging to see all the niggles being reported and sorted out one after the other. Happy driving!

[Sisu]

Hi SDP,

Any developments with your Duma?

Have been missing seeing your regular updates here

Cheerzzz

[SDP]

Originally Posted by Sisu

Hi SDP,

Any developments with your Duma?

Have been missing seeing your regular updates here

Cheerzzz

Thanks for reminding.

There are actually 2 fairly imporant visits to the service center I have missed talking about. Let me get the details in place sometime today/tomorrow and update.

Here's a quick generic update in the mean time: Duma went to Karnataka for a ~3000km round trip during Diwali vacation this year. Duma munched the miles with ease. Except for the couple of instances when the infotainment system rebooted accompanied with a loud boom from the speakers, Duma behaved nicely.

2 and half years completed and ODO is near 29000Kms now.

[SDP]

Date: 8th Nov 2014

About a week after the ~3000kms Karnataka trip, visited the service center and reported following issues. Resolutions are listed just below each problem report.

1. Left rear-window glass is winding down and up slower than other windows.
Although i demonstrated that particular window takes distinct 2 seconds more for going down all the way, the RM said "unless it stops functioning, he wont be able get a warranty-replacement done". I didn't argue.

2. Rattle from left side front door pad and cowl above the dials.
Fixed

3. Steering makes kat-kat sound when turning the wheel completely on right side.
They apparently retorqued the steering components and the sound went away.

4. Khad khad sound from front Stabilizer bar. I had paid for the bushes last time.

They retorqued the suspension and the sound went away for a few days. Not very happy with the suspension noise recurring frequently.

5. Start-Stop not working.
They suspected the battery first, but battery turned out to be fine. Not sure what they did, but start-stop started working again.

6. Moist carpet below driver floor-mat. This is a old problem. Kept on forgetting to get it corrected.
They agreed that the carpet is moist. Suspect was the AC condensation outlet pipe. They checked that and did not find a problem with that. The couldn't find any other reason for the moist carpet. Problem not fixed.

7. TPMS relearning. I had forgotten to do the TPMS-relearning after I got the wheels rotated some time back.
Fixed. Not getting any "FR tyre swapped" error now.

8. A rubber piece just below the dials had become loose and mis-aligned.
Fixed.

9. Horn not sounding if I press on the horn pad's extreme right side.
Fixed.

10. The engine was idling at 1100 rpm on some mornings. No particular pattern.
The couldn't reproduce the problem. Nothing done.

11. Left taillight had a lot of water accumulated inside due to crack a biker left on it.
They removed it, emptied the accumulated water and put a temporary duct-tape on the crack. They replaced one bulb as well.

12. Missing screw-cover in one handle cavity in a door plastic panel.
Fixed. Its loose. Expecting it to fall and go missing sooner than later.

13. M&M logo at the rear had darkened at a few places.
They said it happens if the chrome fittings available in accessories are used, as it obstructs normal draining of water. I don't have any chrome accessory fittings. RM said polishing should take care of it. They eventually replaced the entire piece in warranty.

Total bill - Zero Rs.
Was expecting that they would charge me at least for the work on the cracked left tail-light and the bulb. They didn't.

[SDP]

As mentioned in the previous post, we did a ~3000km trip to Karnataka.
Here are some Duma snaps from the trip.

[SDP]

Originally Posted by SDP

Date: 8th Nov 2014

.....visited the service center and reported following issues. ....

4. Khad khad sound from front Stabilizer bar. I had paid for the bushes last time.

They retorqued the suspension and the sound went away for a few days. Not very happy with the suspension noise recurring frequently.

...

When I complained about the suspension noises during the trial on 8th Nov 2014, I was just chatting with my RM and asked him if there is a permanent solution to the recurring suspension noise. Was expecting the standard "No" from him, but he surprised me by saying "There are new bushes of a different material in new cars. These are the bushes that are placed between the top of the dampers and the car's body. With these the problem doesn't go away, but the suspension starts making noise only after 40-50K on the ODO and not early on". I got super excited on hearing this. Finally some long term solution instead of replacing the balancer bar bushes and retorquing the suspension regularly. He added, " But for this the entire front suspension needs to be taken off. Time consuming job. The vehicle needs to be left at the service center overnight. With the work load that we have on weekends, it would be great if you can drop the vehicle on a weekday". I agreed and dropped the vehicle at the service center on a weekday next week. Got the vehicle back the next day after completing the apparently major work. I drove it the next day and found no difference. In fact I felt that the sounds from the suspension have only increased. I decided to test it for at least 2 more days. By early next week, I was convinced that there is no noticeable improvement and the suspension sounds are as is.

I decided to escalate the matter to Customer Care this time. Let's see how it unfolds.

[SDP]

The Duma has completed 2 years 7 months as of Jan'2015 end. Almost 1000 days of ownership.

Got some time recently to get all the maintenance record properly filed and documented. Here's a quick summary that I prepared.



Some short forms used: RO = Repair Order, RR = Running Repair, n/w = not working, LR = left rear.

First and only observation: The vehicle has been to service center 20 times in 2.5 years!!
That's once every 48 days. Almost once every one and half month. Completely ridiculous.... if you ask me.

Would share more analysis on the specific complaints per visit, recurring issues, parts replaced etc soon.

[SDP]

Reached a milestone couple of days back:






The Service-Due alert popped up in a matter of minutes.

[SDP]

Bought the additional 2 year warranty (Mahindra calls it "Shield") some 10 days back. Paid some 22,500 Rs for it.

I had already bought additional 3 years Road-Side-Assistance package about a year back. So, now I have RSA for 5 years and warranty for 5 years.