[anky]

Hi i have 04 alto lxi with internal adjust mirrors and the cost of fitting 2 mirrors (black) mgp was 1700 approx ie the mirrors 2 and the cover for the adjust lever inside the car. Almost 5000 for 1 mirror is way too much buddy.

[Gansan]

@anky:
Thanks! I said "I am paying Rs 4725 for left side mirror, sun film,car cover and side beading". The mirror I am talking about is the normal one, not internally adjustable.

I have one more question for Bhpians: A friend suggests that I avoid teflon coating for the body (I am not considering this anyway) and do the under body coating after one year. According to him all new cars come with some under body protection which will be good for one year. Is this true?

[anky]

Hi I have the alto service manual and it is clearly mentioned there that the car is treated with underbody rust protection coating at the factory level.BTW the alto lhs mirror manual costs around 260 rs and the mgp original name is KRISHNA TOYO.

[gpa]

HI Gansan,

Congrats on your purchase. You should start a new thread for this here

Find my responses in bold.

Cheers,
gpa

Originally Posted by Gansan

Glad to join the Alto club! I have booked a Caribbean Blue Alto LXi today. Car will be delivered early next week. Price OTR is Rs 297583 (after Rs 15000 cash discount)

Congrats and welcome to the club. The Alto is a very good car for its price and you are bound to enjoy many miles of good driving!

Originally Posted by Gansan

Free items are 3M under body coating, leather steering cover, perfume and third year extended warranty. I am paying Rs 4725 for left side mirror, sun film,car cover and side beading. I will opt for the fourth year extended warranty also and this may cost about Rs 1600

Last year they were giving a 20K discount, and in times of a recession, you should push for a bigger discount. Try and get the 4'th year warranty as free. The 3M coating is a good freebie to get, it is well worth it as it has good sound deadening properties. Steer clear of the so called teflon coating that is offered by the dealer. Its just not worth it.

Originally Posted by Gansan

I will do the Stereo and seat covers outside. My total budget for these two is Rs 15000 and suggestions are welcome.

15K is a fairly decent budget and should suffice for some decent ICE and cloth seat covers. Just make sure you go to a good installer for the job who had the proper tools so that he does a good job. A faulty job will void your warranty and also lead to electrical problems

Originally Posted by Gansan

The dealer is offering power windows (MGP with one year warranty). It costs Rs 8000 for front only and Rs 16000 for all four windows. I wish to install PW for front windows as I feel it will enable quick switch off of AC / roll down of windows and vice versa in heavy traffic conditions. What do you guys think?

This is a good accessory to have especially if you drive alone. Saves you the trouble of leaning over to the left to roll down the window. Its a matter of convenience really, so you can decide if you want to spend 8K on these.

Originally Posted by Gansan

BTW I have requested them to give me a car fitted with Bridgestone/Apollo/MRF tyres and avoid JK tyres as far as possible. I remember reading in some discussion that JK tyres wear out very fast.

You are right. Do not go for JK tyres. They are notorious for there premature wear. The Alto has 145/80 R12 size tyres as standard fitment, so you could opt for MRF ZVTS radials. Even better is if you downsize to 145/70 R12 Bridgestone radials. Does wonders for the handling of the car

[gpa]

Originally Posted by anky

Hi I have the alto service manual and it is clearly mentioned there that the car is treated with underbody rust protection coating at the factory level.BTW the alto lhs mirror manual costs around 260 rs and the mgp original name is KRISHNA TOYO.

anky,

Alla cars are treated with an anti rust coating at the factory. The 3M underboady coat serves to further protect the car's underbody especially in the tough Indian conditions. Also its a great sound deadner.

The original OEM MGP mirrors are Schefenacker. All other names are locally manufactured parts.

Cheers,
gpa

[paragsachania]

Back to the original topic from the poster, I have a Wagon-R Lxi 2006 Model in which I too was experiencing these jerks while releasing my foot off the accelerator pedal while in lower gears/speed with the AC Turned On.

Initially, as a workaround, I developed a habit to turn the AC off at these speeds/occasions but later learnt that this wasnt a solution after all.

For some reason, I was advised by my brother In law (who owns a Garage in Rajkot) to swicth over to Bosch Super Plugs which I did (When my carhad run 50k Kms) and Voila!!

These jerks which were a normal phenomenon disapperared completely and now, even in peak city traffic, bumper to bumper situations, with the AC on, I can easily move in 2nd or 3rd and release the throttle minus the jerks.

In fact, the performance on Highways bettered with the AC on after switching over to Bosch Super plugs.

At lower RPMs and higher load, the Engine requires a good amount of spark for effective combustion. (typically, try revving the engine with the plugs out and you'll realise the sparks are more seamless than in idle speed)

Knocking might be a result of a bad fuel or a bad spark or both and these jerks felt at lower RPMs while in motion could be due to "not so effective sparks" developed by the stock plugs. These jerks are nothing but those knocks!!

Changing the plugs have ensured me that I got rid of this.

Again, a part of this solution lies in how one develops his driving style. For a long time now, I have ensured driving in all the gears in the city (and occasionally 5th as well) and I usually don't revvs through the gears to pick up from standstill. I am in 4th at 45kmph most of the times.

I have noticed that the ECM/ECU plays an important role here too. After every service, I feel that at slow speeds my car jerks only till I start driving my normal way for an hour or two that it gets back to its original condition.

I would suggest, replacement of plugs with the battery terminal disconnected for 45 mins and then with the AC on, take the car in peak traffic and try driving as much possible through all te gears so that the ECM/ECU reads the driver input and adjusts air and fuel intake accordingly.

This is my personal experience after having driven the same car for 72,000 Kms now in the last 3 and a half years (And I am the only one who drives it).

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by gpa

HI Gansan,

Congrats on your purchase. You should start a new thread for this here

Find my responses in bold.

Cheers,
gpa

Thanks! I will surely start a thread after driving the car for a few weeks and soaking in the impressions. I have pushed for discounts as much as I can, short of shaking the sales person by the collar. Would have done that too, except that it was a "she" and not a "he"! There are about 7 dealers in Chennai and I have tried almost all of them with more or less same result. The choice ultimately fell on ABT Maruti because a) they are only a couple of buildings away from my office so leaving for service and subsequent pick-up will be easy, and b) they agreed to select me a car with non-JK tyres! All the other fellows were non-commital about this.

For ICE I am thinking of Radio Warehouse on Wallajah road. I think they are the best in Chennai, or at least were the best when I fitted a stereo for my Dolphin long back! I would like opinion of Chennai based Bhpians about this. Also kindly recommend me a good place for seat covers. What grade of petrol should be used for the Alto? I use Shell premium for my Splendor and suppose it will suffice for the Alto too.

[gpa]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

I would suggest, replacement of plugs with the battery terminal disconnected for 45 mins and then with the AC on, take the car in peak traffic and try driving as much possible through all te gears so that the ECM/ECU reads the driver input and adjusts air and fuel intake accordingly.

Some interesting inputs The Wagon R has a larger displacement than the Alto, so this problem may not be all that pronounced. This said, the ECU bit does make sense, i've noticed that the ECU tends to settle into a particular rhythm based on the driving style.

Give the car the whip for a while and the ECU seems to reprogram itself to your current driving style.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by gpa

Some interesting inputs The Wagon R has a larger displacement than the Alto, so this problem may not be all that pronounced.

Exactly, for that extra amount of Torque, Power and Displacement the Wagon-R has, these jerks (even if minimal) were really irritating.

Just yesterday morning,while commuting to office, I drove my colleague's Wagon-R (~6k ODO) through the traffic and I felt the jerks were very much evident at lower speeds and the Air Con on. He has graduated from a M-800 to a Wagon-R recently and his usual way of driving would be to reach ~4K RPM in the first gear itself to take off (It is a Vxi and I was keeping a watch on it while he drove). Usually, his gear changes were happening at higher RPMs.

Later, I took the wheel and noticed these jerks in second at low speeds. After reaching the office, opening the Hood, we disconnected the battery with a handy spanner and left it for the day and connected that again on the way back.

I took the wheel again and started driving in peak traffic with AC On and in my driving style. After 20 minutes the difference was evident. The car was moving smoothly through the traffic in lower speeds. I advised him to develop this habit especially if the drive is through city at low speeds and load of the AC. I hope it gets better.

The engines for small cars come with displacement of 800-1100-1200 cc and the load of the AC can be easily felt and there is nothing to complain about it since it is bound to happen.

[SLK]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

and these jerks felt at lower RPMs while in motion could be due to "not so effective sparks" developed by the stock plugs.

Today, I changed my WagonR's spark plugs. Didn't get time to buy anything other than Champion plus. And actually I could feel the lower end of the revv range much smoother, just very free to revving.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by gpa

anky,

Alla cars are treated with an anti rust coating at the factory. The 3M underboady coat serves to further protect the car's underbody especially in the tough Indian conditions. Also its a great sound deadner.

The original OEM MGP mirrors are Schefenacker. All other names are locally manufactured parts.

Cheers,
gpa

If the Alto's original under body coating will be good enough initially, can I get the 3m coating done after a year or two? The way I see it, the 3m coating carries one year warranty and will have to be re-applied anyway after about two years. This way I can postpone the expense. Also since it is a freebie, I can get something else instead, such as the sun control film.

[abhibh]

Even i was facing some jerking problem and here is what i did

1. Got the injectors cleaned. Its better if you get them cleaned at 10K or so.

2. Use Fuel additive like STP etc every now and then.

3. Check & clean Radiator.

[gpa]

Originally Posted by Gansan

If the Alto's original under body coating will be good enough initially, can I get the 3m coating done after a year or two? The way I see it, the 3m coating carries one year warranty and will have to be re-applied anyway after about two years. This way I can postpone the expense. Also since it is a freebie, I can get something else instead, such as the sun control film.

Gansan,

Let me clarify-the cars are rust treated at the factory. There is no additional 'underbody coating' done at the factory. If you scrape a speed breaker and if the underbody gets scratched even slightly, rust will start to set in depending on the atmospheric conditions. My friend's A-Star only a few months old already has signs of rust from a very minor scrape.

This is due to very heavy driving in rains that have been lashing Bangalore since May and also, his garage is not properly ventilated that allows for a high humidity condition that's rust friendly

So if you ask me, its best you do not postpone the 3M coat. Instead, get it as a freebie as it far more worth than the sun film. Also, the 3M coat comes with a 2 year warranty (with 4 free check ups and touch ups) after which you do not have to reapply it.

Only if you have severely scraped the underbody and can see signs of exposed metal would you have to go in for a recoat of the damaged area.

There is another thread that's opened on this topc under the technical section. Mods, please move this post if necessary.

Cheers,
gpa

[amit_mechengg]

guys dont you think we have gone enough OT here. last 1-2 pages are not at all relevant to the topic in the header.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by amit_mechengg

guys dont you think we have gone enough OT here. last 1-2 pages are not at all relevant to the topic in the header.

Well, I did my bit by bringing the thread back to where it all started but again it took a wrong path.