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An Accident..........

I have done 34400kms in my safari 2.2 as of now.

I was driving back home from my work at 6:30p.m and I was near ambethkar nagar in sarjapur road.The road was pretty free and i was driving at the speed of 80 - 100 kmph.Suddenty, i heared a THUD sound and i went down by 1 feet.I holded the streeing tight and strait and by the time i realised something went wrong and braked,I have pulled in my BULL in a strait line of almost 200mtrs.I got down and was horrified to look at my right front tyres.

Then, I called Prerana helpline and then called home for my driver to come with my camera.The mobile service vechile came and the engineer was horrfied to look at my BUll.We walked to find out from where it happened and seeing it to be around 200mts,He said I was lucky that because of the BULL i was saved.If not any other car would have rammed the median and would have made 2 to 3 rolls.

Then came the fear element inside me.I am really happy that i went for the BULL.

But,Then how can this happen??????????
The same is the question with the engineer too.
1.The lower arm twist
2.The knuckle arm joint twist and the bolts broken
3.The screw loose in upper arm


Then they called a crane to tow my BULL to their peenya service centre.The sad part is i am flying tomorrow early morning and back on thursday night only.So,i have to come back and attend to my BULL.

I need guidance from all here.Please suggest me how to fight with TATA if they dont do it free of cost.can i claim the alloy/tyre from tata motors?

I really dont know....but this is some serious defect.I want TATA to look into it

dear srini, horrifying pics! you are safe, thank god! thanks to your safari! but ever wondered why this happened to you? after such an incident, normally one would be very furious with TATA. if the service engineer told you that you were lucky cos you were in a safari, you should have asked him how can you be "lucky" in a car which gets shattered like this at speeds of 80 kmph? you shuld have asked him why this happened in the first place beacuse of which you were stuck in the middle of the road?

is this what is called reclaming your life?

you were driving at safe speeds, you dint bang on to something, so its not your fault then why? poor product, poor manufacturing, poor quality... whatever is the reason, you are at loss. this is what i mean when i say i hate TATA. this is the limit of their poor quality control. now how many more threads do we have to start complaining about TATA's poor quality, their casual approach, how many more complaints do they need? and how is this going to affect their brand? you ought to sue them but i just hope you get the repairs done free and i wish you get your car back in top condition again.

I think that looks like something in your front right suspension failed and as a result the bolts holding the hub were sheared off apart from other stuff breaking. But still there was no harm to you & that is more important.

As for what to do, if you've not had an impact/accident (as you mention), this merits an investigation into the cause by Tata & if possible warranty replacement of the parts too.

bglsrini, that's water under the bridge; thank god you're safe. Do try to get to the bottom of this and decide on the future course accordingly.


...including the alloy wheel (if it was aftermarket) and the tyre....

hey anup, will TATA or for that matter, any manufacturer offer replacement or compansation for aftermarket fitments? i dont think so. if it was atandard alloys, i think they would have given a replacement if his car is under warranty. is your car under warranty srini?

Too bad, IMO, it was the bolts which failed leading to the rest of the things as he was driving in a straight line on a smooth road.

You should call the TATA regional service engineer and ask him to look into it.

OMG !!!! Just looking at the pictures scared me man!!! Lucky that nothing happened and thank God your safe. These things are supposed to go offroad and they give way like this on tarmac!!!!?? Thats scary!!!!!!!!! Have you got to know on what was the actual cause???

Yeah take this advice, you will be back only by Thursday night but definitely then get everyone involved, at least particularly the regional manager level people involved, or even the Pune people, in this and not leave only to Prerana.

Call all those managers up.

Srini,

Thankgod you are safe.

As dadu mentioned, get the tata regional office involved.

I'm not qualified to take a guess why this could have happened, but am putting up a question - can a puncture leading to sudden/full loss of pressure cause this ? did u go over a bump or pothole just before this happened ?

take care and drive safe. Hope your car comes out fine after free repair.

Yes, that can be a possiblility (but did see him writing about a hump/ puncture etc)

Imagine this (within split sec), you are at 80-100, your tyre hits a big screw, big puncture means immediate air loss, the alloy rims hit the road, the road friction along with the weight and speed of the vehicle pushes the front suspension backwards, the knucle arm bolts get strained and break causing more havoc.

But needs more investigation on the tyre, to ascertain if any screw is still embeeded or a big hole in the tyre along the tread. Did Srini hear any sound of air gushing out.

Srini,

That is bad, very bad! How does the arm break like this? Come on, what did they use for this part, QuickFix???

Man, you have some patience in letting the service guy telling you about your luck! But then, he would also have been equally surprised with this. And yes, from his point of view, if this was some other vehicle, the speed of 80kmph and the low weight itself would have contributed in taking you directly on top of the median!

I do hope these jokers find out the real cause and fix it.

This is definitely a quality issue!

How did arm breakage cause the tire to come off the rim?
I am suspecting a blowout due to some hit or something?
are there any impact craters on the tire surface.

Let me understand one thing here - if the tire got blown out due to hitting an 'object', what kind of object is it? Come on, Safari tyres are not that bad that hitting some object on the road will blown its tires out.

And do note that if the object was big of something that would have been a major concern, I am sure Srini would have noticed it and evade, at least tried to. But that also did not happen.

This is a straight road and he was not negotiating any curve for the tire to turn so.

I would risk to take this line of thought on the events: Something caused the arm to break. This caused the wheel to take the easiest possible turn, which happend to be outwards (ie right side). With the arm broked and the wheel being pulled sideways with 2 tons resting on it, the tyre will surely give way and hence comes out of the rim.

I do not think anything caused the tyre to blow out.

Now, if this indeed had happened, Srini would have also heard some good amount of tyre screeching sound before it popped out of the rim.


EDIT: MOD's, have a request: I think Srini's experience needs to be a seperate thread under the 'Street Experience' forum, since we are going major OT on this thread. And I am sure there are going to be more discussion on this.

The tires are bridgestone in most cases, and blowouts can happen on any brand.
This can be a case of arm breakage too, but I can't understand how did the tire come off the rim.
This usually happens in case of an impact. Sometimes a previous hit has made the sidewall weak, and even a minor impact can cause tire breakage.
I guess we will have to wait on Tata for the cause.
If its not an impact issue, then Tata will have to foot the bill for this as well as all related repairs