Paint your wagon, etc Gentlemen..she's back all dolled-up and looking pretty. First things first: since we were discussing the charges, this is what I was slapped with by Monsieurs TAFE abd their Limited Bros. The basic cost of repainting a door was Rs. 4000/- (inspite of their lady on the phone telling me it was Rs 3500), to which were added taxes and Collection/Delivery (Rs 300). Then came Rs 400 for a full body wash, and Rs 1200 for a full body polish (that I opted for). So, excluding delivery and other supplementary charges, the paint job cost about Rs 5000. Total hole in wallet? Rs 6700. And to have to pay that much having already suffered the ignominy of damage to a week-old car was perhaps an overload to the system. I did not lay a claim on my Insurer either. The Quality of the Job:
My chief concern all along was their ability to match the colour, and I hounded them right thru the entire time they had the car with shades of apprehension pointed at every Tom, Dinesh and Harry I could get on the other end of my call. I MUSt say they did an excellent job in this respect. I stood the car in direct sunshine as well as inspected it in the shade, and the door seemed to match every adjoining panel perfectly. So full marks there. The Let Down:
The tinkering and painting were well executed but there is a slight abrasion scar beneath the clear coat and just to the edges of the area worked upon that's roughly 3-4 inches from one side of the original scratch--as though the base coat or filler was not sanded out evenly. And it's discernable to the close-inspecting naked eye but not overly obtrusive. I raised the matter with their point man Dinesh and he promised to redo it to my satisfaction. That means another round of tension/BP/Heebie-Jeebies while my baby is entrusted to the questionable driving abilities of a total stranger, the same workshop for another go at her ...and so much more. Maybe, just maybe, it's not worth the stress and I'll live with it. Only time will tell how I feel about it, but I'll have to act fast if I want to cash in on 'free' correction. The Silence of the Lambs
In respnse to the NVH question someone asked:
Tractor is EXTREME and definitely an exaggeration unless that particular Fabia ran cow dung in the engine and had been assembled by a blind butcher. Like I said before, she makes no secret of the fact she's a diesel, but she's not in the league of a Verna for sure. Din and resonance are absent in the cabin, but the engine's acoustics could have been better damped at idle. Once past idle, the Fabia is fine. Mellow music is not impinged upon enough that you need to strain your ears or programme 'filters' into your listening. Hit a slight incline and load the engine and she's much more refined.
ps. I drove a friend's circa 1996 Benz 250 diesel the other day, and my Fabia beats her hands down. I guess she rates somewhere along the scale between that Benz and the ultra-advanced post-modernist Verna. And closer to the Verna. |