Good Motoring
Timely servicing keeps it fit
H. Kishie Singh

ONE thing your car cannot do without is maintenance. Regular maintenance is referred to as preventive maintenance. The manufacturer recommends that every 5,000 km, or may be even 10,000 km, you take your car to an authorised dealer. Please note, authorised dealer. He knows what is to be done to your car. He has the correct tools and, most important, he has original spares. Both are important to the well-being and welfare of your car.

The roadside mechanic has tools but the days of screwdriver technology are long gone. Definitely, he does not have the right tools, nor does he have the knowledge. An authorised dealer will recommend that the wiper blades need changing. The roadside mechanic will happily tell you, abhi chalega. You may end up with a scratched windscreen. The wiper blades may have cost you only a few hundred rupees. A new windscreen will cost you at least Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000. A premium segment car windscreen may cost you twice that amount. A classic case of penny wise and pound foolish.

If you get periodical check-ups and maintenance done regularly, chances are you will never need to open the bonnet. May be to top up the windshield washer fluid but not much more.

The authorised dealer will also check and change hose pipes and fan belts or drive belts, as they are referred to these days. Previously, your car had a fan belt, the main job of which was to move the fan and water pump to keep the car engine cool. It was driven by a pulley off the main crank. Today an alternator is fitted to the car. The fan belt also moved the dynamo and the alternator.

Today’s cars have drive belts that move the compressor for the AC and power steering in addition to the normal duties of moving the fan and alternator. In other words, modern cars force you to have the engine running at all times. A broken drive belt can lead to disaster. You will lose your brakes and steering.

This is exactly what happened to a Punbus luxury vehicle in Dera Bassi on its way to Delhi. The drive belt broke, causing great inconvenience to the passengers. The only reason this happened was that the bus lacked preventive maintenance.

Once a vehicle stops, you are forced to repair it. Obviously the drive belt had been ignored when the bus was taken to the workshop for servicing. Well before a belt breaks, it frays. Threads can be seen sticking out. A visual inspection can show this up. It was ignored. An official of Punbus said that in future they will make sure that a spare belt is carried in the bus.

That is not the answer to this problem. Will the necessary tools to change the belt be on the bus? Probably not. Is the driver or conductor competent to carry out this repair job? Chances are no. So the proper procedure would have been to change the fan belt while it was being serviced. It would have prevented a whole lot of grief to the passengers.

At one of the traffic points in our city, advice is being flashed electronically to drivers waiting at a red light. "Switch off engine if the wait is more than 15 seconds.’’ This may not be the best advice in my opinion. If the engine is switched off, all systems shut off. The AC, of course, is the first to stop. The brakes, power steering, electronic windows won’t work. The car will be standing ‘dead’.

Not recommended in case of an emergency. In any case, Indian car owners are not ‘fuel conscious’ or ‘green conscious’. They will never do without an AC during the summer months.

Happy motoring.