Sir aap ke gaadi se sparks!!

Folks… We all live a Dog eats Dog world now.

This morning while driving to work I was at the last signal at end of Dharavai which you come across when you are driving to Bandra from Sion. You take a right turn from here to drive through the stretch that takes you to Kalanagar. (Map).

I was waiting for the lights to change green at the right most lane, a guy walked in front of the car and said “Sir, gaadi se dhua nikal raha hai! (Sir, smoke is coming out of your car!)”  and he walked away into the traffic, he didn’t wait to reply me when I asked him “Kya? (What?)”. Again a couple of guys who came walking from the front pointed at the hood and said there is sparks comin etc… I was sufferin a bit from the hangover of last nights booze and lost my rationale and pulled over at the stretch to Kalanagar.

I came out and opened the hood to look for signs of burns or smoke but saw nothing. Then a guy walks out of nowhere and says , “Sir, dhua dekha, shayad sparking ho raha hai (Sir, I saw smoke, there is some sparking going on)”. He said “zara start karke dekiye (Try starting the engine)”. I went and started the engine and shut it down. All this while the guy was in front of the car and I was oblivious of whatever he was doing under the hood.

I came out and he showed me the plugs from ignition coil and the distributor had come out and hence the sparks. Now I got suspicious since I knew there was no way the engine was gonna start when the wire from ignition coil was unplugged. In the meanwhile he placed the unplugged wires back into the distributor. I knew he was taking me for a ride, I immediately went in, rolled up the front left glass, picked up my cellphone which lies on the left seat and my wallet. Locked the car and came to the hood. The guy now said “Sir, ye loose contacts se sparks aa raha hai, mene wapas laga dia hai par problem hoga, mein bhi driver hoon (Sir, the sparks are due to loose contacts, I have put the wire back in place but there will be problems, I am also a  driver)”.

I was now sure that the guys who talked to me at the signal about sparks and the “helping minded dirver” who showed up were all connected and this was a scam.I told him my office is nearby, I know things are wrong in here and I can take care of it. He left immediately without arguing.

Now I got in and started the engine and to my shock and awe… It wasn’t revving at all, no bloody acceleration. I knew he screwed it up. I wasn’t sure what was wrong but I thought I gotta get outta here and check, somehow I drove to the signal near Kherwadi and pulled over since the I wasn’t able to speed even above 30kmph on 4th gear with the accelerator on the floor!

I thought something was wrong with the carburetor and opened and checked it, nothing was wrong in there. I put it back in place and decided to drive to Sai Service at Andheri at the Western Express highway. Now it was around 9:20 and I was not able to drive over 30-40kmph, there wasn’t much traffic till I crossed the international airports’ flyover. My dream ride was over when I reached the place where the highway to Goregaon starts. It was jammed, somehow I managed to reach Sai Service.

The folks there told me that one of the cylinders is not firing up and hence the noise and low revving in-spite of full acceleration ( I thought “Fuck, I’m gonna loose lots of money now”). They parked the car and started the paperwork, in the meanwhile I started checking the connections on the distributor and cylinders. I recollected the guy talking about the plugs and after checking it here I saw that the wire to cylinder and the wire from ignition coil seemed to be out of place. In the Maruti 800 1996 model (Yea, thats my ride and trust me even after all these years it is a good one except for the signs of ageing and some squeaks here and there) the wire from Ignition goes to the center plug of the Distributor (Check it here), that was what my hazy memory of the stuff under the hood told me. To confirm it I walked to another M800 that was being serviced, it was a newer model but I saw what I thought it to be.

I came back to my car which was still waiting for the paperwork to finish, tried my luck and placed the ignition to the center plug and the one from cylinder to where ignition was plugged.

With doubts of a possible mess up I turned the keys and we were good!!!

I went to the guy doing paper work his name was Garry D’Souza, and said I am good. He said you did a good thing by not allowing him to repair it cuz he would have  made you cough up anything betweein Rs.1500 – Rs.4000!! Another guy at the service station told me it happens near the Goregaon flyover too.

Sai Service issued me a gate pass and I left. (I hope they were not planning to cook up a story around the failed cylinder to earn some quick bucks!)

Now some related incidents that I came to know:

• Dipsikha & her family got conned near Mankhurd when they bought their new car. Same story, sparks and smoke from the car.
• My colleague Amith Ail whose bro got down to check a sound similar to someone bumping into your car from behind, which was confirmed by a scooter rider who came and said “Peeche se thoka hai (You got bumped from behind)”. When Amiths’ bro got down to check the car, the scooter guy sped off with the cellphone that was lying in the car.
• http://www.expressindia.com/news/ie/daily/19990211/ile11185.html

I am sure there must be lot of other incidents where many unsuspecting people have got duped. So next time you see strangers telling you about sparks/ smoke from the car,  “don’t ignore it” but make sure that you don’t allow anyone to tinker with the engine or leave the hood unattended with a stranger asking you to start the engine to look for sparks. I know it is very uneasy to drive around when someone has told you that they saw sparks from your car, so get it checked at an authorized service station for that “Sigh of relief!”.

The last word is… Be extra cautious while dealing with such situations at night and isolated places. Also make sure you have at least some basic gyan about your car/ bike/ computer/ or anything that you use so that you know what you are using and can do some preliminary troubleshooting.

Happy Driving| Always wear your seatbelts | And no mobile phones while driving!

Novin.

I hope all those silent maa-behen ki gaaliyan and curses showered by others motorists who got stuck behind in the rush hour don’t really reach me

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