Saturday, December 29, 2012

Does this work ??

Recently had a very unique experience with the tata safari. I own a 1 year olo tata safari dicor 2.2

It was parked for about 2-3 hours near sector 30 noida. When i came back to the car, i saw the alarm blaring. And there was no one near the car. Assuming that i there was some malfunction, i locked and unlocked the car. But the alarm kept on blaring.

Finally when i was near the car, i saw that the driver side door was open. Looked around and saw no one interested in either the car or the alarm. Climbed inside and saw my sterio still in place. Thought that had left the door open °by mistake°. So started the engine and headed home. Then i noticed that my door - the driver side door was unlocked. Tried pushing the lock, but it was stuck. It was then i realized that some "not so smart" thief tried to break into my car and was unsuccessful.

This is when the story starts.

Had a sleepless night. Cause my car would not lock. I woke up 3-4 times just to check if my car was still standing. To add fuel to the fire, googled about tata safari theft and found that both sa#ari & scorpio are toppers in the list of vehicles which are stolen. My Tata safari has engine immobilizer, gear lock and the now broken central lock. But i read cases where a tata safari with gps also was stolen.

Next morning i went to a nearby service center of tata safari and told him the complete tale. People were awed. But they told me a different tale. That of replacing the complete lock set. And get a new set of keys. I was like "i wud almost never use the key to open the door. Why spend almost 7000 to replace it? I am ok with the key not working as long as the central locking works.".

The driver side door look was examined. It was assumed that the thief tried inserting some sort of screw-driver to attempt to open the lock. As a result the key channel was damaged and the key would not go into the lock. The lock was in a tilted position due to which the central locking was open and "not movable". My simple idea was to bring the lock to its original vertical position so that the central locking becomes possible. But sad to say the TASS guys were not willing to comply.

I took it to another TASS and then to a local mechanic. Made both of them understand that it was a simple matter of "bringing the lock back to its vertical position". Everyone was of the opinion of a complete new lock set.

Even i was convinced that spending 7k was the only option. But as a last try approached another local mechanic and explained him the complete story. This guy said that he will try but cannot promise anything. He opened up the door from inside and took a look at the lock. And turned it anti-clockwise to make it vertical. And bingo my central locking was back in place. He took rs.200 but i was ok with it. He has saved a lot.

If i had gone by the book it would have cost me much more to put a solution in place which i would not be using much.