Automatic car servicing catching on

When the car enters the garage the machine switches on and massive brushes roll over the car- up, down and all around- applying soap and then rinsing, polishing and drying. Finally the attendants go over the interiors with a vacuum cleaner and run a cloth over the rims.

The finished car sparkles 8230; and it doesn8217;t cost much: Rs 120 for a wash; another Rs 50 for wax polish.

Introduced in the City about four months ago, auto-wash is rapidly catching on. quot;As many as 10 to 15 cars come to us daily. Cielo, Honda City, Esteem, BMW8230;. they all come. But Auto wash is somehow not very popular among the owners of Maruti 800,quot; says Sahni.

The garages haven8217;t lagged behind either. All the authorised car servicing workshops in the city have gone hi-tech. One example is Lally Motors Ltd, the authorised dealer for Honda City. Lally8217;s boasts of brake-tester and side-slip tester, a Robin-aire machine an imported gizmo that rejuvenates the AC compressor without losing the freon gas, a fuel injector cleaner-tester, modern spot and mig welding facilities, and a quot;Neptune Blowthermquot; 8211; a totally enclosed, dust-free system that paints the car and bakes the paint. Even the paint-mixing and colour-matching is fully automatic. Following in Lally8217;s footsteps, Joshi Autozone Pvt Ltd, an authorised Maruti Udyog Dealer, has installed a similar system at their Panchkula workshop, and Saluja Automobiles in Industrial Area Phase II is getting one shortly. According to Joshi Autozone Managing Director Deepak Joshi: quot;This system gives a vastly superior finish and that too in barely 45 minutesquot;.

Joshi8217;s also boast of a special cleaning apparatus for car interiors- a kind of portable dry-cleaner-cum-vacuum that leaves the upholstery and carpet looking like new. A seat-and-carpet job will cost Rs 200.

But owners are not the only ones to have benefited from the modern machinery. The clean, easy-to-use, precision tools have moved motor mechanics out of the grease-monkey category and closer to the realm of the automotive engineer. No more dirty spanners, no more sweating and cursing over unbudging rusted bolts, no more crawling under the car. Pneumatic car-lifts and pneumatic tools have made servicing more of brain and less of brawn.

quot;The work is not only easier but more efficient,quot; says mechanic Anup, adding quot;And see 8230; clean uniform, clean hands.quot; His colleague Narender points out: quot;Looking like regular employees also means that the customers treat us with more respect.quot; The work environment of the garage now has the professional air 8212; order, discipline, a place for everything 8230; and even piped music.

Most City workshops and tyre shops now have computerised wheel alignment and wheel-balancing- although puncture-repair technology hasn8217;t changed much over the years, except for the machine that takes the tyre off the rim without damaging it. Kwik-patch or Omni-patch are the modern puncture-fixers.

Many garages have a CO-HC analyser to check the vehicle8217;s emission level and headlamp beam aligners. Some garages have a high-tech machine that can get duplicate keys made from the original.

Although some workshops- notably Saluja Automobiles- offer 24-hour helpline services, only minor problems can be tackled. A driver whose car develops some major problems at night is stranded- there8217;s no place to buy spares at night and no mechanics available either.The car owner has no choice but to leave his car wherever it has broken down and go back in the morning.

Autozone tried a Page-Me service but the response was poor. Hi-fi service doesn8217;t come cheap however- which means the roadside repair-wallahs in Sector 28 are in no danger of losing their livelihoods.