A long and first trip in our Nexon

 Dear Readers

            Hope you all are doing well and celebrated the Diwali!            

            3 years back, when we bought the Nexon petrol, it took 3 months to go for a long trip which is around 550-kilometer one way.

            Usually, for long trips I prefer to have a halt after 300 kilometers, and I never travelled 500+ kilometer in one go with family. So, we had a halt in between and went to Tiruchendur.

            And, we reach Tiruchendur by evening and have a darshan as usual. In the next day we sometimes have a darshan once again and start returning home. However, my spouse friend advised us to have a early morning darshan to avoid the crowd.

            So, we went to the temple by 230 AM in the morning, saw a less crowd and it was about 10 people. Temple administration allowed us to have a darshan after an hour and we returned to the hotel by 5 AM. I realized our friend had given a wonderful idea for the stress free, peaceful and wonderful Darshan.

            One another friend joined us, so I had to take two rooms at the usual hotel Sivamurugan. I used to Mostly because of their clean and neat rooms. Of course, they charge 1000 additionally than other hotels nearby.

            My next suggestion is for the veg restaurant. Mani Iyer hotel is known widely for its delicious and quality vegetarian food. Of course, due to the popularity we have to wait for a min of 30 mins sometimes to get a seat there.

            After finishing the darshan, we started from Tiruchendur around 10 AM and travelling in the Tuticorin to Madurai highways. To my surprise, after crossing a toll gate I found something unusual. I could not shift the gear to first. Only 3rd and 4th gears were working. I had to use the 3rd gear until I found a tea shop to park the car. 

            I called the TATA RSA and the manager of our regular service center. And I was in discussion with them to arrange for the immediate roadside assistance. To be frank, I did not expect to see a serious issue within 3 months of purchasing a TATA car. So many things were running in my mind, how to return to my native which is 350 kilometer away, where to service the car, how much it will cost. how serious is the problem and so on. 

            Thank God, the tea shop I parked had the name board of Lord Muruga with the picture. I saw a car mechanic shop next to the tea shop. I told my family to have a tea in the tea shop, and I went to the Mechanic. undoubtedly, he is a highly talented mechanic. within a few mins, he was able to identify the problem.

            He asked me to shift the gear while he was diagnosing the problem by opening the Bonet. It was finally a small rubber cap which connected the two gear rods went missing. I have never seen such a poor design. Is it fair to use a small rubber cap to connect the critical components like gear box. He told us that it would cost not more than 100 rupees and it was not available in the village. 

            Hence, he did some tactical solution by using a wire to connect the gear rods and assured me it would not get removed until it is serviced. realizing the timely help, I paid him 500 rupees and continued our journey. As he said, that wire worked well until the whole gear selector cable was replaced later on.

            Additionally, I escalated this issue to the south India head of Tata cars. Customer care team immediately replied saying they would ensure the smooth functioning of the car and apologized for the inconvenience.

            Thanks for reading! Stay Healthy! Jai Hind!