GM Service Plus

“Leave the car here. We may be able to give it back in 4 days”, said Gowda.

“4 days! Oh come on! Do you guys always take 4 days for any kind of work?”, I said to myself.

I asked, “How much will it cost?”.

“Around 30,000”. Gowda said after a short but stretched hmmmm.

After pleading with my boss, I was able to take 3 days off from work. I decided to drive from Bangalore to Kerala for a vacation. Just 5 minutes after I started the journey, I rear ended a Scorpio on the Outer Ring-Sarjapur Road. Scorpio, being a sturdy SUV, suffered minor blemishes while my car had a dislodged front grill and  badly damaged front bumper.

“You had serviced my car yesterday. Now I have banged my car into a Scorpio. I was travelling to Kerala. Can you assess the damage? If there isn’t much damage, I would like to continue my drive to Kerala” I told the GM engineer who had serviced previously.

He said “Sir, Please take down this number. We are on Kasturba Road. But the service station which takes car of accidents is on Rajaji Nagar. You will have to contact them.

“But… Can’t you assess the damage? How am I going to find Rajaji Nagar?” I pleaded.

I drove half way across the town and found the GM service station in Rajaji Nagar. I found Mr Gowda who asked me to find my answers in GM Service station at Kasturba Road. After explaining about being directed to this service station by his brethen at Kasturba Road, he agreed to assess the damage.

“That is a lot of money” I said to myself.

“There goes a good part of my full and final settlement from my previous company” thought my wife looking at the two new checks she picked up 2 hours ago.

“What is the risk of driving to Kerala?” I asked.

A short but stretched hmmm later. “The engine hood is stuck. If the car gets heated up, you will have to put this on top of truck and bring it back” Gowda says.

I panicked. My wife and daughter is with me. Do I really need them to go through this ordeal? But, my mind cleared up and started racing very soon.

It has been 3 years since I bought the car. Never once did I open the engine hood! Not even once did the engine give me problems during the drive from Manali to Gurgaon through the Himalayas in 17 hours.

Why should I put the car on top of a truck? Why can’t it be towed? There are also plenty of automobile body shops on highway! They may be able to help.

I'M GOING TO KERALA.

After 12 hours, I reached home safely. My cousin recommended a  local automobile body shop. There were able to fix my car in nearly one-fifth of the GM estimate! They returned the car in 3 days. The car looks great.