From sounding like lawn-mowers, automatic transmission vehicles have come a long way
The first time I drove an automatic car was in the United States, way back in the mid-1970s, I hated every furlong of it. The sheer loss of power when needed the most—while overtaking and on fast turns—was what kept me off automatics for decades. One needed that kick one got in the guts from manual gear-shifting. Recently, however, given the sheer number of gadgets inside cars and the multi-tasking expected when driving in North America, be it a mobile phone or in-car entertainment or just making sure that a multitude of laws are not being broken, automatic transmissions have become almost a necessity. In addition, rental cars seldom, if at all, offer manual options.
Here, in India, most automatic transmissions have been boring, at best, and tedious as well as difficult to maintain, at worst. This remains the case especially with some of the old style three- and four-speed automatics, where you can hear the engine whirring away like a lawn-mower while the transmission tries to figure out the ideal match required on our confusing driving experiences, with twisting roads, rapid stop and go, overloads being the rule rather than the exception and, most of all, dust playing a major havoc in everything connected.
However, over the past couple of years, automatic transmission has taken off and quite rightly so. Mainly being fitted out on smaller cars like the Celerio, K10 and Nano, these variants offer a manual transmission-like experience but also give you the liberty of working a lever and letting the electronics do the rest. Whether you are looking to buy a new car or not, do consider going over to a car dealership and taking a test drive, well before you close your options on it. It may just be worth your while.
Big Business
Resale of vehicles, whether stolen, damaged, seized for loan default, or simply abandoned and put up on ‘offer’, is big business. Global players have also entered the trade as the number of such vehicles available is running a close second to genuine used motor vehicles, and the interest as well as financial outlays involved are staggering, to say the least.
While quite a few of these recovered cars and bikes make it to the scrap yard for chopping up, many re-enter the market; what’s even worse, their documents re-enter the market looking for buyers. The mismatch between the two, the document and the actual vehicle, is a fascinating story. The first level of due diligence includes matching the registration details with the engine number, chassis number and easily visible VIN (vehicle identification number). To put this in as gentle a manner as possible, these are easily manipulated and, often, do not tell the true story. There is, for example, no central database which can track the movement of a vehicle’s registration through different states or even regional transport offices within the same state.
So, first things first; any vehicle which has changed registration numbers frequently since manufacture and first sale is to be researched deeper. How does an individual buyer research any further? Not very easily, as it happens. A corporate, on the other hand, will have the resources to:
a) Find out where the VINs are secretly stamped in some parts of an automobile.
b) Find out the specific identity number of computer chips fixed in cars for a variety of purposes.
c) Track ownerships of cars from the register of ‘serial offenders’, an informal list which insurance companies maintain.
d) Dig out real service records for the vehicle as different from service record for a registration number.
The car resale market is changing too. The number of old cars being rejuvenated and sold with documents of new, stolen or destroyed cars may be reducing.
(Veeresh Malik started and sold a couple of companies, is now back to his first love—writing. He is also involved in helping small and midsize family-run businesses re-invent themselves.)
Looks more like an editing error to me. If this is intentional then whoa you could have done this as two separate articles. Don't you think ?
Even established foreign brands like Toyota, Ford & Honda dumb down cars for sale in India by removing auto option or providing a very bad transmission (Suzuki etc)
Is this the insight you wish to offer to your readers? It will help you a great deal if you ask someone in MoneyLife to critically review the articles before publishing. It is simply the process. Thanks.
C V Manian