Buying a vehicle is one of the easiest jobs to do in India. One needs to just pop into a showroom and select their desired toy and the personnel present would present a multitude of options to buy the vehicle you sought after the most. One can pay the cash in full or choose the EMI route. The second route, interestingly and unfortunately, in India at least is easier than getting a student loan to get into college.
However, buying a vehicle is one, maintaining it in its pristine condition is another thing altogether. Unsurprisingly, like many other things, the country is behind on that. Why? well, first off, there is the issue of parking. You see a normal 100cc bike costs around Rs 40,000 in Chennai today. That is not cheap money. It is more than what many people earn in a year, yes there are people like them in our country.
With most houses not having parking facilities, bikes can be seen parked at the side of the road, exposed to the elements. There won’t be shades erected if they are parked inside either. If households are like that, companies are not better off. Most firms do not offer secure parking sadly. A trip to the industrial areas in the city will prove the same. It is not like people are not bothered either. They try to do their best to clean the vehicles, ahem during Ayudha Pooja days, but they are doing more harm than help. Many people use hairwash shampoo on vehicles, utensil cleaners, and some use brushes to clean dirt, damaging the paint.
Because of this many vehicles lose their bling and their paint die within a couple of years. Due to the bad cleaning practices, there aren’t many vehicles in the city that do not have swirl marks in the paint that specialists will call the hologram. All this means people who could be bothered, try stupidly to save the dying paint with wax polish. When that does not work, they turn towards respraying the parts.
However, there is a trick that people use nowadays. They just wrap the damaged parts and save themselves some cash. Intelligent people however, wrap the entire vehicle when it is new to preserve the paint from all the damages mentioned above.
The car and bike preserving industry has a long way to go in India. Mediocre jobs such as a wash and polish, cost around Rs 600 in Chennai today. That amount of money is a day’s pay for many working individuals. One can put around eight litres of petrol for the cash and I bet most would decide to do the latter.
Other things that need to come to fruition is the usage of paint protection film or PPF. The reason why it hasn’t come to major use in India is that the application process requires immaculate paint correction and top notch application. Most PPF applying companies offer five-year warranty as well, and moreover, the film is self-healing. What it means is that if a rock chip hits the surface and there is a small inundation, just a little bit of heat, using a hair dryer presumably, would be enough to make the dent vanish. Even items such as using a clay bar while cleaning the vehicle, different solvents for the wheels and tyres and many others are yet to find a major move in India. The reason is simple, they are too costly, as mentioned above.
Now, a vehicle is not an investment, unless it is well sought after and you wouldn’t know that it is when you buy it new anyway, it costs money to maintain it. But, if people are going to spend lakhs of rupees to buy a premium car, why not spend some thousands to keep it at its best inside and out? If not, then let the cleaner do his/her job and expect to see holograms on the car. Go on, hand over the wash mitt (read old clothes).