Sometimes I am not sure if it is my love for adventure that attracts such unsolicited and unwanted experiences!

This experience is about a roadtrip that I took with my Mom. It was my cousin’s wedding which was supposed to be a destination wedding in Jodhpur.

So, in mid-December 2023, my mom and I headed towards Jodhpur at 7 AM with a very loaded car (Two women and a destination wedding, so you can imagine the load on my car!)

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The Preparation and Route

Since my car was about 8 years old, I decided to change the tyres of my car to give it a fresh life. One day before the trip, we changed to MRF tyres which costed us 7,000 per tyre. We then got our car full tanked and were all set to leave at dawn the next day.

We decided to take NH8 and given what happened, I am extremely glad that we chose this route!

Since we left early in the morning, we avoided the city traffic and signals and were on the highway in no time.

My mom had already started fretting about having the sun in front of us in the afternoon as we were going to be heading towards West.

Cruising at a decent speed of about 90 Kmph, we reached our breakfast stop – Hotel Highway King at Neemrana.

The Issue

Soon after we resumed our journey, I felt the car emitting some unusual sounds – or so I felt. My mom thought it was a figment of my imagination.

I ignored it and increased the volume of music.

About half an hour later, the sound grew louder and this time even Mom felt it. To me, the sound seemed to be coming from the tyres. I thought maybe there was an issue with the new tyres or probably the guy had not fixed it correctly.

I got out to check and everything seemed normal. So I thought that there must be something with the engine. As per google, it could be absolutely anything – from car muffler to ‘transmission’ to ‘brake pads’ to ‘exhaust system’ and some other terms that I had no idea about.

We decided to continue and stop at a mechanic’s shop to get it checked. By this time, we had crossed Jaipur bypass and since we were on the highway, we would not come across any garage unless we took a diversion.

We decided to search on google and added ‘garage’ in the search along the route section which showed a garage ‘Highway Automobiles’ which was just 2km from our location.

Now in my experience, google maps is not that accurate with smaller shops/restaurants especially along the highway. However, we decided to take the diversion (since it was not too off our route). Luckily, there was a garage at that location and when the mechanic drove my car to check, he immediately and confidently said that the issue was the ‘wheel bearing’ of my front right-side tyre.

Phew, I thought. Wheel issue seemed an easy fix – at least it sounded easy to me.

What is a wheel bearing?

I tried to understand the technicality of wheel bearing from the mechanic and got to know that it is a small metal ring which connected my wheel and axle.

It was this small part that helped my wheel to rotate smoothly.

And now that this had gone bad, my car was making a grinding noise. To my understanding this little ring was what helped my wheel to rotate freely causing minimal friction.

Chalo, problem identified and some knowledge also gained in the process.

Issue Identified; Not resolved

The mechanic patiently explained about the bearing and its importance to me; however, he did not have the bearing for my car.

As this was a very small town, he asked us to either go back to Jaipur or go to the next town of Bagru to get the bearing changed.

By now it was already noon and we had nearly 7 hours of journey left. Our initial aim was to reach Jodhpur before sunset; which was not an option anymore.

In the interest of time, we decided to move towards the next town of Bagru (20 km ahead) instead of going back to Jaipur.

Bagru Stint

We reached Bagru and headed towards a garage that came up on my map. The town was in fact lined with a lot of garages.

Since we now knew the issue, all that we needed was a wheel bearing which seemed a very simple task.

But Alas.

We drove along their market area which seemed unusually quiet. We later got to know that most of the shops in that area were closed due to ‘Amavasya’ (12 December 2023).

The few shops that were open did not have the part. In the same town we found a Hyundai dealer outlet and since my car was a Hyundai Verna, we walked into the shop hoping for some miracle.

The technician drove my car and returned with a very solemn report on the car status.

He stated that the bearing was in its final stages and there was no way we could reach Jodhpur – in fact even reaching Kishangarh which was the next big town (70 km from Bagru) was going to be very difficult.

There we were in a town full of garages with no solution to an automotive problem!

We were a little desperate and kind of pressurized the Hyundai technician to find a solution for us. The Woman card.

Finally the Hyundai manager made a few calls and found us a Hyundai Service centre which was about 20 km back (close to the place where the issue was identified).

Although it was not a preference to go backwards, we had no option. At least now we had a definite solution as the service centre confirmed that they could procure the wheel bearing for us and get it repaired.

Since the wheel bearing was now in its last stages – I was unable to drive at >40kmph. At that speed, we moved towards Jaipur.

We crossed a toll again and it was just our luck that this particular toll did not have a concession for a Return journey!

What were the odds?!

Alfa Autotech

It took us nearly 1 hour to reach this place due to a few diversions and signals on this 20 km stretch. During this journey, we kept in touch with the Hyundai service centre to make sure that by the time we reached, they had procured the bearings.

The staff at the service centre was extremely efficient. As soon as we arrived, they checked the car and confirmed the right front wheel to be the culprit.

They made us sit in a very comfortable waiting room and served us some very sweet coffee. At that time, we really needed the energy and had two cups of the coffee along with some of our snacks and some left over paratha from my breakfast.

We turned this break into our lunch break plus tea break since now we would not have time for either of these stops.

While we were waiting, there was a lot of excitement in the waiting room as anytime then, then CM for Rajasthan was to be announced. And the name was supposed to be a suspense.

‘Kaun Banega Rajasthan ka CM?!’

This was the headlines being played in a loop on the news channel. My mom joined the political discussion happening in the room.

My only question was what would happen first – the announcement of the CM or repair of my car!

Unfortunately, the announcement won the race and after about 1 hour of Bhajan Lal Sharma being announced as the CM, my car was finally repaired.

Total Damage/Setback

The wheel bearing costed 1000 INR and the labor for getting it fixed costed an additional 1200 INR, so the total cost was 2,200 INR.

But more importantly, this issue set us back by nearly 5 hours. Mom did mention that we should probably stop overnight at Jaipur and resume our journey the next day, but I vetoed the idea, almost instantly.

“At least now you will not have the sun in front while driving” I said.

By the time we resumed our drive, it was about 16:30 and we drove into the beautiful orange sunset.

The only dialogue I wanted to say from the bottom of my heart was from ‘Jab We Met’ – ‘Baabaji, ab boring banaa do is roadtrip ko!’

And thankfully, there were no further adventures. Just a lot of night driving which is something I usually try to avoid – but couldn’t do it this time.

Final Words

I guess I am glad that we decided to not take the Mumbai expressway as there are hardly any garage options on that route and we would probably have been stranded there.

Also, I am thankful that the issue happened in broad daylight when the shops were open and there were people around to help us – one of my most important safety tips for Roadtrips!

The one good thing that now happened was that by the time we reached Jodhpur city, there was no traffic. Other wedding guests supposedly got stuck in Jodhpur traffic for over 2 hours!

I guess we were really lucky.