‘Lockdown’ for vehicles too!Demand for mechanics rises

Nidhin A S | TNN | Apr 16, 2020, 04:37 IST

Thiruvananthapuram: Binu Wilson is an automobile electrical technician by profession, whose job profile involves recharging or replacing batteries of vehicles.
With the lockdown entering the fourth week, he has become increasingly busy. It has become difficult to spot him at home as he is flooded with calls from customers seeking his service to get their vehicles revived.
“It is mostly middle-aged and senior citizens who are calling me for help,” Binu Wilson, a resident of Nalanchira, said adding most of them followed lockdown restrictions diligently and avoided going out.
“Their occasional outings were restricted to the nearest grocery shops and thus they completely forgot about their vehicles. Not turning on their vehicles at regular intervals cost them dearly as the batteries got drained,” he said.
Wilson added that for the past few days he has been getting at least 40 to 50 batteries per day for maintenance. Majority of the batteries are collected from households. While, recharging costs around Rs.200, now transportation charges too have also been added. Around 12hours are needed to recharge a battery and at a time 12 batteries can be recharged at his place.
“It’s not just senior citizens who are affected, many disabled persons are also facing the issue,” said Vinayakan, another auto electrical technician at Maruthamkzhy in the city adding that he serviced as many as seven modified motorcycles of disabled persons in the past three days.
Former HM motors mechanical engineer S Stephen said, “If a vehicle is not in use for a long period, it should be started for at least 12 minutes once in 10 days. Else, the battery must be disconnected. Most of the vehicles have 24-hour security sensor working. This also leads to increased working of batteries,” Also, care must be given to handbrake and tyre pressure too, added Stephen, who is now an engineering instructor at technical education department.
The trend observed now is that batteries which were in use for two to three years are getting drained. With proper maintenance, a battery can be used for up to five years.