Why vehicles driving through Haji Ali are getting splattered with paint

Jay Divecha, founder of The Detailing Studio, a car restoration outfit, in Kemps Corner, has had to work on “at least 60 cars drove in with the same issue”.

Next time you drive through Haji Ali, you may want to watch out for an unwanted spray of paint splattering your car. Correcting the damages can cost anywhere between ₹5,000 and ₹30,000.

Vehicles dotted with paint are stationed at 4SAuto in Mahalaxmi, waiting to be polished back to their original state. (Bhushan Koyande/HT Photo)

Over the last few months, car workshop owners in south Mumbai have observed a peculiar phenomenon – owners of cars driving in with tiny flecks of paint dotting their vehicles. A close study of the phenomenon revealed a simple fact – all have driven past the under construction Coastal Road, particularly at Haji Ali, where overhead work is on.

Jay Divecha, founder of The Detailing Studio, a car restoration outfit, in Kemps Corner, has had to work on “at least 60 cars that drove in with the same issue”. “In many cases, especially when the car is white or of a light colour, the owners get the vehicle in for a different reason, and I have to point out the additional damage caused to them,” said Divecha, who works with celebrities, including sports stars.

Mahalaxmi-based 4SAuto’s owner Lalit Jogani has set right at least five vehicles bearing similar conditions. On probing, he found they had a shared history on the road parallel to the Coastal Road, particularly at Haji Ali, where the paint job is on. “As the wind blows, it is possible the paint sprays over like dots on the cars. As most don’t realize it soon, the paint hardens over time making it a tough task to deal with,” said Jogani.

Madhav (name changed) was one such customer – he noticed the sprinkles of paint on the windshield of his brand-new midnight blue Mini Cooper over a week ago, looking like “it had chicken pox”. He first dismissed it for dust. When attempts to clean it were unsuccessful, he decided to take it for a wash.

The extent of the damage was revealed at Jogani’s workshop. “He made me run my hand over the bumper which was grainy,” said Madhav. “I drive from Gowalia Tank to my office in Opera House every day. But I have used Haji Ali to go to BKC a few times in the past fortnight.”

Parag,another of Jogani’s clients, noticed the specks on one of his cars, a Nexon.ev, last week. A few days later he found a similar malaise on his sports car. Both vehicles are black which made the flaws jarring.

“Jogani told me I was not the only one who’d faced the same fate. I used the way that goes past the Coastal Road and at Haji Ali frequently. With the wind blowing, it is possible some paint landed on my vehicles,” he said.

The Mini Cooper and the Nexon.ev are now stationed at 4SAuto, waiting for the paint to be removed by a patch-by-patch steam treatment, which will be followed by a polish.

Both Jogani and Divecha put the starting cost of taking the paint off at ₹5,000, while the former said it can stretch up to ₹15,000.

“We use a product to take off each and every single dot of paint. Then we decontaminate it, and then polish,” said Divecha. He added cost of dealing with aggressive cases in larger cars often shoot up to ₹30,000.

The cost is quite the burden to bear – Madhav, who bought his car barely a month ago, said he “is like an ostrich burying my head in the sand as I don’t want to know how much this will set me back by”.

Mantayya Swami, the chief engineer on the Coastal Road project, admitted that painting work is currently going on for the Coastal Road on the Haji Ali stretch. “We will take complaints into cognizance and put up a barrier to prevent it.”