error saving excel as text(tab delimited)

Excel file has 16 columns
..
row 6032 has 16 values
row 6033 has 14 values
row 6034 has 15 values
..

when i save the file as a tab delimited text file ( or even when i just copy the rows and paste into text file), this happens (showing last 4 columns:13-16)

..
6032.a b c d
6033.a d
6034.a b c
..

problem is- in all rows after 6032 there is one less tab character in each line

Ex: in row 6033, after 'd', there is no tab (\t), instead just newline (\n)
similary in 6034, after 'c', it's \n
this happens irrespective of how many values in the row - exactly one tab less at the end..

has anyone encountered this before ?

Note: original data has been modified to protect privacy

[EDIT] : The spaces between the columns are actually tabs and there are 2 tabs between 'a' & 'd' in row 6033 (forums don't like to show extra spaces)