A long awaited update to this thread
:
Why were there no updates all these days?? Simply because the car has just been doing its duty diligently and I have had nothing to report about the car.
There have been no mods to speak of, so I'm saving those updates for when I get to achieve them in the coming months. In the past few months, the car has been racking up kilometres on the odometer with the daily 70km home-office commute. The odometer as of today stands at 27,900 km of niggle-free ownership experience, and as many as 13,000 of those are after the remap.
On the odometer front, I've just been clicking pics at every ton but failed to upload them. Here they go in a barrage - 20,000 to 27,000th ton :
There are two maintenance-related updates on the car. The first is a visit to Madhus enterprises for the routine wheel alignment and hunter roadforce balancing around the 22,000th km.
The 'Abarth' arriving at Madhus
Hunter roadforce balancing complete!
The other maintenance-related update was a visit to Vecto motors for a small checkup I wanted done on the car. Around mid-May, the brakes were giving out a light squeal on gradual braking, although I felt no difference in bite power. Around the beginning of June, I paid a visit to Vecto motors at their new facility on Mysore road and got the niggle attended to.
Trusted and capable service advisor Surendra, who was at the helm of affairs here, attended to the car and we did a preventive replacement of the brake pads since they had very little life remaining. The brake pads had previously been replaced just under 10,000 km on the odometer (report found elsewhere on this same thread). Considering I have been pushing the car after the remap, I'm quite happy with the 17,000 km life that the pads have put up. I also changed the air filter and pollen filter, they were very dirty already.
Arriving at Vecto's new facility on Mysore road. The Abarth goes up on the lift
Old set of Brake pads
Promptly replaced with a new set of Brake pads - good to go for another 15k kms hopefully
The dirty air filter was also replaced with a new one
Total expenditure on the visit = Rs. 4408 /- (This will be collated and added to the excel sheet under misc. expenses when I go for the 30k service shortly). 'Break' pads indeed! *winks*
I was in and out of the service centre in a couple of hours on a Saturday morning, thanks to making a prior booking through their hotline. Before you ask, no the Indica was not there for a service
Other updates and observations: I am not at all happy with the Apollo Aceleres. At a little short of 25,000 km, I have suffered close to 25 punctures (total on all 4 tyres) and I'm not kidding. Each time I have visited the tyre centre near my place after noticing a quick pressure drop in one of the tyres and plugged the holes with the tubeless repair kit, but that's not the point. Each tyre has had at least 5-6 holes plugged in, some even more. I thought it had something to do with my route, but changing the route to a smoother, urban commute doesn't help either. These things seem to pick up all kinds of nails like they are magnets!! I'm not sure if it has something to do with my bad luck, or if the tyres themselves are like this. In stark contrast, my T-Jet runs on uber-soft Michelin Primacy LCs on all kinds of highway roads and those tyres haven't picked up a single puncture in 2 years of usage!!
Even the grip of the Aceleres is abysmal, so to speak. On hard braking, ABS kicks in very early on many occasions and on wet roads or hilly areas with curves, the grip is pathetic. Last but not the least, the ride quality is very harsh on these tyres. I really wouldn't recommend these tyres to anybody from the experience I have had. Prospective Punto owners, please, please consider swapping these tyres for better Michelins, Pirellis or Yokohamas straight out of the showroom. That way you will get much better buyback prices and bag the entire new set for around 10k net. I plan to dispose them at the 30,000 km service and swap to Michelin Primacy 3ST series of the same size.
My next update is due this weekend after a visit to Madhus for the routine alignment / balancing, and perhaps a detailing session at 3M car care.