Team-BHP - Trax Gurkha - As good as it gets??

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Thunder (Post 1058843)

Thanks for the update, rhandle, those alloys look great without spoiling the off-roading image of the Gurkha. Also, the tyres are really mean-looking : what size are those? How much did the tyres cost?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 1058885)

Wow, with those tyres the Gurkha makes the Safari next to it look tame. Yeah, what size are those alloys and tyres? What is the PCD of Gurkha?

Tyre Size:

31 x 10.5 X 15 with 7" rims so that tyres do not come out very much

Quote:

Originally Posted by thalavoy (Post 1059139)

Is it just me or does it looks like the Gurkha is chewing on the Safari's bumper :) ? I assume the bumpers are touching or very close to each other.

Check out the distance between the front tyre of Gurkha and rear tyre of Safari you wud get a fair idea. Bumpers are far apart.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maddy42 (Post 1059174)

Well rhandle that looks magnifiecient. I just saw a Gurka for the first time yesterday and i loved the way it looked. Only if Force markets this well. I am longing to go once to chennai to check out monster_bhp's vehicle but havent found time to do so.
The rear of this vehicle looks weird as it appears to be lil small for a vehicle of this size but cmon if there is some advantage then we can live with it.

Well does this vehicle come only in one color?

Gurkha is sold as "Black Beauty", Black denoting strength ( as per them lol: )

Quote:

Originally Posted by rippergeo (Post 1059821)

+1 to that. the gurkha was driven very well , taking the right route and maintaining a good momentum. whatever said, it is is still a great vehicle.

Check the entire vdo series, you can find it on you tube and you would see this vehicle stuck and people working their head off to take it out. No vehicle is FOOLproof ~ pun intended!

Gents,

Just repatriated to India and agree with you guys that presently offered Gurkha is one of the best option available at present and the one who decides to go for it surely would not like to compromise on basic requirements as I do.

Understand Gurkha is not a regular production vehicle and more of like a custome built as you have to pay 100% at the time of booking. Hope after such hefty advance payment you expect some features of your own rather than standard box offered.

I do believe that engine power is not sufficient for serious offroading. To get the best out of available I came up with following option need you guy's expertise and resources to resolve my queries.

1) To counter the engine power option is it possible to get the Gurkha with 3250 Engine instead of 2650. (If we do the engine swap on own the new 3250 Engine cost @ INR 2.5 lacs where as you can get @ INR 1 Lac for company fitted 2650. Monitarily to upgrade power option will cost straight 1.5 lacs.)

2) Indian offroad community is still amateur and no good option of tyres are available hate to write but Company fitted tyres are Joke for serious offroading. You need to go for upgrading in such case company supplied tyres will be useless. Quite a few K's can be saved by getting the correct desired tyres fitted by company instead.

3) By the grace of God Gurkha hard top present waiting delivery is only @ 10 days but my personal view Open / Soft Top waiting of 8 - 12 week is too much. Is there some one can help in this case even I am willing to take the open top vehicle and fix the hood / canopy on my own. In anycase have to fix the Roll bar / cage for offroading.

These three are the basic concern am having and without proper resolution of the same dont think Gurkha will serve my purpose.

So Techno/Carcrats with all due respect to your experience and resources lets develop one reasonable offroad machine worth some capabilities.

Cheerrrssss...

People keep talking about power, this makes me laugh. Folks, power is for on road, racetrack being the ideal candidate. Off road, you need a properly designed chassis, suspension and most important, right power curve transferred through a proper tranny, in this aspect, Gurkha excels and is incomparable. Granted the newer DI engine lost 11bhp from the venerable OM616 turbo but this by no means negates its prowess, it has a better torque spread with the torque coming in early and that matters a lot.

The original Gelandewagen which is still rated to be the best had a measly 72bhp in the OM616 240GD and 80bhp in 300GD. MB engineers knew the priority and powered it just right. The vehicle gained notoriety in off road circles where it would run circles around higher powered JEEP, TLC and Patrols while doing serious off roading. The Unimog which is a go anywhere vehicle had 38bhp engine to start with and yet had no equal when it came to driving in difficult terrains.

After having done 10 years with the original OM616 turbo Gurkha, I can tell you that when it comes to off road, it has never been underpowered for me, I have climbed the most acute hills, the muddiest bogs et al with ease.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeeper (Post 1063952)

Understand Gurkha is not a regular production vehicle and more of like a custome built as you have to pay 100% at the time of booking. Hope after such hefty advance payment you expect some features of your own rather than standard box offered.

In the recreational off-road market Indians don't really have a choice. Gurkha comes with decent off-road hardware, but it's crude and for the price you pay it is a huge compromise in terms of refinement. If you don't mind petrol, I would consider a Gypsy King. You can import lockers etc, and make it more capable than the Gurkha in a much more refined package.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeeper (Post 1063952)

Gents,

I do believe that engine power is not sufficient for serious offroading. To get the best out of available I came up with following option need you guy's expertise and resources to resolve my queries.

1) To counter the engine power option is it possible to get the Gurkha with 3250 Engine instead of 2650. (If we do the engine swap on own the new 3250 Engine cost @ INR 2.5 lacs where as you can get @ INR 1 Lac for company fitted 2650. Monitarily to upgrade power option will cost straight 1.5 lacs.)

This is not worth it for a number of reasons:
1. It is more cruder than the 2650 engine and you will really feel like you are driving a tractor.
2. The engine is much heavier than the 2650 and for all the increase in weight and decrease in refinement you barely get a couple of bhp more. Definitely not worth the headache. You are better of waiting for a good engine in the used car market to do the swap. Please don't waste your money on the the 3250 lorry engine.
For most off-roading situations, the engine produces sufficient torque.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeeper (Post 1063952)

2) Indian offroad community is still amateur and no good option of tyres are available hate to write but Company fitted tyres are Joke for serious offroading. You need to go for upgrading in such case company supplied tyres will be useless. Quite a few K's can be saved by getting the correct desired tyres fitted by company instead.

Small correction mate !.

Indian Offroad market is still amateaur. I don't think the offroad community is amateaur. keep reading this section and you will see that we can hold our own. What we lack is support from Indian manufacturers for decent vehicles, hence our quest to make our vehicles more capable without having to sell the family jewels.

Back to the topic of Gurkha tires, it depends on which tire the Gurkha comes with. The JK LT2000 4x4 tires are pure off-road mud terrain tires are good offroad. They are an exact copy of a Michellin 4x4 off-road tire. I have seen some Gurkha's come with useless highway truck tires. It depends on what tires you get from Force. Either way you can source wide mud terrain tires in India. It all depends on how much you want to spend.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeeper (Post 1063952)

3) By the grace of God Gurkha hard top present waiting delivery is only @ 10 days but my personal view Open / Soft Top waiting of 8 - 12 week is too much. Is there some one can help in this case even I am willing to take the open top vehicle and fix the hood / canopy on my own. In anycase have to fix the Roll bar / cage for offroading.

So Techno/Carcrats with all due respect to your experience and resources lets develop one reasonable offroad machine worth some capabilities.

There is more demand for the hard top version hence Force produces more of them. I sincerely doubt you will get your soft top in 8-12 weeks. They will not do a production run without sufficient orders. The hard top is available in 10 days since they have stock in the factory. The 10 days is for some bloke to drive you brand new vehicle at 120 kmph from the factory to the show room. Yes, inspite of the fact that this is a 8lakhs+ vehicle you They drive it to the showroom and you pick up a *new* vehicle with over a 1000 kms on the odo depending on where you live. I actually had to pay exra to have it send by lorry and the one I ordered came with 2 kms on the odo to cochin since it came on a lorry.

Personally, I am a diesel-head and am not a fan of petrol vehicles, but like I said, if you don't mind living with a petrol, you should seriously consider the Maruthi Gypsy King.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeeper (Post 1063952)

Gents,

Just repatriated to India and agree with you guys that presently offered Gurkha is one of the best option available at present and the one who decides to go for it surely would not like to compromise on basic requirements as I do.

Understand Gurkha is not a regular production vehicle and more of like a custome built as you have to pay 100% at the time of booking. Hope after such hefty advance payment you expect some features of your own rather than standard box offered.

I do believe that engine power is not sufficient for serious offroading. To get the best out of available I came up with following option need you guy's expertise and resources to resolve my queries.

1) To counter the engine power option is it possible to get the Gurkha with 3250 Engine instead of 2650. (If we do the engine swap on own the new 3250 Engine cost @ INR 2.5 lacs where as you can get @ INR 1 Lac for company fitted 2650. Monitarily to upgrade power option will cost straight 1.5 lacs.)

2) Indian offroad community is still amateur and no good option of tyres are available hate to write but Company fitted tyres are Joke for serious offroading. You need to go for upgrading in such case company supplied tyres will be useless. Quite a few K's can be saved by getting the correct desired tyres fitted by company instead.

3) By the grace of God Gurkha hard top present waiting delivery is only @ 10 days but my personal view Open / Soft Top waiting of 8 - 12 week is too much. Is there some one can help in this case even I am willing to take the open top vehicle and fix the hood / canopy on my own. In anycase have to fix the Roll bar / cage for offroading.

These three are the basic concern am having and without proper resolution of the same dont think Gurkha will serve my purpose.

So Techno/Carcrats with all due respect to your experience and resources lets develop one reasonable offroad machine worth some capabilities.

Cheerrrssss...

Men,
Read again, what "Jeeper" points out is a very intresting ,
GURKHA! yes, we should be looking for 3 Litre + engine and 16" tyres for a serious offroader. (none wrote about Gurkha having comforts as a SUV, or one with modern comforts and finishes) my assessment after what I have read on the forum, many are liking if for it's offroad capabalities than its onroad comfort and another negative.. inferior interiors etc.
The upgradations (in quote) are a very costly affair, had these been standard for the price offered, it would not be such a bad deal after all, though the Gurkha may be having the Mercedes Benz technology (engine and gearbox) it is not the latest.
It is a good idea by "Force Motors" not to make it a regular production vehicle and call it costum built, even though there's nothing costum in or on it, or else they would be a huge pile up of unsold vehicles.
7-8 lakhs!!! is a huge amont to spend on vehicle that has plus for only offroading capabalities and it stops at that.

Gents,

Thanks for the support and advises I jumped in to the forum with interest of building superior off-roader to carry out serious off-road business, do not intend to go on tarmac / paved roads. I found Gurkha as one of the potential vehicle to suit the purpose more technical than commercial point of view.

I do not consider Gurkha’s off road and on-sand performance report on other threads as a serious off road. Neither I am surprised with Gurkha’s average performance and the way it stuck-up in Coorge OTR nor do I intend to debate on Engine history of Unimog & G Wagon’s predecessors & successors.

My concern is considerable amount still requires to top up above the on-road price of Gurkha to make it extreme machine for offroad.

I would like to thank "4X4addict" for the suggestion to go with Gypsy and carry out some mods which may be the option worth work out monetarily as well.

to meet same minded team mate to share & implement the resources and knowledge in to project than to enforce own thoughts and beliefs in to thread.

Warm Rgds,

Note from mod: Do not use FONT and SIZE Tags please, they are not supported and make posts unreadable

Building one OR bring in one like photo graph is not a big deal one can any time do it. The issue is maintaining the same and each part replacement you have to wait for weeks to import and keeping stock of general spares means dead investment of $$$.

I was in Indonesia for few years just repatriated. There the Govt. regulations are same ridiculous as ours but in there quite a good number of Jeep Wrangler enthusiasts exists.

Apart from general cosmetic accessories off road modification essentials spares like Body & Frame, Driveline, Engine & exhaust, Lift Kits & Suspensions, Tires & Wheels are available ex-stock. You dont have to depend on imports for building one or replacement spares.

Even 31"-36" Incher super swampers are available ex-stock Price unbelievable @ INR 4000 - 7000 per piece. You can get a good modified CJ, TJ or YJ modded for serious offroading will cost you Indian equivalant 5-7 Lacs with 4 Plus litre petrol engine OR good diesel.

The reason which stopped me from importing one was absurd import and registration regulations and spares and service support after bringing in so decided to built one out of available.