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BHPian ![]() | ![]() Quote:
But this JEEP thing you will really understand only when you own and maintain it for few days. Nope, few days is not really enough. One need atleast few months. Am also an automotive engineer, but I learnt more when i owned it. It has helped me in my professional life. Now I own few trucks(i don't remember the license plates) though my name is not in the RC book as owner but as Proxy ![]() | |
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![]() | #1532 |
Team-BHP Support ![]() ![]() Join Date: May 2004 Location: Bangalore
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| ![]() Small correction star, CJ and CL's also were purchased as private vehicles in great numbers till recently, esp in the idukki belt as well as in the malabar belt. Few of my close friends still own them as their primary vehicles, though they have better sedans parked in the garage, which is mainly weekend/family vehicles. Yes MM's were owned by the higher social strata of estate owners mostly. |
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![]() | #1533 | |
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Senior - BHPian ![]() Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Germany
Posts: 2,853
Thanked: 1,501 Times
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![]() | #1536 |
Team-BHP Support ![]() ![]() Join Date: May 2004 Location: Bangalore
Posts: 19,775
Thanked: 13,966 Times
| ![]() Doors what doors??? They just put a twig like bar on the side to make a door ![]() |
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Senior - BHPian ![]() | ![]() |
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![]() | #1538 | |||
Senior - BHPian ![]() Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dharamsala
Posts: 2,024
Thanked: 1,367 Times
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Or, with B.D. taking up his new duties (and getting a substantial raise) are we going to see a jeep for sale to the public that is more of an off-roader than the Thar? By this I mean FFRA, solid front axle, lockers etc. | |||
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![]() | #1539 |
Senior - BHPian ![]() | ![]() Guys guys this bit about owning Jeeps is absurd. You all need to realise that not a single employee of the Ferrari factory has ever owned a Ferrari. Forget that, most have never driven one. The factory test drivers of both Ferrari and Lamborghini don't own the cars they drive. But possibly there is no one on the planet who understand those cars as intimately as these chaps do. So please don't suggest that people at M&M can't do an ace job of designing a offroader just because they have never owned the car. What has ownership got to do with all this? The R&D in any company has to continously run vehicles all the time to test for reliability and performance matters. Guys this is their job. To keep testing vehicles. How can you possibly believe that just because you and I own a Jeep we are more qualified to decide what's appropriate and what's not. The foundation of a R&D dept in any auto company is to test vehicles to levels which will never be experienced by the average driver and ensure the product meets certain performance criteria. Its a tough and gruelling task. To say that any of us know cars more intimately than the R&D guys who helped design it is too absurd an assertion. I remember the R&D in Packard Motor Car Company would load sand bags onto the roof of a Packard, prop one wheel onto a ramp so the car experiences maximum torsional twist and still check if doors can open and close. Which Packard owner would do this to his car? Another wild test they did on Packards was to run a car on railway tracks with the track sleepers hammering away at the suspension. They would install a light at the hub cap level and one at the B pillar to test if the suspension absorbed shocks enabling the upper light to remain a flat horizontal line, meaning the passengers would never feel the bumps. What are the chances those engineers owned the Packard? Nil. See the kind of hammering a Ferrari goes through. They bust engines on the Fiorano test track to see the limits to which the car can handle I still say FFRA and solid axle can wait. With SFRA most Wranglers do crazy stuff. Hummers with IFS climb walls and rocks. Its not as bad as you guys make it out to be. Let the Thar get launched, try it out and then decide whether it needs to be written off. Infact I would love to see M&M offer an extreme offroad package option where a customer can order the car with these if he desires to. Bulk of Thar owners wouldn't know what it is all about anyway. No one is denying that a solid axle setup has an advantage over IFS in extreme offroad but there are other relevant tradeoffs that make IFS the overall clear choice. FFRA may be overkill for the kind of offroading 90% of prospective Thar owners will do. With the exception of a few enthusiasts most would never miss the FFRA or the solid axles as they have neither ever broken an axle to desire an FFRA or been stuck in situations when difflocks were the only saving grace. Last edited by DKG : 8th May 2010 at 10:04. |
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![]() | #1540 |
BHPian ![]() | ![]() DKG, it looks like Mr. BD & Spike will land up in Hyd with the THAR very soon(may be next week?). I hope you will test drive it for sure. Will look forward for your report. If you are allowed to test it offroad, what confidence in you makes you are eligible to test it? definitely its your ownership of your CJ3B. Please dont compare with ferraris, aeroplanes or ships which are not affordable to anyone. in such cases we all just do our jobs without passion. not every employee is required to own one. if i am asked to design or upgrade a new M800, i always think of my own experience with it. What i am missing in it and what would i need in it based on my previous experience with it. If i am more passionate about it, i shall maintain its character while i design. Just an example. Last edited by star_aqua : 8th May 2010 at 14:23. |
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![]() | #1541 | |
Senior - BHPian ![]() | ![]() Quote:
I agree with DKG, TSK & Samurai's P.O.V that a manufacturer has to consider much wider base of market than just a bunch of off-roaders while designing their vehicle. I give credit to BD & Spike to actually being here on the forum and including us in the designing/ Spec formulation process for the Thar within whatever they are allowed at. I don't think any other manufacturer in India does that. So let us give credit where is due rather than just casting aspersions on someone. This is a free country, you don't like it, you don't buy it. Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. BD sir, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Thar here in Hyd and setting my hands on it. Cheers | |
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![]() | #1542 | |
BHPian ![]() | ![]() Quote:
As per you they had to consider the wider base of market, then the wishlist should have been under generic topic so that others also would have been participated in designing so that wider base market requirements would have been covered. Why was it posted in 4x4 section to collect the requirements of only off-roaders? This is what is leading to all these posts.. ![]() | |
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![]() | #1543 | |
Senior - BHPian ![]() | ![]() Quote:
Plus you as an automobile engineer would also appreciate that making a vehicle has both technical as well as an economic aspect to it and one cannot overlook either of them. Rather a fine balance between the two needs to be reached to make it both desirable for the market as well as profitable for the manufacturer. The way I see it is that THAR is going to be a stepping stone for a lot of newbie off-roaders (including me) who will learn the tricks of the trade on this before graduating to some serious off-roaders like the MM550/CJ3B etc. I see a good scope for co-existence of both the groups (newbie & matured). | |
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![]() | #1544 | ||
Senior - BHPian ![]() Join Date: May 2006 Location: Greater Chennai
Posts: 4,661
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If the target market is "farm only" or "lifestyle" vehicle, then it leaves a lot to be desired. Though I appreciate BD and SA for being here and reading these we post, it would be better if the team concerned understand the implications of the negatives mentioned and correct the same. Coming to the numbers game - How many a month do you think the THAR is going to sell? 10K, 5K, 2K, 1K ??? | ||
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![]() | #1545 | |
BHPian Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Alappuzha
Posts: 300
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![]() It may be of some interest that my unclebought a dilapidated CJ3B in running condition in 1988 at a price of RS.11,500/- and the price was then considered to be on the higherside! No one knew the worth of the 3B then and simply called it a "cut-chassis" Jeep which gulps gallons of petrol. And the most interesting part is that he wound a metal pipe over the manifold and after starting the engine with petrol, when the engine warmed up, he would open a tap and kerosene( petrol supply will be turned off simultaneously) running through the metal pipe will get heated and the engine used to run on kerosene, though belching out black smoke.Though the Jeep ran for 2 years like this, no noticeable adverse effect was seen on the engine. Last edited by Ashley Nair : 8th May 2010 at 23:02. | |
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