[anjan_c2007]

The going was good and to be precise 90% of it good. The 10% bad part was due to an equal percentage of ethanol blended with our trusted fuel. This is to rise to 20% soon and hence our good going by then gets reduced by 20%.. And diesel awaits its new name "biodiesel" more than soon.

[pritanshchandra]

2023 was a special year because I started my corporate career. 2024 was extra special because I bought my dream car, the 3rd Gen Honda City with my own money. I drool over this car every single day.

[Ashdel]

It was a year full of road trips - clocked 30,000 kms this year plus developed love for Petrol engines. Most importantly completed my dream of Solo Nepal trip in Dec 2024.

Bhutan is in 2025 !!!

[Vmk1950]

Originally Posted by Vikash Kumawat

Being an Automotive Enthusiast, 2024 hasn't been a great year for me. We somehow managed to buy a Swift 2013 as used as our first car in Aug 2023, everything was going fine and the car too was decently maintained, but in Mar 2024, on an total empty road, a reckless Dezire taxi rear ended my car, unfortunately we didn't know about the insurance name transfer, we got the RC on our name but didn't get insurance on our name, so we finally had to pay total 80k rupees from our pocket, paying 80k for a used car was a disaster for us.
Things went wrong after the accident-

1. Worst FNG experience

2. Front seat locks are now broken, have to use the seats at fixed position

3. Rear glass was so much poorly installed that, in the monsoon it started raining inside the car, I have to reinstall 3x the time to get the rain stop coming inside

4. After market alloy got crack on it due to the impact, even after so much efforts I couldn't find the same alloy, had to get back to the steel rims ( I don't like the after market alloys, but it was the previous owner who installed them )

5. Now again it started raining inside the car in 2024 monsoon, but not from the rear glass, in 2013 swift there is a hole under the rear bumper, which opens in the boot, and that hole is coverd by a cap, the clowns of that FNG, fit that cap upside down, so the water was raining on the car was coming from housing of the tail lamps to the boot of the car, basically water has to go outside, but because of that up side down cap, out of 100% water, 30% was coming inside the car, the flooring soaked the rain water, and it literally took 2 months to recognize that how the hell the flooring is getting wet, and It was only me who found the leakage

And now the suspensions are gone, steering is making noise, toomuch rattling noise from every corner of the car, I wish, we can replace this car soon
The FNG which I never recommend, anyone from Jaipur outskirts please ignore this FNG -
Kana Motors, Chomu, Jaipur 303702

What is FNG? 'Please ignore this FNG!' Please clarify.

[PrasannaDhana]

My 2024 was delightful and blessed

I was lucky enough to cover 54,000 km across 5 of my cars this year.

2024 started with the arrival of the Best selling car of 2024 - The Punch





Though I have driven it only 7500 km this year, I do love the comfort and effortless driving nature of the car.

I was also lucky enough to buy a couple of school buses



I ended the year with another purchase, though for my brother, the car is being enjoyed by me 24/7 - The gorgeous dark Harrier which was bought in November this year.





I have already enjoyed 4000 km with the harrier and love it.

Ofcourse how can I forget the OG legend which I love driving every single day if I have to,- The Safari Storme Varicor 400. I had the roof ac evap coils replaced this year and the car is chugging along at 90,000 km flawlessly. I have driven the storme for 17,000 km this year

The 2 big diesels of the garage







Next comes the daily driver - the Altroz diesel. I have enjoyed this car for just 15,000 km this year as other 4 cars took off the work load from it. 2024 is the year that saw altroz being used the least in 3 years of ownership. The car is as good as new with 75,000 km on odo.



Interesting test drive experiences

1. Punch EV - Loved the car. Pretty exciting but the limited top end was a deal breaker. Excellent value proposition though



2. Altroz Racer - Despite the cringy name, I had a lot of expectations from the Racer. 120 bhp on a hatchback ought to be interesting, isnt it? But the car disappointed on road. It's luke warm at best. Why would you buy a turbo petrol when it performs just as much as it's uber efficient turbo diesel sibling ?



3. Jeep Compass AT - This was for a friend who was interested in the base Sport variant after the attractive discounts. Liked the car except for the TC gearbox that I felt didn't exploit the 2.0 diesel enough.

4. Maruti Suzuki Dzire 1.2 MT - The 5 star GNCAP rating meant that I could finally have a safe Maruti in my garage. Test drove the car. Dull but practical 1.2 engine, good space and nice looks impressed me. A perfect tertiary car for my needs.

Experiencing friend's/BHPian's cars

1. Indar's XUV7OO AX7L AT - Loved the car. Excellent engine, very good refinement, one of the better TC transmissions, strong performance, good ride quality but a tad too soft a suspension if you are a fast driver.

2. BHPian Hserus' Endeavour 3.2L AT - Again, totally impressed by the car as a package. Strong performance, good handling and lovely ride quality.



We also took delivery of a new Safari for my friend.


In 2024, I have been able to experience/own a vast variety of Tata cars.

1. Altroz Racer 1.2 Turbo Petrol
2. Punch EV
3. Punch 1.2 NA Petrol
4. Safari Storme Varicor 400 2.2L
5. Altroz 1.5 Turbo diesel
6. Harrier 2.0 Turbo diesel AT
7. Safari 2.0 Turbo diesel

Despite using 4 Tata cars at a time, I havent had any reliability issues with any of them. With Tata's reputation and so many horror stories floating across the social media, I definitely believe I am lucky.

This year also saw me parting ways with one of my cars - 2021 Celerio 1.0 which has completed 25,000 km. Celerio was driven 10,000 km this year, mostly by drivers and my dad.



With celerio going away, I had booked and expected to take delivery of the new Dzire by December. But as luck would have it, the car reaches only in first week of January. In a way, blessed to start 2025 with a new car.



2024 also gave me an opportunity to meet so many BHPians who have become close friends.

One such drive



2024 has been a busy yet wonderful year for me. Hoping 2025 be as good or even better!

Advance New Year wishes folks!!

[Vmk1950]

Originally Posted by pritanshchandra

2023 was a special year because I started my corporate career. 2024 was extra special because I bought my dream car, the 3rd Gen Honda City with my own money. I drool over this car every single day. Attachment 2704234

Attachment 2704235

Honda City ivtech is a great car. I enjoyed it for twelve years and miss it. You will enjoy too. Congrats.

[sharmanova]

Originally Posted by Vmk1950

What is FNG? 'Please ignore this FNG!' Please clarify.

FNG refers to Friendly neighborhood garage sir .

[pritanshchandra]

Originally Posted by Vmk1950

Honda City ivtech is a great car. I enjoyed it for twelve years and miss it. You will enjoy too. Congrats.

Thank you . I agree with you wholeheartedly. It's 12 years old now but doesn't feel like it. The engine is super silent below 3k rpm and is pure music to ears post that till redline. Surprisingly, the car has constantly given 12 - 13kmpl in Gurgaon city driving. 14 - 15 without AC. My next car will be a Honda for sure.

[GForceEnjoyer]

I'm happy to say I had a great time!

• Tons and tons of road trips: We went on 4 massive road trips this year, 3 in the Superb and 1 in the Fiesta. Overall, we must have covered some 10,000 km from road trips alone! The Fiesta was also finally enjoyed on some proper mountain roads after 11 long years.
• Learning how to drive! This is what I'm happiest about. I turned 18 this year and have been getting practice behind the wheel of the Fiesta for a the past couple of months, whenever my college schedule permits. Thanks to our most recent road trip, I have now driven in every South Indian state too.
• Attending car meets: Early Sunday meets in Hyderabad have become a fantastic way to spend the morning as well as an excuse to fix my sleep schedule.
• Finding a competent independent garage to service the Fiesta: This has taken a good bit of hassle, stress and unnecessary expenses off our shoulders.

Overall, a fantastic year minus a couple of technical hiccups with the Fiesta in early 2024.

Here are two little testaments to the good times had.

A very dusty Fiesta chilling up in the mountains at Munnar a few days prior to the time of writing:


The Superb taking a breather during a change of drivers during a trip to central MP:


Here's to a fantastic 2025.

[Ak24rapid]

2024 was pretty great for me as we took delivery of our beast.
And that is me

[FlyingSpur]

Monumental year in terms of automotive goals. I remember seeing this image online of a newly-launched roadster and being smitten, as a 13-year old in India. It was permanently burned in my mind as my teenage dream car.



In 2024, I found mine.

[ryanMathew]

Originally Posted by GForceEnjoyer

[list] [*]Learning how to drive! This is what I'm happiest about. I turned 18 this year and have been getting practice behind the wheel of the Fiesta for a the past couple of months, whenever my college schedule permits. Thanks to our most recent road trip, I have now driven in every South Indian state too.

For me, this year was one of the best periods of my life and I really hope next year will be just as good if not better. (A lot of factors contradict my hopes already though seeing as my board exams are coming up next year. )

Though this year, we had only one long road trip, this year's was one of my favourite trips I've been on. And coincidentally, this road trip was inspired by @GForceEnjoyer.

And now to end this awesome year, the Lodgy gets new shoes!! Tomorrow it's going to be in with the CONTI UC6, out with the Yokohama Earth 1's!

[khanmaj]

As the year comes to a close, I have a mixed feeling. In July, I sold my fantastic Tiago XZ and brought home a Nexon Creative Plus S DCA. I’ve been enjoying the smooth drive with the DCA, but unfortunately, I couldn’t manage to go on any road trips this year due to other commitments.

2024 didn't go for me as planned. There was no significant progress on the professional front hence the disappointment.

I hope and wish that 2025 brings more joy and happiness to all of us!

Happy new year in advance!

[athray9]

2024 was probably the year I drove the most in my entire life. I keep a list of the cars that I drive and this year also accounts for the most number of cars that I had driven, which was 47 cars and the number of kms I covered would at-least be 60K kms Below I am putting a list of cars that I had driven the most or if made a remark.

1. My BMW X3 M40i (now sold)



I drove my X3 M40i for about 32,000 kms this year, I did a 19 hour one way road trip from Colorado to California covering about 2300 kms just one way. Thoroughly enjoyed the car this year driving through straight highways, canyons, traffic, narrow streets, desert, snow storm, California coast and more. I sold the car since I had to move out of the United States but this is easily my best ownership experience and the reliability of the car had been bullet proof.

2. My roommates BMW 430i



This is my roommates car but we mostly travel together and we had done couple of road trips in the car, the stand out road trip was to New Mexico, where we visited Los Alamos (Oppenheimer's house) and this car again was amazing to drive especially in canyon roads, one of the best handling cars I had personally driven.

3. My best friend's black BMW 430i



Again another 430i, I travel a lot with this friend, some of the memorable trips in the 430i this year was to Aspen, again a wonderful car to drive and one of the best handling car. I still remember an incident where there was no sign and a road curved pretty sharply, the car just went into the corner so effortlessly, such an amazing handler.

4. My brother's X3 30i



My brother in California bought an X3 30i this year, a very familiar car to me, did the Pacific drive from Half Moon Bay to Big Sur, a lovely car which in my opinion has the best balance of comfort, ride, handling yet being sporty for an SUV, no other car in the compact SUV segment (X3 is a compact SUV in the USA) does it as good as the X3 which is why it is the segment best seller.

5. My friend's Tesla Model Y



My friends in LA own a Tesla Model 3. I drove this car expensively this year, most memorable trips were to Las Vegas and to Utah. This is the car that made me respect EVs. To all people who are against EV, I am pretty sure they haven't driven one, because once you drive an EV, there is no going back. The instant torque, amazing handling due to batteries on the floor and the space utilization of the ground up EVs are unmatched. Tesla has one of the best calibration for single pedal throttle, I just feel like it makes it so convenient in traffic and the charging infrastructure, especially in California is just amazing and you can do road trips with peace of mind with no charge anxiety.


6. My X Boss’s Rivian R1T



This is easily the best EV that I’ve ever driven. It has the quad motor producing 835bhp and does 0-100 kmph in 2,5 seconds. The car is wicked fast, yet it is comfortable and it handles really well for a car of this size and height and the difference in comfort and sport mode for handling is like night and day. The steering also weighed up beautifully at speeds while at low speeds, it was very light and the built quality was great compared to something like the Tesla and finally the tech in the car was amazing.

7. X5 40i Loaner car



My X3 M40i had an issue with the brake booster, so I had a loaner X5 for about 2 weeks. After driving it for about ~1000 kms, I started tor valise why this is the best selling BMW in USA. It is very comfortable, powerful, yet felt nimble and was very luxurious. I believe it is a family man’s drive who wants to have loads of fun. It’s just a treat in free ways and yet returned decent fuel efficiency. Only place I felt the car’s size was narrow roads, but it was still manageable. If I had to choose one car that does all, this would probably be it.

8. Jeep Wrangler rental



I rented a Jeep Wrangler when my friends had come and did couple of drives to Mountains, it is a very bad car when it comes to practical daily usage, efficiency is bad, insulation is terrible, steering is probably the worst I’ve seen in any modern car - so vague, brakes are pathetic, handling is very bad, but the experience of just driving the car is amazing, it is something that should be felt behind the wheel and it was a breeze to drive in roads filled with snow, but I see the use-case of this car to be very limited and it is very hard to daily the car or maybe I am not the right audience for this car.

9. Hyundai Ioniq5 rental



This is probably the best all rounded EV in the compact SUV segment, it is almost flawless other than the throttle calibration (Tesla just does it so much better), I had the car for about 2 weeks and covered about 1500kms, it was a great rounded car which was comfy, drove well, great interior and boot space, range was good. But I would still pick the model Y over the Ioniq5 any day due to how much fun the Teslas are and the supercharger network, but as an all rounder, Ioniq5 is ahead of Tesla.

10. Jeep Grand Wagoneer rental



My family had visited me in the US and we went to New York, so I had rented a Jeep Grand Wagoneer. This is the biggest car I’ve ever drive in my life, it is 5.7 meters long, which felt huge. Even the Ford F150 trucks felt small next to it. It was also very powerful and super comfortable. While I found it a handful to drive around New York City and Washington D.C, but the drive from NYC to Washington DC was where this car shined. Everyone in the car were sound asleep due to jet lag and I just drove the car for 4 hours straight. Definitely an amazing experience to drive such a big car which was so luxurious and had every feature possible right from a passenger screen to a separate touch screen for the climate controls and a separate touch control for the rear passengers, rear screens and the list just goes on and on.

11. Genesis GV80 rental



Rented this car during my last week in the US since I had sold my X3 M40i, it was very luxurious, comfortable and the ride was great, but that’s where the good bits of the car ended, you really had to slow the car during turns, I had driven the X5 that has almost the same ride quality but felt much nimble around turns, the car was spacious but the seats lacked under thigh support. The gear-box was dull and the throttle was not very responsive. Hyundai really have a long way to go with Genesis’s dynamics I felt.

12 My colleague's Porsche Taycan



Porsche is my favorite brand in the world, so getting a chance to drive one itself was surreal, this was a very short drive but a very memorable one. The car was so low, getting into it was a surreal experience, then the interiors felt like a cockpit, typical Porsche and then the driving experience was actually scary since the car was so low, it really had to be careful of the ramps and I didn't want to break a car, I wouldn't call it the best Porsche experience I had, but still driving a Porsche itself felt like a big achievement.


These were the highlights of 2024. I am starting 2025 in Germany, I’m yet to get my DL here, but hoping for this year to be great since I have plans to drive around the Nuremberg ring and the Autobahn. Fingers crossed.

[SomrajSG]

Last year I moved out of India. Left my stable business in Mumbai. That was a tough decision for me. Professionally this year was very challenging. But by God's grace, I am not financially unstable atleast.

However, as an automotive enthusiast, 2024 is the best year for me.

I bought my 1st BMW.
I bought my first sports car, a Porsche Boxster S.
I bought 2 mighty SUV's. A Nissan Pathfinder (R51) and a Nissan Xterra (N50).

For next year, plan is to sell one SUV either the Pathfinder or the Xterra, or may be both, and get a Patrol V8.
Also I am in market for a manual Mustang GT, if I get one good example, then I will replace the Boxster S.

SomrajSG