[axe_deo]

Thanks a lot to the moderators for approving my membership. It feels great to be a part of the TEAM.

I am Akhil, 35 years old, an electronics engineering graduate but a chemistry teacher, coaching students preparing for the IIT entrance examinations at a leading coaching institute in Mumbai. Apart from cars I also follow Cricket and Lawn Tennis a lot. Roger Federer is my all time favourite.

I came to know about team bhp surfing randomly on internet when I was looking to buy my first car in 2011. I have been hooked to team bhp since then and have unsuccessfully tried 4 or 5 times before my membership finally got approved today. This truly made my day. I got Hyundai Fluidic Verna as my first car in 2012. That time I was in Bhopal . It was the fancy set of features and the powerful 1.6 CRDI that attracted me then.
Unfortunately I met with an accident, the car was totaled but I got saved by the 6 airbags. My job brought me to Mumbai but the insurance claim took its own sweet time to settle.

My liking for the Verna made me get another Verna in the year 2014 even before I got the claim of my totaled Verna. I drove it for almost 50000 km in and around Mumbai for almost 2.5 years. It was in 2016 October that the insurance claim of my first verna got settled after some legal battles with the insurance company. It was then when I let go of my second Verna to get my dream car Skoda Octavia 1.8 tsi. It's the style plus version( didn't have the L&K model on Octavia then).

I have had numerous road trips to Mahabaleshwar, Lonavala, Goa by both My Verna and Octavia and team bhp has helped me immensely in planning my trips preparing my car , etc for the journey. In between I got married and have done quite a few road trips ( self drive trips) in Europe. We did a 13 day tour to Italy in the year 2017 where we rented a car on our arrival at Rome airport and retruned the car at our departure . We drove almost 3000 km and covered almost the entire geography of Italy. We also had a wonderful road trip in Switzerland in 2015 where I got to drive a Volvo V40.

I would like to particularly mention our road trip in Norway, Sweden and Finland chasing northern lights in February 2019. We got a Volvo V60 and drove on ice/snow covered roads throughout that trip.
So, all in all I just wanted to express that I love cars and I love driving and I am very excited to be a part of this forum.

[ampere]

Welcome to the forum!

Great to see that even after engineering, you stuck to Sciences! And I do think a healthy Physical Inorganic and Organic Chemistry every day from Atkins, Cotton/Wilkinson and Finar would be a staple dose of breakfast lunch and dinner for you!

Jokes apart, you have a lot miles to the credit and such short time! Would be great to hear your story. Please do write about them.

Welcome once again and see you around!

[BlackPearl]

Welcome aboard Akhil! Hope you have a great time on the forum.

The Verna CRDi was a rocket. Sad to hear that it got totalled, but the good part is that it saved you!

Please do post about your trips when you get a chance. Would love to see pictures of the Volvo V60 and the V40. I am planning for a road trip to Switzerland as soon as the situation improves, so your travelogue would be immensely helpful!

[Rehaan]

Wow that's quite a story!

Sounds like you're having a very good time, automotively.

I gotta ask: What's the story behind your username?


Also, please do see point #2 here and try to incorporate it into your future posts.

Look forward to seeing you around on the forums.


Cheers,
R

[axe_deo]

Originally Posted by BlackPearl

...Would love to see pictures of the Volvo V60..

Attached herewith are a few pics of the V60, I drove. You will find me standing beside the car smiling. The Volvo V60 was the highlight for me in the trip. It was a brand new car with less than 1000 km on odometer when I rented it. It had all the radar based tech on it and I was amazed by the features on offer even on a rental car. It was a D3, 150 ps 8 speed automatic. The front seats and steering were heated. It had (at least) three different modes of cruise control. One where I could set the cruising speed and forget about accelerator(This is what we normally get in India). Another one where I could set the maximum speed, but keep using accelerator for maintaining speed, just that it will not go over the set speed limit. And the most amazing one was the third option where I could set it to the gps based speed limit. As the car entered a different speed limit zone maximum speed automatically adjusted. It was amazing and I was overwhelmed by the features on offer. It had even an auto low beam and high beam for the headlights where on detecting incoming traffic it automatically switched to low beam and then switched back to high beam.

Originally Posted by Rehaan

...What's the story behind your username?

It's just my name Akhs(sounds as axe) for Akhil and my title Deo.