[tcpip]

Hi everyone ... I've just got an account on Team-BHP (after my third attempt over the last five-six years).

I am in my late fifties. I've owned some car or other for about two decades now. My wife and I like long drives, though they may not be categorised as long by the standards of Team BHP.

The cars I have owned, in sequence are:

• A Fiat Uno diesel, bought used from Mahindra FirstChoice
• A Fiat Palio petrol 1.2 litre
• A Ford Fiesta diesel TDCi, bought in 2006 for my wife, which I took over maybe in 2010
• A VW Vento 1.6 diesel, bought from a friend in 2015
• A Skoda Octavia petrol L&K 1.8 AT, which I've been using since 2018 -- this is my first AT vehicle

My longest drive was one I did, solo, in Dec 2021-Jan 2022. It was Bombay-Hyderabad-Chittoor-Bangalore-Udupi-Bombay, over 16 days. The Octavia behaved impeccably. The longest days were the Bombay-Hyderabad and Udupi-Bombay days, each of which took about 12 hours. The Bangalore-Udupi leg was lovely, because I was told not to take the Google Maps route but instead go via Chitradurga and the Agumbe Ghats. Amazing road stretch.



Will be happy to swap stories and learn from everyone here.

I reached a very strange situation by the time I was deciding on the Octavia. I couldn't think of any other car which met my specs list. I was looking at the criteria which I had acquired by that time, and no other vehicle seemed to fit the bill unless I doubled my budget. This is an unpleasant situation to find oneself in, but I somehow feel that many of you here may have felt this way at some point or other.

I am very happy with my Octavia. I have driven more expensive cars owned by my friends and I have never felt that I'd like to swap my car with theirs. Skoda parts availability continues to be a challenge as all Skoda owners here probably know, but the car itself is very much to my liking.

Other than cars, I'm interested in:

• photography: I started clicking on film using my father's Canonet rangefinder while in my UG hostel days, and learned to print from my negatives in the hostel darkroom. We used to buy bulk 100-foot film rolls in those days and load the raw stock into reusable film cassettes, and shoot with that film. I got my first DSLR in 2011, and that's the one I still have not outgrown. It's a full-frame 20MP sensor. I shoot JPEG, not RAW, and post-process in GIMP. I also have a film SLR, bought used, and both my SLRs use the same set of lenses.
• computers and programming: learned programming during the first year of my UG in 1984, and have been having fun ever since. My laptop runs Ubuntu, and most of my programming today is in shellscript, a language I started using in 1989. I run a small software projects company -- that's my primary source of income.
• trekking: the frequency has dropped sharply, but I did my first Himalayan trek in 2017, where we crossed through Thorong La (5410 metres).
• music and audio: I design and build good speakers as a hobby, and love music of almost all genres (except trance, club, techno, dub, and EDM). I have good cassette decks and a good turntable too.
• food and cooking: I am an enthusiastic cook, and I eat all kinds of food. My wife and teenager son are both good cooks.

In the world of cars, I enjoy long solo drives, but haven't done enough of them. One memorable drive I did was with my 8-year-old son from Bombay to Delhi in my Fiesta. We halted at Baroda and Pushkar, and I showed my son the rampart walls of the Chittorgarh fort lit golden by the light of the 4 PM sun. We keep driving to Lonavala, Panchgani, and Goa, of course -- every Bombayite does that. I've done two road trips to Rajasthan and back with my family, once in the Fiesta and the next time in the Octavia.

I am not interested in modding the main power plant or transmission of my car. I have begun changing tyres of my car as soon as I buy them. My current tyres are Michelin Pilot Sport 3. I don't drive my Octavia with manual shifters -- in fact, I don't even feel the need for Sports mode other than in certain unusual situations.

Enough of an introduction, I think. It became much longer than I had planned.

[ampere]

Welcome to the forum! And a nice handle!

Reading your intro, tells us you will nicely fit in here. All your interests have a nice blend of every thing we all love to do!

Good see you have your own SW development venture. There are a few on this forum as well!

And last but not least, the cars you own(ed) do speak a lot ! Great choices indeed!

[Axe77]

Haha … as a non techie, it didn’t hit me till Ampere said it. Neat handle indeed. Welcome to the forum and an interesting array of hobbies that you have there.

Look forward to seeing your posts on the forum on all things automotive and hobbies related alike. The Octavia truly is a gem of a car - a tasteful choice indeed and you’ve set yourself a very high experience threshold with that being your first AT. Will be a handful moving on to cars that measure up without jumping several grades higher. Enjoy her for the long haul.

[sunilch]

Originally Posted by tcpip

Hi everyone ... I've just got an account on Team-BHP (after my third attempt over the last five-six years).

I am in my late fifties. I've owned some car or other for about two decades now.

I am very happy with my Octavia.

Welcome to the form tcpip

Nice ownership history with cars there. I agree that Skoda cars provide a lot of VFM in India barring the horror stories at dealerships that many members have reported. Otherwise quite sorted cars these are.

Good to see more folks from IT Development background here from Mumbai. We have been swamped by our Bangalore buddies otherwise

Hope to see more posts from you over time here.

[tcpip]

Originally Posted by ampere

Welcome to the forum! And a nice handle!
Reading your intro, tells us you will nicely fit in here. All your interests have a nice blend of every thing we all love to do!

Thanks

And last but not least, the cars you own(ed) do speak a lot ! Great choices indeed!

Ya, that part's very personal. I know the big fan following the Honda City has, on and off forum, for instance, and I have always been careful in holding my tongue about my impressions. I've driven three generations of Honda City quite a lot, and the Jazz (AT) a fair bit, and my impressions have remained uniformly -- well, I'll keep my mouth shut.

Originally Posted by Axe77

Haha … as a non techie, it didn’t hit me till Ampere said it. Neat handle indeed. Welcome to the forum and an interesting array of hobbies that you have there.

Actually, I have the same handle on diyaudio.com, htguide.com (they have a DIY sub-forum too) and on hifivision.com (most of my posts there are in the DIY forum, can't relate to the big-brand alignments and devotions in the rest of the forums).

The Octavia truly is a gem of a car - a tasteful choice indeed and you’ve set yourself a very high experience threshold with that being your first AT. Will be a handful moving on to cars that measure up without jumping several grades higher. Enjoy her for the long haul.

Ya, I look around at the cars in the Indian market and can't think of anything I'd like at less than about Rs.70 lakh new. (I am not too keen to drive an SUV.) And I believe the Octavia and Superb will be discontinued. Luckily for me, I tend to keep a car for a long time, at least a decade, and I have a really excellent third-party service and repair garage here which handles pretty much all brands of cars, so I am hoping that by the time I'm looking for a replacement for this fellow, the car market will have changed dramatically and new electric cars will become attractive.

Originally Posted by sunilch

Welcome to the form tcpip
Good to see more folks from IT Development background here from Mumbai. We have been swamped by our Bangalore buddies otherwise

Thanks. Though I hope to keep far away from my IT life when posting here.