[Gannu_1]

Hola guys, it's been a while! Moved to Chennai on the 1st of April and work has been extremely hectic here! I wasn't honestly expecting this kind of a workload. I am currently stay put at Ayyapanthangal, Mt. Poonamallee Road (friend/colleague's place) and the workplace is located 6 km from here (right next to the DLF IT park). Both of us were taking Ola/Fast Track cabs to work and back (cost us Rs. 110-120 during non-peak hours and about Rs. 150 during the peak hours).

My car was idling at my Palakkad residence except for a trip to Coimbatore. I couldn't wait to get her here (contrary to what I said before and just as my mum was casually telling my father, "I don't think his car is going to be parked here for long!"). But I must say, the traffic sense here is much much better than what I've seen in Surat over the last 7+ years (hey, people at least stop at the traffic signals ). So we went to Palakkad and drove back on 24th last month via Krishnagiri. The drive was entirely on 4/6 laned roads and my friend Bharath (he seems to be the new Moorthy, for those who've read about my DIY/road trip adventures) gave me company. The only sad roads were the single laned L&T bypass and the stretch from Kerala-TN border to L&T bypass road; the rest were all good. Left home around 9:45 AM, stopped at A2B before Dharmapuri for lunch and reached home at 6:45 PM. Cruise control'd our way along!

But what used to be a 120 km daily drive has reduced to 12 km! Man, I so miss those 2 hours. But never mind that, we've got Saturdays off on the second and fourth weekend, and we've planned to visit some places nearby starting with Pondicherry, Hogenakkal, Yercaud etc. Would love to meet up with the Chennai BHPian crowd sometime once I've settled down.

Here she is parked in the apartment's basement parking lot:



Also managed to find a leased apartment on the same building so that's where she's going to be parked for some time. She's just a shade below 70k but crawling 12 km to and fro isn't helping much!

Originally Posted by raghu.t.k

Welcome to Chennai, and hope you have a nice stay. Give us a shout if you need anything.

Thanks Raghu! Appreciate the gesture.

Originally Posted by sunilsoft

Hello Gannu_1,
Hope you have settled in Chennai.

For the record, I haven't yet! Got stuck with work and haven't moved into my leased apartment. Will be shifting next weekend.

Originally Posted by sunilsoft

Wanted to ask if you had installed the rain sensor. Please share the results if you may.

I haven't installed it. Will be sharing the results and the procedure here when I find some time to complete it.

PS: I had received a lot of PMs over the last month and I've responded to all of them. Sincere apologies for the delayed response! Once I get a stable net connection at my new residence, I'll be posting here often.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Welcome Gannu! A big welcome to both you and your car

As regards people stopping at traffic lights here: don't rely on it. The sometimes do and very often don't.

Hope to get to meet you soon.

[vibbs]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Goodbye to Gujarat!

I hate to share this update with mixed emotions but let me do it regardless. I have been given a transfer of employment to Chennai along with some of my colleagues starting 1st of April, 2016

Congrats on getting closer to home. I keep traveling to Chennai on work and your company frequently features in my itinerary. Mostly the Katupalli site though. Who knows someday might come down to Manapakkam office too.

Will give a shout if that happens.

[sunilsoft]

Gannu Bhai, Need your help in installation of auto dimming oem mirror. The mirror is similar to what you have installed on your polo. The problem I am having is with the wiring. The mirror has a six pin connector. I don't want to install the Rain Sensor for now. Please let me know how you have connected the wiring. Please reply asap.

Thanks

[Gannu_1]

Originally Posted by sunilsoft

Gannu Bhai, Need your help in installation of auto dimming oem mirror. The mirror is similar to what you have installed on your polo. The problem I am having is with the wiring. The mirror has a six pin connector. I don't want to install the Rain Sensor for now. Please let me know how you have connected the wiring. Please reply asap.

Thanks

The 6 pin connector is numbered 1 to 6.

1 - +12 V.

2 - Ground.

3 - Reverse light switch (not required to be connected for the mirror to work; connecting this will enable the mirror's anti-dazzle function to turn off while reversing the car)

The other two wires can be left out. The function is to connect them to the exterior mirrors to enable the anti-dazzle function which isn't available on the Polo. One slot in the 6-pin connector is blank.

[sunilsoft]

Thanks Gannu Bhai for Quick Response.
But I am still not able to install / mount the mirror on to the windscreen. May be the mount is different from what seen in your earlier post. Please see and suggest if the supplier has supplied the correct mount.Here are the pictures

[Gannu_1]

Originally Posted by sunilsoft

Thanks Gannu Bhai for Quick Response.
But I am still not able to install / mount the mirror on to the windscreen. May be the mount is different from what seen in your earlier post. Please see and suggest if the supplier has supplied the correct mount.Here are the pictures

You cannot use the stock mount for mounting the anti-dazzle IRVM. You need to glue the metal mount in the windshield - either over the stock mount (in which case you cannot use the rain-light sensor unless you take out the stock mount and clear the black patch by scraping/sanding it) or below it (you'll have to remove the stock mount or leave it as it is which may be an eyesore depending on how you see it).

This is the mount:

[sunilsoft]

Thanks Gannu Bhai,
One more query is that you have shown the top and bottom sides in the image. Please let me know which one to fix towards the windscreen. Another point is that you have mentioned using glue to fix this mount. What type of glue needs to be purchased from the market?

[Gannu_1]

Originally Posted by sunilsoft

Thanks Gannu Bhai,
One more query is that you have shown the top and bottom sides in the image. Please let me know which one to fix towards the windscreen. Another point is that you have mentioned using glue to fix this mount. What type of glue needs to be purchased from the market?

I had purchased 2 mounts - one for mounting the mirror, the other for the RLS (which hasn't been used so far).

The right side of the image is the base of the mount that attaches to the windshield. You need to ensure that you use a proper glue for this. I had used Bondtite Fast & Clear for this. It has worked well so far.

[Gannu_1]

Frank and Sunil, just a quick headsup if you guys are planning to get this installation done.

[kishore1984]

Hello Gannu,

Does the Auto headlight module you installed work for a VW polo TDI comfortline Variant, Wanted to confirm before I go ahead and buy one
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Auto-...999.308.r95Wnl

this is the link I found in AliExpress and the seller seems genuine with a wide vareity of VW accessories. the Sensor and Knob you installed, are they OEM ?

this would be my first DIY and i will follow them with Glovebox light, Mirror adjusting Knob and Armrest

[sunilsoft]

Hi Gannu Bhai, Due to rush at workplace I didn't attempt the installation of mirror. Please let me know for how long we should let the bondtite dry?

Is there an alternative glue for the same?

[Gannu_1]

A trip to Yercaud, 70k km up and almost cracked the sump!

Since we had an extended weekend 2 weeks back thanks to the elections in TN, we decided to visit Yercaud. Departed Chennai early morn around 4 AM on the Sunday and took the usual route – Chennai – Krishnagiri – Salem – Yercaud; all 4-laned and 6-laned roads. This was the route:



Breached the 70k mark en route:



We took a break at Vellore for tea, had breakfast at Sri Gokul Veg. Hotel, Krishnagiri (located besides the Bangalore-Salem highway), drove through the 20 hairpin bends and reached Yercaud around 11:15 AM.



We stayed at MM Resorts which is located a few km away from the main town. Here’re some pics of the resort:











This was an amazing place to stay and extremely VFM too! A 3 BHK resort for the 4 of us with an open car park area for Rs. 1900 per day plus clean rooms, linen and good homely food served within the resort. Since it was located away from the town, it was a lot more peaceful as well. And the weather was very pleasant when we drove there. Visited all the major points of interest – the lake, Pagoda point, Gents Seat, Ladies Seat, the Shevaroy temple etc. The waterfalls were dry though. Some clicks:







Obligatory selfie :









All of us loved Yercaud! Such an awesome getaway close to Chennai – perfect for a short weekend unwind. Not much commercialized unlike Ooty or Kodaikanal, the route isn’t too harsh on the passengers (in terms of road sickness), amazing climate and ambience. Reminded me of Saputara!

And so, we started back around 11 AM on the next day and after descending Yercaud, instead of going through Salem, which is this route:



We decided to take a bypass the city through a route indicated by Google Maps which passed through a zoological park!



This wasn’t a public road so to say (we had to tip a guard to have the gate opened) and it was narrow. Except for a few passing bikes, we seemed to be the lone traveler through this route. All seemed fine until we took a turn and the road suddenly gave way to an extremely bad patch and the car which was at 40-50 kmph didn’t brake hard enough to stop before this patch and the underbody took a major hit! The hit was so bad, all of us felt it for real and a nervous me parked the car besides the road and we got out to inspect the car for the damages.

The sump guard cover (a piece of cloth essentially) had come off from the front and it was hanging. The exposed sump (which was boiling hot!) had a few scratches due to the hit. I wasn’t in a mood to click the snaps of it. It was drizzling at that time and we jacked up the car to fix the fallen sump cloth. We wanted something like a long cable tie or a rope and we didn’t have neither of those. Around the same time, a biker who was passing by, drenched in the rain helped us with a spare cloth he had. We tore a piece off it, threaded it to make it like a rope and gave them what was left of it. My friend, Gagan (an equally passionate auto enthusiast) laid down on the road and tied the fallen sump cloth to a frame nearby with the jugaad rope. And we resumed the journey after an hour and changing our clothes (they had gotten dirty). I was a lot more nervous, unsure if that scratch on the sump would lead to a crack when the engine was under load.

Adding salt to the injury, thanks to the elections, no restaurants were open on the highways! A2B was closed and so were most of them. It was almost 4 and we reached Krishnagiri where we’re supposed to turn right to Chennai. We managed to find an outlet which was open and served some selected items. We devoured whatever was served and left around 5 PM. The road ahead was nearly empty so we decided to go a little faster (usually we cruise around 100 kmph on 4/6-laned roads) so we can touch Chennai outskirts (Sriperumbudur) around 8. And we did manage to and reached our apartment around 8:30 PM.

All in all it was a lovely 2-day trip except for that bad instance of the car underbody scrapping. And this experience also makes me want a sump guard fabricated out of Aluminium checkered plate (the kind you see on the private bus flooring; 4 mm thk, reasonably hard and can take some abuse like these). Got worried with the recent bouts of rain in Chennai! Luckily, the clouds had moved towards AP.

Headed to Madurai tonight which also happens to be my first night drive.

Originally Posted by kishore1984

Does the Auto headlight module you installed work for a VW polo TDI comfortline Variant

Yes it works irrespective of what variant it is. It is a standalone module and doesn’t have anything to do with the variant of the car.

Originally Posted by kishore1984

the Sensor and Knob you installed, are they OEM ?

The light switch is. The auto headlight module and the sensor is not a standard VW part. It was developed by the Chinese folks.

Originally Posted by sunilsoft

Please let me know for how long we should let the bondtite dry?

Bondtite dries up quickly in about an hour or so. You should use some masking tapes over the mount after it is glued to the windshield to hold it in place.

Originally Posted by sunilsoft

Is there an alternative glue for the same?

There may be but I am not aware of it. The OEM VW glue is a lot more expensive along with the primer.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

All of us loved Yercaud! Such an awesome getaway close to Chennai – perfect for a short weekend unwind. Not much commercialized unlike Ooty or Kodaikanal, the route isn’t too harsh on the passengers (in terms of road sickness), amazing climate and ambience. Reminded me of Saputara!

Yes, this is a very calm and quite hill station compared to the commercialized hill stations. Yercaud is also called as poor mans Ooty.

And so, we started back around 11 AM on the next day and after descending Yercaud, instead of going through Salem, which is this route:

This wasn’t a public road so to say (we had to tip a guard to have the gate opened) and it was narrow. Except for a few passing bikes, we seemed to be the lone traveler through this route. All seemed fine until we took a turn and the road suddenly gave way to an extremely bad patch and the car which was at 40-50 kmph didn’t brake hard enough to stop before this patch and the underbody took a major hit! The hit was so bad, all of us felt it for real and a nervous me parked the car besides the road and we got out to inspect the car for the damages.

The sump guard cover (a piece of cloth essentially) had come off from the front and it was hanging.

Good that the damge was not serious. Actually, from yercaud you could have tried Kuppanur, Harur, Karimangalam route, this is a better option. You get down through the other side of yercaud.

[sunilsoft]

Gannu Bhai can we use araldite fast and clear. As Bondtite is not available?