[paragsachania]

The 215,000 km Update : Part 3

Aug 2021 | Tyres get noisier

The Michelin Primacy 3STs in my Ertiga had already clocked over a lac Km and that I started to experience a humming noise. We tried a lot to ascertain the cause of this noise isolating the wheel bearings, drive shaft/differential bearings etc but at once decided to swap with another Ertiga and check. Thanks to good friend alokgunhal who visited my place over the weekend and we managed to visit a local puncture shop and do this swap test.



Soon after swapping tires, I could immediately feel absolute silence from the tires (when compared to the resonating noise from mine) and it was clear that the culprit were the tires. At least this experiment helped me zero in on the actual culprit behind the noise.

Aug 2021 | Tyre rotation and alignment check

While I have never ever regularly rotated my tires in both my cars and still have experienced no uneven wear, I decided to try this once along with an alignment job at a local alignment center who is quite popular for his old school technique for alignment. Sadly, despite of tyre rotation and alignment, the noise from the tires remained the same and that is when I decided that it was time to replace the tires even with good life left out of them.





Sep 2021 | Light Highway nudge and a bent radiator member

This was posted here and happened when I was driving back with my parents from Chikmagalur.

Here's the Dashcam grab of the incident:

https://youtu.be/rXQiHnRA0hM

While there was no damage to any external part, I started to experience slight vibration and noise at crawling speeds and that is when I decided to open the bumper to check if something was wrong and boy, I noticed that the radiator member had bent due to the impact and this bending had resulted in the member slightly making contact with the intercooler resulting in vibration and noise at crawling speeds. While the member itself was flimsy, I tried to pull this as much as I could using my hands to increase the gap. I was successful only partially as the noise reduced but not completely. I managed to get the member straightened later when I visited MASS for replacing the engine mounts.





Sep 2021 |Tyre replacement to Continental UC6 | 195/60/R15

Having used Michelins for 200,000 km, and having experienced the Continental UC6s on few friends’ cars, I really wanted to shift my loyalty towards the latter this time. Thanks to unavailability of Michelins all over Bangalore, I was sure that continental UC6s would be my next pick. After scouting around a lot of shops in Bangalore, I could finally manage to get 2 sets (One more for friend alokgunhal’s Ertiga) at Tyre Empire HSR layout. In fact, one of my friend when he went to Madhus even enquired about UC6s but they weren’t available.






These tires had done ~1.05L km:



Sep 2021 | Drive to Western Ghats | 750 Km

New tyres means another drive! The very next day after replacing the tyres, a close friend had landed from Mumbai and we decided to head somewhere towards Western Ghats on a Monday morning.

[paragsachania]

The 215,000 km Update : Part 4

Sep 2021 | Fixing the High Mount Stop Lamp

I noticed that the High mount stop lamp had fused bulbs and this wasn’t happening for the first time. So I opened it up and put the new bulbs only to find that one of them wasn’t glowing even after replacement. Upon closer inspection, I found out that due to heat produced, the circuit wasn’t making proper contacts with the bulb’s terminals and had to bend them little.







Oct 2021 | Drive to Goa | 1600 Km

For me, this as a drive to Goa that was happening exactly after 3 years which otherwise is at least once a year affair. Nevertheless, Me and my family had great fun on this trip and so did my car.







I also happened to meet BHPian friend Ertigait who drove from Madgaon to catch up over some prawns and car talks :



Vitamin Sea, something that each of one us including my daughter loves:









To avoid the usual suspects entering Goa from Bangalore side on the long weekend, I decided to take the longer route back home by driving down the coastline from Goa all the way to Mangalore (Padubidre) and then start driving east towards Bangalore.

Oct 2021 | Ayudha Pooja

Return the favor for the two extremely faithful companions.



Oct 2021 | Oil Replacement

My last oil replacement was when the Odometer was 196,000 km. This was a DIY Service at home. However, I had a planned trip to Gujarat coming up and before this trip, I didn’t really want to bend my back and do anything that will leave me with a hangover during the drive. Hence, took my car to an FNG and got the Oil and filters replaced in under 20 minutes.





Oct 2021 |Engine mount replacement

I had started to experience vibrations upon cranking the engine and more so while the engine was shutting down. I could easily relate this to weak engine mounts as there were no vibrations felt whatsoever while driving normally. Also, since the car had already clocked more than 200,000 Km, I was sure that replacement of engine mounts should happen as a proactive measure. The MASS didn’t have all 3 mounts in stock when I had called them and hence it took a week for them to arrange the 3 mounts. I heads straight to the service center on a weekend, got all the 3 mounts replaced. While the regular mounts upon inspection were found to be nearly normal without any wear and tear, it was the hydraulic engine mount that had actually become weak.

Here is an image I took just before disposing these to a scrap dealer.



The difference after these mounts were replaced was immediate, especially from that hydraulic mount. The start was vibration free and with external noise and windows rolled down at the service center, I really had to look at the RPM meter to know if the car had started or not. Due to this, even crawling in B2B traffic started to feel very smooth.

Oct 2021 |Car Cleaning

I am not a detailing guy. I usually clean the car inside out depending on how dirty it is on occasional basis and yet I ensure that the car is kept clean. After proper wash, I ended up cleaning the car inside out, apply some wax polish and also cleaned the alloys.

[paragsachania]

The 215,000 km Update : Part 5

Nov 2021 |Drive to Aurangabad & Gujarat | Solo Non-stop return from Rajkot to Bangalore | Round trip ~ 4000 Km

I prefer to have this trip report as a separate post for there was yet another marathon run that I did and solo with this one. This was happening after long gap (20+ months) and as always, such drives always excite me as they are really long. Plan was to drive parents from Bangalore to Aurangabad while wifey and kid fly to Ahmedabad. I then continue from Aurangabad to Ahmedabad solo, pick them and then continue to Rajkot. Return I drop them again at Gandhinagar so they fly back (the apprehensions about negative RTPCR to enter KA from MH made us do this) while I continue solo to Bangalore. Parents get picked up later in coming months so it gives me yet another reason to drive again ��.

Preparations for the drive:

The oil change and engine mounts happened before this drive. These 2 were due, irrespective of whether I would drive anywhere or not. Apart from this, there was absolutely nothing that I had to really bother about before embarking on this drive. It is exactly this level of trust and confidence that look forward to in an automobile that I own and drive in future too. I can safely say even today that the WagonR at 260,000 km is as reliable to hit the roads as my Ertiga. Never for a second I had had this thought about the car breaking down in the middle of the journey due to a component failure. The mechanicals and electricals are simple in this car and more than that, they have lasted really well and overshot my expectations – Alternator failure, Compressor failure, Starter motor failure, Turbo Failure – What is that??

Highlights of the drive:

• Leg 1| Bangalore to Aurangabad via Hospet & Sholapur: 950 km | 13 hours - with parents
• Leg 2| Aurangabad to Gandhinagar via Nashik, Saputara, Surat Baroda & Ahmedabad: 700 km | 12 hours – Solo
• Leg 3| Gandhinagar to Rajkot: 250 km | 5 hours – With Family
• Leg 4| Rajkot to Gandhinagar (with family) and then to Bangalore via Mumbai/Pune: 1800 km | 27 hours – Solo & non-stop

Driving non-stop for 1800 Km:

Personally, I will not advocate this to anyone and hence take this as a disclaimer. I have on multiple occasions driven Bangalore to Ahmedabad (1550 km) or even Bangalore to Rajkot (1700 km) non-stop. So, I very well know the following and I always factor all of these before taking up such drives:

• The change in traffic pattern in these 1800 km and what to expect when you cross each section
• Unruly and irresponsible traffic behavior between Rajkot and Ahmedabad
• Thick truck traffic till Mumbai where you need to drive besides an ocean of trucks (I love it)
• The ever messy bypass of Surat with too many cut in the medians and misc traffic to deal with
• Calculative timing to enter Thane when entry for trucks is barred
• Calculative timing to hit the Mumbai Pune expressway when Private bus traffic is lean
• Breezy run between the otherwise irritating Pune Kolhapur section at night
• Runway with lean traffic once entering Karnataka
• Escape from madness by taking a detour from main highway to destination as soon as I am getting closer to Bangalore

Few thumb rules for such drives that I always follow:

• No racing against time – The distance is large so don’t expect same timings as your last drive for there cane be multiple reasons why your progress can get slowed down
• Drive based on merit of roads – There are fast but empty roads and then there are fast but busy roads. Ahmedabad to Mumbai is the latter where no matter how fast you drive, the time taken will be same as that supercar that just overtook you because the traffic pattern here is extremely busy consisting of both private traffic and freight traffic
• Patience is the key – I know I have a long way to go. Impatience should not influence my driving style because there is a lot to cover. I will encounter a lot of irritants but I need to remain patient for I need to reach my destination without any untoward incident
• Respect the long haul truckers and you get paid back – This is the key here, especially Ahmedabad to Mumbai. Though you are driving along an ocean of trucks, you will soon realise that you can make this driving an immensely satisfying affair when you begin to respect those long, loaded trucks. You will be given way sooner, so just ease that pressure on the horn-pad and the accelerator for 2 seconds
• Let the local cars get past you – This is no secret. I would pass a lot of urban clusters like Baroda, Bharuch, Surat and Navasari and I know when local drivers get impatient spotting out of state cars trying to show their might. I simply make way and let them pass without even making any eye contact
• Maintain steady speeds throughout the journey– I get the best of average speeds when I am in the 100-120 kmph band and this has always worked. I slow down to 90-110 on considerable sections of Mumbai – Baroda highway because anything faster means I need to brake ahead when 3 trucks are overtaking each other. Also, it is extremely unlikely that I will start hitting faster figures when I am closer to home or when I get a brilliantly flat and empty road ahead. These are situations that are extremely tempting but I always remain paranoid that something should not go wrong while I momentarily start driving faster. While I do enjoy some speed runs in sections that I am well aware of and the visibility is clean, I get back to my usual cruising speeds soon after
• Energy levels throughout the journey – This I very important in my opinion. I am one of those who will exhibit the same level of enthusiasm and energy consistently throughout the entire span of such long trips and factors such as above always help me maintain that
• Good Music for company – I like to have good music playing the background but the choice of this music is such that the tempo and the tune should not affect my cruising speeds. Hence, whenever I am on such marathon drives, EDM or Heavy Metal music is strict no for me and I prefer Classic Rock from the 80s, Bollywood songs from the 90s and at times Western-Classical instrumental fusion. Such music invariably keep my speeds in check
• Enjoy the engine note – I also very regularly mute the music and simply enjoy the engine and road noise during such drive and again get back to music after taking a short break
• Small little breaks – Sitting in one position for long distance, all alone can be a bad idea. You have reasons to pull over after that toll booth to wash your face, stretch your legs, peel a banana and eat that or for that matter, clean the windscreens and head and tail lamps. Do that, pop a mint or a candy and you are fresh and ready to continue further. I do that on quite a few occasions with no particular pattern on need basis
• Sunglasses to sooth the eyes- They always help, especially when you know you will face direct sunlight after driving all night. So I make it a point to wear them before the sun rays start hitting my cabin. Direct sunlight can be extremely irritating and disturbing to the eyes that have worked all night on such drives
• Regularly keep drinking water – This not only helps you stay hydrated but will also make way for a reason to take a pee break regularly
• Bananas and dry fruits – I always have them in my car during such drives. In fact, when I was driving down, I met a friend on Pune bypass and when he asked me if I need anything, I told him to get me half a dozen bananas to fuel me for the last 800+ km of the journey

Know when you are sleepy – Your reflexes will tell you a lot:

• Taking a longer than usual time to lift your leg off the A pedal to hit the B pedal
• Laziness in flashing your lights when overtaking or hinting at an overtaking attempt at night
• Laziness in downshifting by a gear or two when you slow down to 50 kmph from cruising speeds
• Concentrating on the road ahead without a single shoulder check (neck movement) or IRVM mirror check for a long time
• All of the above are signs that you are really tired, you aren’t concentrating and you need to pull over and take a nap. I have had the experience of tagging along with drivers who show these signs even during the day and I had to switch places.

A combination of the above attributes have so far helped me take up such drives with absolutely no issues whatsoever. More than any of these things, during such drives, I always keep reminding of myself very frequently that if I am sleepy, I simply need to pull over because getting involved in an incident due to lack of sleep and concentration means a breach of trust with my family that knows I know my limits when it comes to such drives.

Here are some of pictures from this drive.

Breakfast stop on the way to Aurangabad, during Leg 1:


For a change, behind the wheels of my sister's Honda City on the roads of Aurangabad:


One of the most beautiful state highways - Aurangabad to Vaijapur:


Some lovely landscapes before Saputara Ghat:


2 MPVs that redefined the way we travel long distances:


Refuel - For self and the car:


Finally, we could manage to catch-up. vigsom, aaggoswami and vishy76, thank you for the good times spent while I crossed Baroda. I also managed to pose with vigsom's extremely well maintained and the original Suzuki Grand Vitara:




I reach Gandhinagar and was soon taken to a Kathiawadi Restaurant for dinner. Assorted pickles like are synonymous with such restaurants here:


When we drove to Rajkot from Gandhinagar, we stopped for a break en-route and all I ordered was the most loving dish and the most suitable travel companion when on such trips, Theplas:


The Highway Food Mall near Limdbi had lean traffic, thanks to festive season in all of Gujarat:


Rangeelu (colorful) Rajkot they call for its vibrant and colorful culture compared to any other city in Gujarat. The image doesn't do justice but the way some of the business district areas here were decked up simply bowled me over. This city never slept on all 3 days of Diwali:


When in Rajkot, its machine tools. I met my cousin buddy visiting his factory where they had packed these machines to save from pigeon droppings! Factories here are shut down at least for a week post diwali.


I have had better Gujju Thaali then this but this was still not bad at all:


At my in-laws's, eating dust, which it should not be, ideally:


Its Diwali and for me, it was a cracker this time:


Khichdi and Masala rice:


Ending that with meethu (sweet) Pan:


Solo drive from Gandinagar to Bangalore starts:


2 minute quick meet with vigsom again, during the return leg:


vigsom's GV, on the highway this time:


Refueling at HPCL, Panvel before hitting the Mumbai-Pune expressway:


Return non-stop, 1794 km:


Total round trip, 3855 km:


Average FE (MID) since start of this trip, 19.4 kmpl:

[rakesh_r]

Hi Parag, thanks for penning down your experience. Your suggestions for long distance driving is spot on. The key is to maintain your average speed which i felt during my recent Pune-Gandhinagar trip.
I guess the ideal upgrade for you would be the Crysta, very much suits your requirements.

[Geo_Ipe]

Originally Posted by paragsachan

Know when you are sleepy – Your reflexes will tell you a lot:

• Taking a longer than usual time to lift your leg off the A pedal to hit the B pedal
• Laziness in flashing your lights when overtaking or hinting at an overtaking attempt at night
• Laziness in downshifting by a gear or two when you slow down to 50 kmph from cruising speeds
• Concentrating on the road ahead without a single shoulder check (neck movement) or IRVM mirror check for a long time
• All of the above are signs that you are really tired, you aren’t concentrating and you need to pull over and take a nap. I have had the experience of tagging along with drivers who show these signs even during the day and I had to switch places.

A combination of the above attributes have so far helped me take up such drives with absolutely no issues whatsoever. More than any of these things, during such drives, I always keep reminding of myself very frequently that if I am sleepy, I simply need to pull over because getting involved in an incident due to lack of sleep and concentration means a breach of trust with my family that knows I know my limits when it comes to such drives.

Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences and advices on long distance driving. The longest I've done in a single day would be some 650 km (Vellore to Kottayam).

Could you also elaborate on your sleep habits during such a marathon drive? Do you take frequent small naps or do you sleep for like an hour or two at a petrol bunk? Would be nice to hear that aspect as well!

[N4Nikunj]

Hi, paragsachania,

Thanks for sharing the overall ownership experience.

I missed meeting you by a whisker.

My Ertiga ZDi+ is also at 1.35L kms as of now.

[Ritz2010]

Fantastic thread. I've always felt to keep history of parts changed to just see how the parts hold up, especially after being fleeced but never did.

Now that I've seen the over-all picture it gives from your documentation I'll be doing that as well. Loved how you've made Ertiga in tune with times with steering mounted controls, damping and sleeves to keep the wires protected.

This is a perfect example how cars will be when service center treats every car as their own. I don't mind paying extra when the job is fantastic. But reminds me of car cleaner saying that if he washes every car for hours like I do (for my car) it won't cut enough moolah for him to sustain.

Just a query about the tyres running 1L km. I've changed every 45k km once as thumb rule as mentioned in our forum.

My Ritz VDi is hitting 1L mark and it's rattling like anything. Love the engine but due to incompetent ASC and their fleecing the drive is far from comfortable.

I'm not sure which profession you are (assuming automotive industry given that you are able to identify root cause of every issue and fix them) but like Jagdish Khattar you should consider to start multi brand ASC to help folks like me. You can call it No nonsense service center.

[Shwet]

I noticed that you changed to 195/60 R15. This size will decrease the ground clearance by about 3 mm. The earlier size helped in slightly higher ground clearance. Plus these tyres also seem a tad smaller around the wheel arches.

Maybe you chose them because right now 195/65 R15 from Michelin are just not available in the market. Even I am looking for Michelin 195/65R15 replacement for my earlier XM2's which have now run for 76000 kms and I want to change as now suddenly the frequency of punctures has increased. However I am not getting the upgraded size and would probably settle for 185/65R15 tyres.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by Shwet

I noticed that you changed to 195/60 R15. This size will decrease the ground clearance by about 3 mm. The earlier size helped in slightly higher ground clearance. Plus these tyres also seem a tad smaller around the wheel arches.

Maybe you chose them because right now 195/65 R15 from Michelin are just not available in the market. Even I am looking for Michelin 195/65R15 replacement for my earlier XM2's which have now run for 76000 kms and I want to change as now suddenly the frequency of punctures has increased. However I am not getting the upgraded size and would probably settle for 185/65R15 tyres.

I chose 195-60 because I wanted 195-60 this time. And I really wanted to experiment Conti UC6s this time since I have sat in cars with these tires and had loved the silence.

The very next day after installing these tyres, 4 adults and luggage in the Ertiga and some broken roads along with large speedbreakers resulted in zero underbelly scrapping. This drive was maximum in Ghats and around 40% on 4 lane roads with speedbreakers on diversions for around 700 km.

From Rajkot to Gandhinagar, we were 4 adults and 2 kids and boot totally packed with 3rd row folded. This road too has quite a lot of speedbreakers due to 6 lane expansion work. Underbelly scrapping - NONE!

I have now used 185-65 for around 16,000 Km. 205-60 for over 93,000 Km, 195-65 for over 1,05,000 Km and now these tires are already more than 5,000 km run .

I somehow wanted to check how the handling gets better with lower profile and boy it did make a lot of difference compared to 195-65!

I can now write a book on how each of these tires perform in the Ertiga and thankfully, 195-60 even with 3mm lower GC have not bothered me till now.

[PrasannaDhana]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

I somehow wanted to check how the handling gets better with lower profile and boy it did make a lot of difference compared to 195-65!

I can now write a book on how each of these tires perform in the Ertiga and thankfully, 195-60 even with 3mm lower GC have not bothered me till now.

I have similar experience with 195/60 & 195/65 R15s. While the former handles great, the latter has a ride quality advantage. But then, you lose a lot more in handling than what you gain in comfort.

PS: 2,15,000 km is awesome. You are an inspiration to me to use my cars over 1.5 lakh km.

[LONG_TOURER]

Great thread !! Your suggestions for long distance cruising are very important aspects when one embark on a long haul. Myself being a long hauler pretty much understand how important it is to have a calm drive in those long stretches. If you love driving, then driving non stop for 24 hours is very much doable. Wish you many many long drives in future.

[Shwet]

That's great Parag, if you don't mind losing a little bit of ground clearance (Miniscule though) I guess its a great decision. The best part of your recent travelogue is your summary of the reliability factor in this vehicle. One can bash Maruti to all corners and people won't be wrong on that factor, however its also true that this practical MPV ticks most of the boxes beautifully in being a stress free ride.

My own Ertiga has clocked 134000 kms as of now, i only recently replaced the clutch at 132000 kms as a preventive measure and being a petrol did not have to face the infamous gear synchroniser issue, however as i have always said , your thread on the ertiga is the most comprehensive one out there. I also feel that the body panels of the earlier generation ertiga are somewhat better built than the current generation or maybe that's what i feel.

[paragsachania]

Responding to each one of you through this post as I was sure there is a lot that I may need to write and refer to, for the questions asked!

Originally Posted by rakesh_r

The key is to maintain your average speed which i felt during my recent Pune-Gandhinagar trip.

This is so true, especially for Mumbai – Baroda sector. This is a highway that is busy in terms of both freight as well as private traffic. This is also a highway that takes one through continuous industrial and urban clusters for nearly 400 km. This is also a highway that is over utilized since a decade now and about time the Mumbai Delhi Expressway becomes a faster alternate that will ease the load on NH48.

Realisation and the importance of convex outer rear view mirrors:

I first drove on this in 2010 and that was in a Honda City. I realised that driving here is a video game with no lane discipline and switching between 1st, 2nd and 3rd lane every 10th second and many times switching from the very first to the last lane and vice-versa. For such maneuvers, an extremely important driving habit was shoulder check every alternate second and a wide view in all the 3 mirrors. The mirrors in the City were convex and they had helped do this job.

Come 2011, I drove in the WagonR but the experience of 2010 meant I knew the flat (non-convex) mirrors in my WagonR will be useless. I retrofitted the convex mirror from the next variant before this drive only because I was sure these will aid me during my drive and keep me safe too.

I guess the ideal upgrade for you would be the Crysta, very much suits your requirements.

Without an iota of doubt it has to be the Crysta. I don’t even need to evaluate anything else for my use case and upgrade in future and I have mentioned it quite a few times on other threads too.

Originally Posted by Geo_Ipe

Could you also elaborate on your sleep habits during such a marathon drive? Do you take frequent small naps or do you sleep for like an hour or two at a petrol bunk? Would be nice to hear that aspect as well!

As a passenger, my first long trip was for a family wedding when I was in class 4 and this was Belur to Rajkot with halts at Pune and Baroda. I was next to the driver of a hired Chevrolet Van throughout this journey – Day or night.

In 1997 I had travelled in a Tata Sumo of my relative from Belur to Pune and throughout the journey I was awake and gave good company to the driver and observed a lot of things on the roads. The driver was amused that I had so much interest in roads and travel. During the same era, I would regularly travel by bus to Pune from Shimoga (East-West Travels and Nandan Travels) and I would always pick the seat right behind the driver for the love of watching the roads throughout the journey.

First Bangalore to Pune drive:

For me as driver, it all started with my maiden drive Pune from Bangalore in 2006. Till then most of my drives were limited to 600-700 km round trip only. Even this first drive wasn’t planned with an intent to do it in one shot. We had planned to halt at Davanagere as we had started at 4pm from Bangalore. However, those were the years when this highway was getting expanded from single lane to dual carriageway. This also meant new bypasses for most of the towns that in darkness and without any signage we never realised we had crossed Davanagere from a distance.

The roads till here were mixed bag, broken and lot of diversions. We then entered Ranibennur (this town got a bypass only in 2012) to check out for a place to stay but due to an event at the temple all hotels were fully booked that the hotel staff advised us to drive to Hubli for better options. The roads weren’t great and things were getting irritated but once we crossed Haveri, we were greeted with lovely and completely done 4 lane roads with good marking and reflectors that we simply continued to drive further without needing to halt for the night and we reached Pune at 9am the next day and that was 17 hours of driving. During this drive, at no given point did I force myself to drive but the only virtue that took care of things here was perhaps my interest to drive and my love for roads.

This drive was confidence booster that made way for numerous roadtrips to Pune & Mumbai over the subsequent years and all of these drives were with my family where we would leave very early in the morning and take anywhere between 12-14 hours to reach Pune even with the state of roads then and the expansion work between Chitradurga and Haveri.

How the night drives started:

This was between 2008 and 2010 when I was working out of Pune. I had no specific plans to travel on weekends to Bangalore and hence I would never book a Bus or a flight ticket. However, after my work hours, I would start driving to Bangalore departing at multiple slots between 4pm and 10pm. Based on the time of departure, I began to study the traffic pattern during departure and arrival at destination, evaluated the pros and cons and mastered the art to reach destination in less than 12 hours. Even during these drives, I would never pull over and take a power nap or halt for the night. All these drives were mostly solo where Pune to Bangalore would be all night drive while Bangalore to Pune would be day time drives.

Some of the longer non-stop trips that happened in subsequent years and all of these were in WagonR with parents, wife and later daughter:

2011: Bangalore to Surat – 1250 Km in my WagonR that you can refer in the quoted post below:

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Bengaluru-Surat on 22nd October:
Car- WagonR Lxi
Total Passengers - 3 Adults. Myself and Parents.
Some more numbers:
Total Break time - 215 Mins (3h 35m)
Total driving time - 15h 25m
Total distance covered - 1250Kms
Average driving speed- 80.64 Kmph
This included passing Mumbai between 5:45pm and 7:45pm.

2012: Mehasana to Varanasi, via Delhi during Golden Quadrilateral drive in my WagonR – 1750 km, 31 hours:

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Day 3 to Day 4 - Mehsana - Varanasi City
Date - 7th -8th May 2012
Start - 11:00 Hours (7th May)
End - 18:30 Hours (8th May)
Total distance covered - 1750 kms
Total time taken - 31.5 Hours
Total driving time - 26 Hours
Total break time - 5.5 Hours
---------------------------------------------------

2015: Bangalore to Ahmedabad in my Ertiga, 1530 Km, which you can refer in the quoted post below:

Originally Posted by paragsachania

So I did a Solo drive from Bangalore to Ahmedabad & back over the weekend that passed. Both the legs were done in one shot with ample breaks for food and Fuel.

Bangalore to Rajkot and Rajkot to Bangalore, non-stop with parents which is quoted below:

Originally Posted by paragsachania

A significant pointer during this drive was the fact that both Bangalore-Rajkot and Rajkot-Bangalore, a distance of around 1720 kms Door to Door was done non-stop and Solo. There were co-passengers during onward journey while my parents accompanied me during the return trip.

2015: Bangalore to Gandhinagar with wife and daughter. This was also a drive where I met friendly mod Gannu_1 while crossing Navasari:

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Met Paragbhai at Navsari sometime back during his drive from Bangalore to Gandhinagar. Paused for 10 minutes, said hi and he left.

Attachment 1371271

A ~1500 km drive with no halts in between. Crazy endurance I say!

Hence, there have been numerous drive like this in the past that I have taken up irrespective of whether I was driving a WagonR then or the Ertiga now. Most of these drives were planned well while few of these ended up becoming longest of drives without any plans too. So I would certainly like to mention that such drives haven’t been anything new or latest for me and that I have been doing this since nearly 15 years now.

Do I take power naps?

So far, I recollect taking a power nap for 2 hours only once and this was in 2013 when I along with another BHPian funkykar drove 2 cars from Delhi to Bangalore. We started from Delhi late evening, stopped at Mehasana at my relatives place for lunch and post lunch nap for 3 hours and then started towards Bangalore. While we drove without issues, at one point near Bharuch, funkykar pulled over to take a power nap and insisted that I continue as long as I can drive. So I decided to continue towards Surat and realise I am nearly 2+ hours ahead of him and stop by at the booth. I then plug earphones to block external noise from braking and honking trucks and sleep for 2+ hours till funkykar arrives. This was the only power nap that I have ever taken in all these years of my driving.

Even during the Marathon 31+ hours drive in WagonR from Mehasana to Varanasi via Delhi during my Golden Quadrilateral drive, we pulled over after Kanpur bypass for a power nap but my body simply refused to get into sleep mode and insisted to reach destination (Varanasi) and then sleep.

To answer your question – I don’t take power naps during my marathon runs but as I mentioned earlier, I regularly take breaks and also ensure that I monitor my fatigue levels with any hints. It has also happened in the past that while I have felt sleepy next to a driver, I am totally back to my maximum enthusiasm levels the moment that driver asked me to take the wheels!

I have quoted as many examples as I could remember where I had posted my experiences of such drives from the past. There are many more that I haven’t really posted too. I also developed a habit of using my useless MapMyIndia to log such non-stop trips and pull out the data from the GPS logs and make assessments. Off-late the MapMyIndia unit is acting up not recording the logs properly and when I download the GPS file, it has no sufficient data to plot the graphs. Need to find a fix for this issue someday. I unsuccessfully recorded the logs of my return but around Vadodara when I met Vigsom I realised that the log wasn’t recorded properly when I tried to pull speed data.

Originally Posted by N4Nikunj

I missed meeting you by a whisker.

My Ertiga ZDi+ is also at 1.35L kms as of now.

Indeed Nikunj. Trips to Gujarat will keep happening as long as situation permits. So am sure we will catch up next time when I drive, hopefully in coming months.

Originally Posted by Ritz2010

Just a query about the tyres running 1L km. I've changed every 45k km once as thumb rule as mentioned in our forum.

In my case most of the parts have lasted really long including Brake pads and discs (still stock), so you can take a guess on my driving style and habits. Secondly, I clock 100k in less than 4 years and hence the age factor of tires also doesn’t play a role here for a compelling change/replacement.

I'm not sure which profession you are (assuming automotive industry given that you are able to identify root cause of every issue and fix them) but like Jagdish Khattar you should consider to start multi brand ASC to help folks like me. You can call it No nonsense service center.

LOL.I am just another IT Joe earning my bread. However, most of my family members breathe Machine tools and Furniture and hence I have had my tryst with tools ever since I was a kid.

[quote=PrasannaDhana;5196960 the former handles great, the latter has a ride quality advantage. But then, you lose a lot more in handling than what you gain in comfort. [/QUOTE]Agreed. Hence with 195-60, I am strictly following manufacturer recommended tyre pressure, especially for rear and when I am solo and that has so far helped me keep the ride smooth.

Originally Posted by LONG_TOURER

Great thread !! Your suggestions for long distance cruising are very important aspects when one embark on a long haul. Myself being a long hauler pretty much understand how important it is to have a calm drive in those long stretches. If you love driving, then driving non stop for 24 hours is very much doable. Wish you many many long drives in future.

Thank you. I have tried to give a bit of (rather lot of) history to how it all started and how such drives have taken place in the past.

Originally Posted by Shwet

The best part of your recent travelogue is your summary of the reliability factor in this vehicle.

True that. So my next pick will certainly be a Japanese and most likely the Crysta. However, I have no immediate plans to upgrade too.

Here is the snapshot from FASTag statement that shows approximate time I passed each toll booth from Baroda onwards:


PS: The wrong charging at SP Ring road has a dispute raised now.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Responding to each one of you through this post as I was sure there is a lot that I may need to write and refer to, for the questions asked!

Amazing read! The one long drive to Pune I had been with you, I had a lot to learn and most of them are summarized here. With roads getting better and better, I am sure you will have better stories to boast about and more milestones to be achieved on your car(or even an upgrade )

Happy driving boss!

[Gannu_1]

Incredible update Parag bhai, as always. Your love for driving long distances clearly shows. I can’t think of anything other than an Innova that would be an ideal replacement for your Ertiga. The XL6 is a great, VFM MPV but would be a repeat experience for you.