[paragsachania]

Congratulations Arun. A well planned and a well accomplished trip. Kudos!!

Some lovely stretches you covered and beautiful places visited.

Hats off to your support crew- Kids and Better half who made this happen without much ado! Takes a lot of effort to convince or even embark on such trips usually by road!

Eagerly waiting for the Travelogue now!

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Congratulations Arun. A well planned and a well accomplished trip. Kudos!!

Eagerly waiting for the Travelogue now!

Thanks Parag. Yes, my kids and my wife were incredible during this trip.
Sure, the travelogue is in the works.

[arun_josie]

Here is the link to the travelogue of our Nainital/Kausani/Kanyakumari trip,

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travel...ml#post3709954

Cross posting some information here,

Some numbers captured during the trip:





Now about the machine used for this drive:

Likes:

• No complaints at all.
• Despite such a long trip, trust me, we never felt tired. And, this was one reason that we were able to do 1293Kms(21H 30M) on the 12th day of this trip.
• We took it across all kind of roads and it performed to perfection.
• Being summer, the temperature was hottest especially in GJ, RJ, UP, MP but, we felt the temperature only when we were out of the car. The AC cooling was superb. Mostly, the temperature was set between 21-24 degrees.
• Michelin 3ST was silent and very comfy compared to the hard Good Years I had earlier.
• No punctures.
• Something that I was very surprised was, the air pressure got reduced by only one point at the end of the journey.
• Happy with the overall FE as well.
• High ground clearance helped in some of the really bad stretches.

Dislikes:

• Once in a while, the iPod was not getting detected, and we had to restart the car to resolve this issue. Not sure why.
• Wind noise on the highways

Checks done during this drive:

• I felt a slight left pull on the second day(on some roads), hence we did a Wheel Alignment/Wheel Balancing in Udaipur. This was just to make sure that there were no issues.
• Brake pad check and outer body wash in Jaipur.
• Since the trip got extended due to last minute plan change and since there was a FASS very close to the hotel where we stayed in Salem, we did a quick check-up.

Maybe, if I was not with my family, I would have ignored both the FASS visits.

Hit the 47K mark,



And 48K,



Brake pad after around 21K Kms since the last change,

[arun_josie]

And the 50K milestone is up in 1 year 4 months and 8 days (493 days).



Interior Cleaning at 3M Koramangala:
With 2 kids, maintaining a beige interior is going to be difficult always, especially on the long drives when lot of junk food goes around. My younger one always makes sure to wipe his hand on the seat. With no interior cleaning done till date, apart from me dusting it once in a while, I decided to take my car to 3M for a proper interior cleaning. After discussing with few friends, I took it to 3M Koramangala. I didn't opt for any exterior packages though, just the normal wash + interior cleaning (Germ Kleen). They did a good job. Here are few pics,






















It rained heavily as soon as I came out of the 3M store. This trend is very consistent for me these days, I wash the car either myself or at any store and it will rain the same day.



Apart from interior cleaning, nothing much to report.

Here are few graphs with FE numbers till date.

City Only:



City & Highway:



Highway Only:



And, an idiot in an indica side-swiped me unnecessarily. This happened on a 2L road, he was trying to overtake 3 cars in one go with a bus coming on the opposite lane, once he knew he can't overtake he tried to enter behind me and swiped my sides. The sound was quite loud and so I was worried, but luckily the damages were minimal. When I tried to stop that guy,he just fled the spot without stopping.

[nkrishnap]

Arun unfortunate incident, can't help with such morons on the road. The damage seems minimal, should be be easily removed.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Arun unfortunate incident, can't help with such morons on the road. The damage seems minimal, should be be easily removed.

Yes, the damage is minimal and hopefully some rubbing should help to remove those black marks and scratches.

[arun_josie]

Yercaud Trip - 6 Cars:

We had a fun-filled family trip to yercaud, last week. It was with our apartment friends. 7 families, 6 cars, 14 adults and 9 kids!! The climate in yercaud was little hot during after noon. Mornings and evenings were pleasant.

Total of 19 harpin-bends and the road condition was superb. Some harpin bends are so wide that people take that as an opportunity for over taking(F1 Style).

Our stay was at TGI Star Holidays(http://www.tgihotels.com/yercaud/resort-overview/). Its a nice place to stay, especially when we are in a group.

Fuel Efficiency during this entire trip was 16.8.
And ODO stands close to 52K







Here is the highest FE(31.2 Kmpl) that I was able to achieve till date. I never drive for FE, as it becomes very boring, however couple of weeks back during a lazy sunday, I just let the FE number climb. Speed maintained was around 90 Kmph with AC ON. This was towards Salem, so lot of slopes/descent helped big time for this FE number. This also includes some traffic near Electronic City, Hosur and then around 5 minutes spent at the attibele toll.

[mpksuhas]

Congrats on the 50 K mark.

Could you please let know what is the average difference between MID fuel average and the actual average?

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

Congrats on the 50 K mark.

Could you please let know what is the average difference between MID fuel average and the actual average?

Thanks mpksuhas! The average difference between MID and Actaul FE is 0.61, till date.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

Thanks mpksuhas! The average difference between MID and Actaul FE is 0.61, till date.

And having gone on some super long drives in the Punto and the Linea can say that the MID number is pretty much closer to actual numbers when calculated using Tankful method.

But like you mention, driving for FE is easily boring and a painful experience, mainly for your leg to maintain the throttle in that position for long!!

[pdma]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

Here is the highest FE(31.2 Kmpl) that I was able to achieve till date.

Hello Arun,

I guess I know the reason for this amazing FE. I just got to know that the ECU cuts fuel to the engine on slope's when the throttle is released when the car is an a gear to induce engine breaking. So Iam amusing that you would have driven in this way through the ghats and hence that eye catching / jaw dropping FE.

Link to related thread.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...save-fuel.html

Cheers,
pdma.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by pdma

Hello Arun,

I guess I know the reason for this amazing FE. I just got to know that the ECU cuts fuel to the engine on slope's when the throttle is released when the car is an a gear to induce engine breaking. So Iam amusing that you would have driven in this way through the ghats and hence that eye catching / jaw dropping FE.

Link to related thread.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techni...save-fuel.html

Cheers,
pdma.

Definitely the slopes helped, but i was not coasting. I was maintaining speeds around 90. If you see the avg speed, its 71, this includes some traffic and crossing a toll booth which took around 5 minutes. Coasting means, the avg speed would have come down for sure.

By the way, coasting means slotting to neutral in slopes, right? I never do this.

Previously,paragsachania , speedsatya and I, did a similar run on NICE road during which Linea and Ertiga returned 26Kmpl and Ciaz returned 30Kmpl. So, other cars can deliver similar FE as well and the road condition plays a major part, IMO.

[pdma]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

By the way, coasting means slotting to neutral in slopes, right? I never do this.

Correct, Coasting does mean what you have mentioned and not safe on slopes. However what I mentioned is different, what I got to read from the thread is that coasting does not save fuel as perceived by many, infact running the car on slopes slotted in a gear without opening the throttle(meaning by not accelerating / depressing the accelerator) is known to improve FE than coasting & wanted to check if you have adopted this style during your drive.

Originally Posted by arun_josie

Previously,paragsachania , speedsatya and I, did a similar run on NICE road during which Linea and Ertiga returned 26Kmpl and Ciaz returned 30Kmpl. So, other cars can deliver similar FE as well and the road condition plays a major part, IMO.

Nice numbers, another example which reiterates the point that FE is mostly dependent on the driver & driving conditions.

Cheers,
pdma.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by pdma

However what I mentioned is different, what I got to read from the thread is that coasting does not save fuel as perceived by many, infact running the car on slopes slotted in a gear without opening the throttle(meaning by not accelerating / depressing the accelerator) is known to improve FE than coasting & wanted to check if you have adopted this style during your drive.

Nice numbers, another example which reiterates the point that FE is mostly dependent on the driver & driving conditions.

Cheers,
pdma.

Ok got it. I would have done that may be twice, but not more than that. Yes, this method helps to increase the FE. If you notice the Inst FE number in MID, it hits 50 whenever you are not accelerating. But this kind of driving/drive can easily put you to sleep.

[paragsachania]

I think the route taken by Arun was mostly dual carriageway with median and a lot of straights (Mostly straights!!) with many inclines followed by many ascents.

You see and incline and gradually you stop inputs for the throttle on a straight road - Not really dangerous. You suddenly take legs off that A pedal and that is dangerous if someone is closing in on you from behind. This can be a good loss of momentum for a that split second and the approaching car can reach you closer at faster pace right at this juncture.

Again, if you are in 70s-80s and keep coasting on an incline on a dual carriageway road without any throttle input, it requires a good effort to take on that incline (even if its barely an incline) at the same speed and probably you might even have to drop a gear down.

What I, Arun and Satya did on NICE was maintaining speeds of 80kmph all through. NICE road has a lot of such descents followed by ascents.

On a given day, these FE runs will get heavily differentiated based on the merit of roads (I am not referring to Guinness or Limca record runs) :

• Single Lane
• Dual Carriageway
• Ghat section
• Density of traffic
• Day or night driving
• Load inside the car
• Wind resistance

Other technical factors like Weight of car, Amount of fuel left in the tank, over inflated tires - Well, I will give Arun full benefit of doubt as I have known how he drives

I would certainly not coast in highest gear if I am driving in Ghats and I am descending. It is common sense that the car will not only accelerate faster in ghats due to angle of descents but one will also need to control the vehicle at each and every turn as the car needs to negotiate these curves safely (and by remaining in its own lane).