[sammyboy]

Originally Posted by Amazing

i went down to parking and hit the lock area ..boom boom, several times. It unlocked, it was a mech latch jam for sure.

This is beauty of Fiat ...they involve you in every step :-)

Had a wonderful drive to office again today , security folks banged it hard again , despite warning them of the issue

lol, if you can get your hands on some WD40 get that and spray that on the lock mechanism. It would take care of any rust etc. that might be there.

[Amazing]

Pardon my ignorance ...what is WD40 ? where will i get it ?

is it a lubricant ?

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by Amazing

Pardon my ignorance ...what is WD40 ? where will i get it ?

is it a lubricant ?

Buy it anywhere online. Here's one of those 100 options.

And yes, it is a Lubricant, Spray & quite popular all around on this forum for a lot of reasons.

[arun_josie]

74493 on ODO:

This is the exact Km at which my previous car(Dzire) met with an accident that totaled it(salvage loss).

Dzire:



Linea:

The Linea crossed this number two days back. So, now Linea has got past both my previous cars, WagonR and Dzire.



ODO is now close to 75K.

[arun_josie]

75000 Kms on ODO.



Went on a quick breakfast drive to Preethi Canteen, Birur with a bunch of Fiatians. Some nice 2L and curvy roads, I enjoyed it.



A quick stop at CCD,



Here is the trip details,

[arun_josie]

Normal Servicing along with EGR Cleaning, Intercooler Cleaning @ 77K Kms:

This time decided to get the EGR and Intercooler cleaning as well during the normal servicing. Even though Fiat doesn't have this mentioned in the service manual, I decided to go ahead with this after advise from experts.

I normally service at Vecto Motors, but its very crowded these days and also they were reluctant to do the EGR, Intercooler cleaning. Moreover their charges for this is on the higher side. So, decided to take the car to True Sai, Salem which has some very good feedback.

EGR Cleaning(Including Manifold Intake):

This is a very tedious job and took around 4-5 hours to complete. At one point, I was really worried on whether the technician will be able to put it back without any issues due to the number of nuts and bolts/connections/hoses that were involved. However, the technician told me that he does a minimum of one EGR cleaning per day and asked me not to worry.

Intercooler cleaning didn't take much time and after this the normal servicing was done.

Here are some before and after pics of EGR, Manifold intake,

Before Pics,












After Pics,









Working on the intercooler,



Old Air filter and AC filter,





Overall work done:

• General Check-Up
• EGR Cleaning(Including Manifold Intake)
• Intercooler Cleaning
• Engine Oil replacement.
• Engine Oil filter replacement.
• Air Filter replacement
• AC Filter replacement
• Brake Cleaning(Front and Rear)
• Front tyres were inter-changed as there was a left pull.

Total Bill came to 6920/-

Asked them to check the Brake Rotors, they took some measurement on the thickness and told me that I can wait till the next brake pad replacement.(Maybe another 20K Kms alteast)

Overall, these guys are very good and worth driving down to salem if you want to get the EGR/Intercooler cleaning done.

Obviously, I enjoyed the solo drive.

Some random pics,

ODO:







After this servicing, I feel that the engine is more smooth, the noise level has come down especially between the 2K-3K RPM. Pick-up has improved a lot. Engine note is more sweet to hear now :-)

[arun_josie]

All 7's on the ODO

[arun_josie]

Bangalore - Cochin - Trivandrum - Nagercoil - Bangalore:

We have relatives living in Cochin but never visited the place till now. So, we decided to use this long weekend for a quick trip to Cochin. No sight-seeing plans, just some good family time with siblings.

I don't have much experience driving in KL roads apart from the Nagercoil - Trivandrum stretch and the Bangalore- Wayanad stretch. So, took inputs from our Route/Queries forum and also discussed with my KL friends to get some idea about the roads/traffic on this route.

Day 1:

Since it was a long-weekend, decided to hit the roads latest by 4:00 AM to avoid the traffic. And surprisingly, we were at the NICE toll entry from Bannerghatta road, exactly at 4:00 AM. This early start helped us to avoid the traffic on the road and tolls as well. Nevertheless the truck traffic was more than what I expected after Krishnagiri. And this gave me a hint that thoppur toll will be a mess and my assumption was spot on.

There was a huge traffic here and it was almost impossible to find the correct lane. All of a sudden few cars surged ahead and I thought may be they opened another lane, but that was not the case. Somehow, we crossed this messy toll in 15 minutes.



Then the plan was to stop in any one of the A2B on the Salem - Coimbatore stretch, but the kids were still asleep. So we skipped both. We entered the Coimbatore bypass at 8:25 AM and started looking for a hotel, luckily we found a Sree Saravana Bhavan close to a Signal on this bypass. We need to take "U" towards left on this signal and this hotel was there in 50 meters on the left side.

After a 30 minutes break, we started towards Cochin, the 4L stretch was uneventful and I maintained 80. Then it was the 2L stretch with private buses around us. I have never seen such crazy drivers till date. It was a bumper to bumper traffic with some road work going on, these guys were overtaking by pushing other vehicles off the road in spite of the oncoming traffic. At one point, one bus even went off the road on the right lane. The BMTC drivers look very lame compared to the maniacal bus drivers in KL. I wondered how people inside the bus are sitting without any fear. It was real crazy stuff.

We reached our destination near Infopark, Kochi by 1:15 PM.

For dinner we decided to go out, and tried to find a place nearby which served awesome Kerala Parotta and Chicken curry. A sumptuous dinner of Kerala Parotta, Nadan Kozhi curry and Natholi fry from Divan's Durbar.



Day 2:

It was mostly drives within the city during the day and got stuck in a huge traffic jam as well. We visited the famous lulu mall and drove down to Marine drive in the evening.

On the drive to Marine drive, we followed the GPS and it took us to some real narrow roads(it looked like a Market place) and found it hard to come out of it.

Total city drive was close to 80 Kms.

Day 3:

The most challenging stretch, Cochin - Trivandrum - Nagercoil.

Again took advice from Bhpians and started early to avoid the traffic in this stretch. Started from Cochin(Near Infopark) at 4:30 AM and we were able to cover 140 Kms in the first two hours. Crossing all the towns was a breeze. Reached Trivandrum airport by 8:00 AM. Roads were good almost throughout except couple of stretches of 10Km each, but still we were able to maintain 50-60.

Took poovar route to nagercoil and reached Nagercoil by 10:10 AM. So, it took 5 hours and 40 mins inclusive of a 30mins break for breakfast. Starting early helped us in beating the traffic.

Something that slowed us down was the huge number of ambulances which were plying due to the unfortunate fire tragedy near kollam. At least 30-40 ambulances passed by us in both directions. Initially we thought, it could be a train mishap as there were no traffic blockage on the road but later came to know about this fire cracker accident.

Day 4:

This is our usual route. Started at 4:00 AM from Nagercoil and reached Bangalore a little before 12:00 PM. Stopped at Madurai A2B for breakfast. The speed maintained was 100-120 as the traffic was very less. On time for my office. It was 8 hours of drive and 8 hours of work on day 4.

Overall Trip Details:

Total Kms: 1583.3 Kms
Drive Time: 27hours 43mins
Avg Speed: 57
FE: 17.9 (This includes 80 Kms city drive inside Cochin)



Under the shade after the drive. Will give a wash during this weekend.



Overall, it was a nice drive throughout. And the fun driving on 2 lane roads are always special .

[arun_josie]

80,000 Kms on the ODO:

Now in to the 80s. Hit the 80K Kms mark exactly after 2 years and 3 months.





Sunshade spring repaired under warranty:

The sunshade spring was not working during the last one month, so got it repaired under warranty in vecto motors.

Its a tedious work and took 3 hours.





Frustrating part was, they put all the seat belt locks in the rear seat under it. I realized it only when we tried strapping the child seat.

[--gKrish--]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

Normal Servicing along with EGR Cleaning, Intercooler Cleaning @ 77K Kms:

Hi,

Did you find any oil in the intercooler? Our car has done ~54500kms and there are traces of oil in the intercooler hose and is going to be given for cleaning. Does it indicate any damage?

[nkrishnap]

Arun, check if the level to unlock the seats to fold down is up, it would have slipped down by the time they would have put the seat back up.

Its a pain to pull it back and put it in place.

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by --gKrish--

Hi,

Did you find any oil in the intercooler? Our car has done ~54500kms and there are traces of oil in the intercooler hose and is going to be given for cleaning. Does it indicate any damage?

I don't remember seeing any oil. If there was an issue, I am sure the technician would have updated me.

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Arun, check if the level to unlock the seats to fold down is up, it would have slipped down by the time they would have put the seat back up.

Its a pain to pull it back and put it in place.

Sure, I will check this, krishna.

[arun_josie]

My Linea got Fastag'd today, it was a real quick process.

I went to ICICI, Hosur Road branch yesterday and submitted the following,

1. Filled in application along with,
2. One Passport size photo
3. Copy of RC
4. Copy of address proof
5. Cheque for Rs 500.(The process will be quicker if it is a ICICI cheque)

Today around 10:30 AM, I got a message from ICICI bank that my Fastag account is active. So, I called them and visited their branch to collect the device(RFID). They verified the car number and pasted it on the windscreen. Overall, it took less than 24 hours only.

Here are the charges,

Tag Fee: 174.67
Service Tax: 24.45
Swachh Bharat Cess: 0.87
Tag Deposit: 200.00

So, current toll balance that can be used is 100.01

Now it is time to test.

Here is a pic, they have pasted this on the top left as they wanted to put this as high as possible.

[F150]

Originally Posted by arun_josie

My Linea got Fastag'd today, it was a real quick process.
Now it is time to test.

Nice to have this gadget. Will this work only in KA or all over India ?

[arun_josie]

Originally Posted by F150

Nice to have this gadget. Will this work only in KA or all over India ?

It works all-over India. Here is the current list of active Fastag toll plazas, it is active in 303 toll plazas so far,

http://www.icicibank.com/Personal-Ba...page?#toptitle