[abirnale]

Oh! Missed it. Will read the post on your thread now. But we can also catch up in Bengaluru also ��

[knrn]

Hi abirnale. It took me better part of four days to go through your entire thread. I was doing research on xuv and yours is one of the go to threads on this vehicle after sdp, mpksuhas, jravi and others. Although a shorter thread as compared to others but a very interesting read. You have a very likeable way of telling things coupled with nicely clicked pics which makes the story even more interesting. Add to that other additional threads like the hid light setup, the getting Leh'd thread (wonderful read. I love travelogues). I see that the xuv has served you exceedingly well. My best wishes for the same. May you continue on many more adventures.

I live in Punjab so next time if you plan to cross on another epic adventure perhaps we can meet up.

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by knrn

I live in Punjab so next time if you plan to cross on another epic adventure perhaps we can meet up.

Thank you for your kind words. I am taking it seriously - will be happy to drive to meet you

I have not been very regular recently on the forum and posted just travel bits with car. Technically, there haven't been any problems too to mention.

I am actually trying to write one lengthy post summarising the experience. I am split into two mind - to change or not. In fact, I am actually either looking at surviving on this car for another 20-25K kms/ or entire 2020 or consider a worthy replacement. The car is absolutely fine and no issues other than those non-fixable rattles. And it still isn't making financial sense to change car yet.

Only time will tell what happens next as I continue to feel the time spent with car is too long considering my earlier stints with other cars!

[knrn]

Originally Posted by abirnale

Thank you for your kind words. I am taking it seriously - will be happy to drive to meet you

Hahaha. That would be great.

At present there is no other vehicle in the market capable enough to replace the xuv within the same price bracket of course. And compared to some fellow brethren you have had a a fantastic run with the xuv. So finding a replacement will be tough. Unless you climb a segment above like debuda and go in for the endeavour or fortuner, I don't see any worthy contender. Hey on a second thought, since the xuv is serving you well why don't you keep it for another year. The xuv 2020 is due for launch next year. Let's see how it turns out to be. It's supposed to be bigger and better than the current gen and even have more power to the tune of 170 bhp. That might be a good replacement for your cheetah. Till then hold on to your current steed as it is serving you well. Happy mile munching.

[abirnale]

120K Service, advanced by 2500 kms

Since I have a busy schedule and some trips coming up in Nov/ December, I decided to do the early servicing. Also considering doing oil changes at every 15K intervals instead of 20K kms.

As usual, went to Chrome Motors on Mysore Road. This time I reached there on a Monday afternoon when they had loads of cars already waiting. I was prepared to return without servicing and just the front windshield water sprayer to be fixed. To my surprise, the trusted SA came forward and took charge of the car. In just 3 hours, he got the car serviced for 120K kms including oil change, front brake pads changed and the windshield water sprayer motor replaced under warranty. Amazing bunch of people there!

I have been carrying the synthetic engine oil for past few services. Had already stocked up the oil. Also noticed that I had unused brake fluid and coolant cans lying at home. I gave it to them to be used. Everything was exactly how it should - work completed without wasting time and no unnecessary questions.

Below is the summary of the services performed/ parts used - total cost Rs. 14,266.



And the summary of all services/ formal expenses so far with Mahindra ASCs -



It's stupid that tracking still shows next service at 120K kms. And notice that there are less than 8 months remaining for warranty to expire. And then its all paid for - or rather say, free of any serious mod-restrictions!

And thus, the car is out on road again, ready to go More road stories to follow.

Ciao until next update!

[abirnale]

After a long time, we took an unplanned weekend drive. We went considering we could visit Ranebnnur Blackbuck sanctuary and could not. It turned out that a friend whose home town is on the banks of Tungbhadra river in Davangere district met us and we went with him to his home town - Harappanhalli. Discovered places that otherwise are deserted and not so well known.

Took this drive over Saturday and Sunday -




Lazy departure on Saturday, eating home packed lunch in a roadside farm, trekking up the fort, going to the wind-farms, driving through country roads, witnessing the simple farm life and their fight to survive, harvesting, soaking ourselves in the ancient 12th century temple premises (which are ASI sites!) - that was all we did over two days.

The pictures from the trip -



































The places visited are - Uchangidurga Fort, Suzlon Wind farm near Harappanhalli, Singtalur Check Dam, Bheemeshwar Temple in Neelgunda and Somesvara Temple in Haralahalli.

Ciao until next update!

[abirnale]

Let there be more light!

With all my earlier experiments of lighting, there was one thing left unattempted - fitting a LED Bar and flood the street. Yes, like everyone else I am also pissed off with those high beam lights coming on to me. Flashing, slowing - nothing works on the idiots. They just don't seem to care for other road users. In such scenarios, its important to have a weapon of choice (hopefully never need to use that). Or Use it sparingly without being termed as another idiot on the road.

So here we go - bought this LED bar from Amazon - https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B07...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 There were two options - pencil beam or high beam. I opted for high beam as it can really achieve what I need - usable light and scare element for the oncoming vehicles at my will.

And then as usual, the best help comes from Sunny - we spent 4 hours on Sunday afternoon doing this DIY and complete the setup. He led the effort with amazing precision and tools that are appropriate for this job. Used a proper drill bit to dug hole into cross member of chassis. Put the riveting brackets/ holders on the base and used M6 bolts to finish professional grade mounting. Goes without saying that the electric wire joints, fuse taps, routing wires, putting them away out of sight and safe are just few things he is super obsessed about. I am learning from the master!

And then here is the summary of the LED bar install through the pictures -

Removed the upper grill and radiator cowl to easily access the cross member of chassis:


The bar is thin enough to sit plush on the cross member:


The holes drilled on the cross member and used finer riveting mechanism to fit M6 bolt. The strip welded are the left over from the last Hella Aux setup. I had simply used the cutter to strip of the welded portion instead of fiddling with bumper removal at a neighbouring fabrication shop:


This is how it will look from outside to keen eyes:



The result - in my apartment basement:

Just LED bar -


Low beam, fog and LED bar -


Full Diwali mode -


And outside on open road:

Just the Low beams -


Low beam and LED bar


Everything is ON -


I guess, I will achieve perfect alignment over next few weeks as I use this on various conditions and make more usable light.

All in all - this setup is almost invisible in day time - unless I switch on the light. So I say it should be relatively KL safe The switch is temporarily kept inside the cabin. The signal is pulled from the spare fuse from the in-cabin fusebox. The wire is routed through the firewall. I need to think a better positioning and setup without cutting dashboard plastic - have a suggestion? let me know. Either this or old style remote controlled switch.

[abirnale]

Significant Update: Got new shoes!

Will post the pictures of the recent MH trip during Xmas on a separate post but before that the story of broken roads and damaged tyre.

On the day of departure I noticed the air pressure drop to 10psi. Filled the air and drove to nearby puncture shop - they did not find any. I thought it must be some kids playing with the car earlier night and continued with the trip. After a few days again over night the air dropped to 8PSI. This time i took it to a tyre shop and did a thorough investigation. Noticed a very small sidewall damage. The air was leaking fast only when the car was parked such that the puncture site gets vertical pressure and opens the wider outlet to leak air. So technically this puncture was there on the day I left for the trip too.

Here is the picture of the leak and I literally had to work with the tyre shop to unmount tyre, check lips/ small mails etc to identify the this damage.





The tyres still have a few K kms life left on them. So I returned to Bangalore from Pune on the spare and as son as back - reached out to trusted Madhu's Tyre Center and got new shoes for the Cheetah. The expense is little earlier than I thought but this will also ensure a safe commute/ travel.

This time, reverted back to A/T tyres. Zeroed in on the Yokohama Geolander series G 015 variant in the 235/65R17 combo that stock XUV tyres are. These are 108H rated and expected to last longer than soft Michelin H/T tyres. I had options to try Michel LTX A/T as well but since there wasn't much price difference and this is something i always wanted to try.

Thus, we got four new tyres - retained the best old Michelin H/T tyre as spare. The default Spare was Apollo Apterra that came with car. Its been 4.6 years and the rubber is hard anyway. With a total expense of Rs. 49K plus change, now Cheetah has new shoes that would probably last for entire 2020 and 2021!

Here is the tyres I chose - with label and thread pattern:



On the car:






The proud owner who does not hesitate to get his hands dirty:


The Madhu's Tyre Center - happy to showcase this badge:


Thats a good expense to start new year and many more happy (s)miles ahead.

[abirnale]

The 2019 Christmas Trip to MH

We did not have any meaningful long family trip in 2019. The opportunity came when we had to meet our extended family members in Pune. We chalked out a plan to visit Pune and stretch a little beyond to Lonar/ Ajanta and Ellora. The trips turned out to be a good one.

Orange cheetah did its best to serve us during this trip. on the way we visited Raja Sindkhed - the birthplace of Jijamata (Shivaji Maharaj's mother). Lonar Lake was an amazing destination - full of learning and good trek down to the lake was the highlight. There aren't any great hotels around - just a MTDC resort with below average food and average accommodation. We stayed there for a night. In the evening of our arrival, we trekked down to the lake, visited the Daityasudhan Temple and retired for the day.

Lonar Lake and around:









The second day was spent moving from the Lonar town to Ajanta MTDFC Resort. The roads after Buldhana were horrible. The Cheetah took them well - inspite of the sidewall damage, it performed very well.

Ajanta Caves:




Ajanta being the only attraction in that area, next day after seeing the caves, we went to Ellora. That was best part of trip - next day we visited Ellora caves, Deogiri (Daulatabad) fort, Bibi-Ka-Maqbara in the Aurnagabad town and then next day returned to Pune.

In and around Aurangabad:







In Pune, we paid a quick visit to Sinhgad fort, spent a day with family and friends and then returned back to Bangalore.

Sinhgad fort:





At the end of the trip the odometer now is at 122xxx Kms



Ciao until next update.

[abirnale]

Just for the heck of it - noticed the Orange Cheetah had an orange guest parked close to it and still not daring to make an eye to eye contact



By the way, if i was in market today to buy a car without AWD requirement - this would have been it!

But my next wont be without AWD/4WD. AT is very good to have, not a deal breaker though! More than five seats is MUST. Ability to long haul without an hint of fatigue is all we need and the ability to reach that last 10 kms to the place not many have been to!

Have a great week ahead and ciao until next update!

[abirnale]

A lot happened over the past two and half weekends!

Twice Cheetah went into embarrassing situations :(

First, when we were on our way to Vellore Temple, near Shoolagiri, noticed the Engine! light! It was Pongal weekend with literally no help! Returned back home slow and easy. The reason was the hose connecting to the air-intake had a small crack at one end. All it needed is to cut the cracked part and refit the hose. But Since I did not know this, and ELM327 did help either, there was no other option but to abandon the trip and return home. On Monday morning, at Chrome motors, the problem was solved in less than 15 mins. And identified another problem while there - the rear right wheel bearing was giving up - making noise. Needed to be replaced. Luckily, it went through the warranty claim!




And then the second incidence - two weeks ago on Saturday Jan 25th morning, Cheetah refused to start! A new Amaron 90ah battery was all it needed! The stock battery lasted 4.5 years and good 125K kms!

Driven to Neliyampathy Forest Reserve for the weekend:
The weekend of 18/19 Jan we paid our visit to Neliyampathy Forest Reserve. We enjoyed our trip very much - few pictures from the drive atop hill.






And thus, we are back on road again, for more (s)miles to munch The odometer is about to cross over 125K kms - "Sava Lakh milsestone" to be breached

Ciao until next update!

[abirnale]

The work is crazy and there are tons of things pending on my plate... The thread updates have slowed down owing to these challenges. Not that last three weeks are buzzing with any activities involving Orange Cheetah but prior to that a lot of good things happened!

As part of the group trip - I had opportunity to drive to Belgavi district. This was a group drive arranged for TORC members and we had a good circuit drive too. Timing was little odd as there was no usual pleasant feeling of being in the western ghat ranges. We managed to drive through the areas involving water banks, dams and good long highway drive too. Adding some pictures from the drive -

For the drive, only me and my son went - it was two nights and three days - a great time we had together bonding and he enjoyed the trip including the thick fog cover enroute Belgavi from Bangalore:



















As part of the drive route - we visited two dams and clicked the car group -













Few of us went out to the same dam close to our hotel for seeing the sunset and it was best time spent enjoying the setting -









And this milestone was completed on the way to Belgavi -

[abirnale]

We call it new normal... I doubt that but so be it. Who would have thought that after March 18th Orange Cheetah would get to gulp its share of diesel on on June 8th! That’s unprecedented gap in my almost 5 years of ownership. Yes, this month Orange Cheetah will be out of warranty. The five years is the maximum duration of ownership I have had for any of my cars... that’s new normal may be. On the anniversary, I should write a summary of ownership for my audience and for myself to go down the memory lane once. Things can keep happening but the reason i post today is - i have some pictures to share with you!

This could draw a lot of flak but hear me out - In KA we have “normalcy”, almost restored. Sunday afternoon discussion that made us take an instantaneous Decision to drive to nearby place turned out to be very good outing after a long time. We went to our old favourite place - Markonahalli Dam backwaters. The recent rains have blessed the entire region with that unique monsoon greenery. And we witnessed the rains too - the first rain of 2020 that we enjoyed driving! It was fun that could not be captured in words (at least for me) and hence the pictures -











We are hopeful that situation will turn better and better in coming days and we will soon enjoy the real monsoon drive! ***Touchwood***!

Ciao until next update!

[Nalin1]

Originally Posted by abirnale

This could draw a lot of flak but hear me out - In KA we have “normalcy”, almost restored. Sunday afternoon discussion that made us take an instantaneous Decision to drive to nearby place turned out to be very good outing after a long time. We went to our old favourite place - Markonahalli Dam backwaters. The recent rains have blessed the entire region with that unique monsoon greenery. And we witnessed the rains too - the first rain of 2020 that we enjoyed driving! It was fun that could not be captured in words (at least for me) and hence the pictures -

Ciao until next update!

Good to see you updating this thread again and the orange Cheetah!.

I too am itching to drive somewhere and Markonahalli seems to be a good one day's drive out.

Did you face any hiccups on the way from the cops or check points? I am not sure what the current rules are.

Just follow Google maps to this place?

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

Did you face any hiccups on the way from the cops or check points? I am not sure what the current rules are.

Just follow Google maps to this place?

Yes. I wont be exaggerating if i say, the roads are just like before they were! Same long queues at toll, same driver behaviour and manners on road and same us

Yes, just follow the directions to Dam or Markonahalli Village. Find a spot good enough to park and enjoy!