[abirnale]

On the last weekend, we drove to Shravanbelgola. After work on Friday evening, beating the traffic on Bangalore - Mangalore highway we reached for the night halt at the foot hills in town of Shravanbelgola. Absolute bliss to drive, not much to worry about directions as it's close from the highway. In the off peak season like this, you can easily get the good condition rooms there to stay.

Generally this trip happens first after I purchase the car - it happened for M800, Esteem as well as SX4. But this time Cheetah took more time to be here As usual, Cheetah's performance was completely niggle free and satisfying.

Here are some pictures from this trip -









Early morning climb on the hill is great experience. This was the reason we reached there a night before. This way we don't have to get up early, drive and then climb 600+ steps on the hill! The climb is pretty descent. For someone like me, its really challenging. Add to it - junior needed to be carried all throughout

[supertinu]

hey Avinash, catching up on your thread after a long time. You are doing a pretty good job of crunching miles on the cheetah .

[abirnale]

Long ago, the Kabini Overdrive was booked, right here - http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/team-b...er-2015-a.html

But at the last minute, something came up! I was given a directive to pick the slot in my apartment where Cheetah would call it's home. Sunday was the parking slots allotment and so I had to re-plan my overnighter. The fun at overnighter is something I would never want to miss but also at the same time can not risk the parking slots allocation.

I drove to Kabini, stayed overnight for Saturday with the group but returned to Bangalore early AM on Sunday. Here are few snaps from the trip -

The spotting on the safari -



Wish we could spot the leopard and tiger. There were variety of birds, deers. We spotted peacocks and elephants. The meetup thread has more photographs from Nikhil, Vedanth and folks. Some drool-worthy pictures!

And the orange cheetah -











The drive returning from Kabini around 4am to Bangalore was not much of an issue. I could skip the traffic as well as reach in time for the parking allocation thingie. As usual, cheetah was at it's best on the highway as well as the narrow lanes. Return leg of the journey could have been better only if Cheetah had more brighter light. Otherwise how would i deal with KSRTC buses coming right onto me on narrow lanes with high beam? Seriously, cheetah needs a HID kit with around 5700-6000K lights. The ground work to procure this thing has started. Hoping it to be done this year itself!

And in just a couple of weeks, a trip to Raigad, Muru-Janjira is coming up over XMas holidays!

Ciao until next time!

[abirnale]

After getting in touch with M&M Chakan plant folks, I am finally getting to finalise my plan to take Cheetah to it's birthplace

The next task at hand is to re-plan my X'mas vacation and drives so that this new date can be accommodated. The route plan for now looks like below - approx 2500 Kms which will put 15K+ Kms on the odometer for new year

[sathya_nars]

Hi Avinash,
Good to see you going for more trips. Wrt maps voice changing, I didn't notice it.

Btw, updates from my list of issues and road trips: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...ml#post3875271

[abirnale]

While I am on the road and yet to catchup with detailed posts, here is a teaser of what we did today -

Literally a red carpet welcome -


And the customary picture -


More details shall follow as soon as I am able to catch up with desktop size Tbhp access

Until then ciao!

[abirnale]

From many months I was looking for an opportunity to visit the Mahindra’s Chakan Plant. One of the reason why I bought Mahindra vehicle is for the fact they are one competent “Swadesi” vehicle manufacturer! And It was my dream to see how they work, and how they do what they do! Hence by pulling all right strings I got myself invited into theMahindra’s Chakan Plant. I did not expect any special treatment but what Mahindra did exceeded my expectations! A literal red carpet welcome and attention to every detail with 3-4 engineers and admin folks assisting me with very detailed walk of the facilities, plant was offered. The kind of hospitality they offered has been overwhelming. No wonder if I continue to remain Mahindra customer for life!

SDP, Nibu and other folks had visited Chakan Plant earlier - their report can be read here - http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...n-factory.html We too were taken from Press Shop - Welding - Assembly line. A lot of information is already covered in the thread by Nibu. The only difference being we saw XUV as well as KUV being manufactured. But I promised to not open my mouth/ use keyboard to talk about KUV100 - apart from mentioning, it looks cool tiny UV! The young kid in the Mahindra family for younger customers (which is not me )

The information in this post is based on the things I heard from various folks on the tour as well as what I saw in various presentations.

Mahindra embarked on its journey in 1945 by assembling the Willys Jeep in India and is now a US $17.1 billion Indian multinational. It employs over 2,00,000 people in over 100 countries across the globe and enjoys a leadership position in utility vehicles, tractors and information technology, with a significant and growing presence in financial services, tourism, infrastructure development, trade and logistics. Like what Maruti is to hatchback segment, Mahindra is to UV segment and they are completely Indian!

Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers Ltd (MVML) is a fully-owned subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd set up in 2007. It serves as manufacturing arm of Mahindra Automotive. They built a Greenfield facility at Chakan, near Pune, Maharashtra, to integrate the best in technology, environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and operational excellence.
Spread across 700 acres and planted with approximately 10,000 trees, Chakan offers a flexible and eco-friendly manufacturing layout for multiple Multi-Purpose Vehicles (MPVs), sport utility vehicles (SUVs), and commercial vehicles. Chakan Plant’s current capacity is of 3.2 million vehicles per year.

At Chakan they currently manufacture Mahindra & Mahindra’s entire medium and heavy commercial vehicle range from the 0.75 tonne Maxximo to the 49 tonne Mahindra Navistar truck. The new Global SUV and Pik-Up range are also being manufactured here including Rexton’s.

The reason why it is known as Greenfield Facility - At Chakan Plant, they use solar energy and waste heat from the oven exhaust to power activities in the paint shop, reducing the consumption of gas and electricity for an overall reduction of 3,500 tonnes of CO2 per year. A cluster of 70 solar dishes provides the energy for cooling the paint used for the vehicle bodies. Literally there is zero waste going out of the plant - take about being environment friendly. By the way, I learned during the plant demonstration that their paint facilities are future ready - should there be a natural coloured painting technology in near future, the plant can adopt that without any additional effort!

I had an opportunity to meet many of their senior folks including Quality Management folks. We spoke about XUV, other Mahindra cars, competition, what people like me (stereotyped to an extent) loves to see in their car, our usage patterns, our woes, the complaints and the suggestions. never even once did they avoid our talk - very patiently listening. And I am a firm believer that Mahindra listens to their customers. XUV New Age is the proof of it. Of course they also understand that sometimes they mess up things like for AWD AT, they knocked off push button start and stop!

Talking about the Infotainment woes, we have got an understanding that next time I pull my car into the service station, one of their Quality Engineer from RnD team will be watching my car to see what exactly went wrong earlier. May be pull some debug logs and all that things. According to them most of the time issues occurs due to the carelessness or incompetencies of the dealer workforce. And they are working on the dealer education constantly.

It was great to know that Mahindra is involved with nearby schools to create awareness about automobile engineering. It is my pleasure to see actions in terms of those private videos we saw from the kids when they assemble the scale models and learn about engine basics at very young age. I am sure if I had that kind of exposure, I would have been an Automobile Engineer instead of regular IT joe!

Here are some pictures I grabbed from the welcome presentation and Itinerary I was subject to.




The best thing of the trip - now I have this model in my showcase!



And thus I return from the MVML Chakan plant completely satisfied and happy!

[abirnale]

Orange Cheetah is taking us the places!

Xmas and Dasara holidays are best to plan our trips since kids are free. And when the kids are happy, everyone else in the family are happy too. It was my itch to visit the MVML Chakan plant and at the same time Kids needed to travel somewhere worth the visit.

After a few travelogues reading and messages exchanged between Kailash (@Dodge_Viper) and more tips from @HVKumar I chalked out the plan -

Saturday 26th Dec - Leave Bangalore and Reach Pune, check-in at Marriott, Chakan.
Sunday 27th Dec - Visit MVML Chakan
Monday 28th Dec - Visit Murud - Janjira
Tuesday 29th Dec - Visit Raigad Fort
Wednesday 30th Visit Pratapgad/ Mahabaleshwar
Around 1st Jan return to Bangalore.

But then all plans got shuffled as dates approached. MVML couldn't host us on Sunday 27th. So they asked for 28th. With that I reverted to Plan B!

Sunday was spent at Lavasa and Tuesday onwards Janjira - Raigad - M'War was resumed.

Below are some pictures from the trip -

Lavasa Visit on Sunday
Nothing much to talk about Lavasa other than it was commercial nature, high cost of everything and too much crowd due to holidays!

















MVML Pictures and details are covered in above post already.

Janjira Visit
We took the Mulshi - Tamhini route fro Pune. It was the best route in MH we ever drove on. the pictures will speak for themselves.

































Even during the winter the calmness of the area and vastness of the hills and valleys are evident, pleasant and inspiring. Our objective of showing our kids the natural hills, forts and giving the glimpse of history was met.

Since we reached around noon at Janjira, we had to wait for 10-15 mins to board the sail boats to reach to the fort. it was walk under the scorching sun on the fort but was somewhat cooler due to breeze on the fort. We loved every walk of the nook and corner. Me and my daughter reached the topmost flag post point on our feet too

Reached the limit of Pic upload in single post. To be continued.

[abirnale]

Continued...

Raigad Visit
This was main fort we had to visit some day. Especially for its location and important in the history. The day before we left Janjira by late noon and reached Mahad to stay for the night. It helped us to reach Raigad Ropeway point by 7am next day. There were not any tourists to take ropeway and we were family of four to get the ropeway started! The first to reach the fort and with the help from a local guide we visited the entire fort on our feet. Junior was at his best to run around and we had tough time catching him to safety. But we did it. More pictures from the fort visit below.























The sad part is that tourists don't keep the premises clean. We found a lot of plastic bottles and tetra-packs and Aditi was quick to pick up all of them to put them in the dust bins. A job well done.



Pratapgad/ M'war
Since we had taken more time to reach Raigad, we only took pictures of Pratapgad from a distance and kept detailed visit for some another day. To rekindle old memories of Mahabaleshwar we stayed in the city. Local site seeing - select ones and shopping in the market was the focus of this day.







For the 31st night we visited my sister's place in Sangli and returned to Bangalore on new year day hoping that this trend will continue - 2016 for more road trips!

About Orange Cheetah's performance during this trip -
No doubt it was happy to go to it's birthplace and it showed up on during the drive too. We reached Bangalore to Pune in a single day. It was longest ever drive I had so far in India and time taken was shortest I have been behind the wheel. In 2006 i had taken 15 hours to reach Bangalore to Goa in my M800 then. This time was 12 hours affair without speeding anywhere. Thanks to sparse traffic being 2 days into the holiday already.

We took all the narrow and pot hole roads as well as best tarmacs. Cheetah behaved perfectly well throughout. The pot holes in the Kelghar-Murud stretch or the super smooth corners in M'war-Medha ghat were handled well. Of course you cant drive on the corners as I would have driven a low slung sedan but there isn't anything complain with XUV too. None of the middle and rear seat benchers were puking in ghats of Lavasa or Tamhini. Credit goes equally to Cheetah as well as my driving **Winking**.

During the return trip, Cheetah reached from Jaysingpur to Bangalore around 650+ Kms distance on single filling of diesel. No low fuel warning even after reaching home and still three squares left on the fuel gauge. The FE must be 12Kmph and above.

As on date the ODO stands at 15800 Kms and Cheetah is resting to take on the Bandipur trip during Mid Jan long weekend.

And one picture for the road for Orange Cheetah -



Ciao, until next time!

[abirnale]

Minor and insignificant update - After the long drive earlier this week today I took car to a quick wax and polish. Gave it at Meenakshi mall second basement car wash shop. They charged ₹1800 for wash, vacuum, touch glow wax and polish. The job is below par :( Not even worth taking pictures. The water droplet dried on glasses were not cleaned! So, Gave them earful and they promised to re do things next time i visit. But with the kind of experience I had today, I don't think I will go there.

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by abirnale

After the long drive earlier this week today I took car to a quick wax and polish.

Sorry if I have missed, but does your Cheetah have dashcam?

[abirnale]

Originally Posted by a4anurag

Sorry if I have missed, but does your Cheetah have dashcam?

Yes Anurag. I have a dash-cam from BP. The details are already posted just before first service update around 5-6 pages before. It was bought from SnapDeal while the promotional offer was going on.

[abirnale]

Here is one pic that I forgot to add earlier -



This is the milestone achieved with great pride, enormous fun and the most memorable in my all automobile ownerships so far!

[supertinu]

Originally Posted by abirnale

Minor and insignificant update - After the long drive earlier this week today I took car to a quick wax and polish. Gave it at Meenakshi mall second basement car wash shop. They charged ₹1800 for wash, vacuum, touch glow wax and polish. The job is below par :( Not even worth taking pictures. The water droplet dried on glasses were not cleaned! So, Gave them earful and they promised to re do things next time i visit. But with the kind of experience I had today, I don't think I will go there.

Hey Avinash, I am not a big fan of these mall basement cleaning guys. In general they are crowded on weekends and not detail oriented. Best way to get satisfaction in my view is to get car wash done at any fng and do a round of waxing yourself if you can manage to take out 45mins. I did that recently and with the spray on wax its real convenient and fast. I sent some pics on our whatsapp group as well.

[abirnale]

A small observation - off late whenever I am driving on the down ramp to basement of my apartment parking and half press the brake without acceleration input the wheels make screeching noise. Its definitely not the tyre skid but something from the brakes I suspect. Could it be the dust? or is it a premature wear out? The car is 16K Kms run now and may be by 20-24K brake pads would need to be replaced.

By the way, there is another impromptu trip coming up. We are going to Bandipur tomorrow for couple of nights. XUV is taking us places