[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by ritedhawan

If my understanding is correct and its without a doubt that as the car ages, the more mileage it accumulates. The owner of the car must accommodate himself with something which is an integral part of long-term maintenance : "Preventive Maintenance".

Thus an owner of a BMW offering would be better off without BSI, if he has "Preventive Maintenance" which is an integral part of long term maintenance, on his mind.

Preventive Maintenance has nothing to do with BSI or vice versa.

BMW's Condition Based Monitoring (CBS) System, is the preventive maintenance system. That system monitors various parameters and various maintenance needs and tells you when to maintain/replace/check what (e.g. see my above post discussing how engine oil life is estimated by CBS and how it tells when to change the engine oil). Essentially BMW service intervals and also service items are determined by this CBS. This is a very conservative system and ensures parts/consumables are replaced well before they are actually close to failure or close to being a problem. Thus, this is a classical Preventive Maintenance system and works great in general.

Coming to BSI, it is merely a prepaid package of service costs. It just says that you pay a certain amount of money in advance, for a prepaid package that covers a certain elements of your maintenance as per CBS. Whether one opts in for BSI or not, all maintenance is still as per CBS, and thus, in either case, preventive maintenance is followed.

Now in reality, when one opts in for the prepaid package, there are of course rules and restrictions about how and when those services can be availed. There, the BMW service center usually goes strictly by CBS with not much variation allowed. Nothing wrong with that and strictly following CBS is still a good enough preventive maintenance practice.

However, when one is paying on their own for each specific service, they of course have the liberty to carry out a service well in advance of what the CBS is asking for, and pay for that. This is an extra advance over an already conservative preventive maintenance schedule of CBS. Usually such advanced services are never required from maintenance point of view (it is actually a waste to do service so much in advance), but one can do this advance service merely to avoid another visit to service center again. Thus, this choice is merely for convenience and not for any technical advantage.

For example, according to CBS, I would have changed my oil at about 10,600km mark. That was already a good enough preventive maintenance because all the CBS algorithms/sensors are watching for the oil quality and they are quite conservatively asking me to change the oil at 10,600km compared to the original estimate of 12,000km. Compared to that, when I changed my oil early at only 9,200km I do not think I gained anything extra on the preventive maintenance front. There is absolutely no advantage in changing oil so early. Maybe I just wasted 1,400km of useful oil life. I did this merely for the convenience of avoiding another visit to the service center, and not for any technical advantage.

Thus, with BSI or without BSI, as long as one follows all maintenance requirements as per CBS, they are already doing a very good preventive maintenance.

Hope I answered your question.

[Dr.AD]

Drive to Foggy Kodaikanal

The reason I got my car hurriedly serviced and changed the oil in advance of the CBS schedule was that I had a hilly drive planned to Kodaikanal (or Kodai, as it is often called in short).

We (I and my better half, along with our good friends @robimahanta and his better half in their BMW M340i) did a 3-days, 2-nights family drive to Kodaikanal. We stayed in "The Tamara Kodai Resort" (https://www.thetamara.com/kodaikanal-resort/) , which is a relatively new resort in Kodai and also one of the best properties there. This is a branch of the Tamara Coorg resort which is also quite nice and a well-known resort.

The drive to Kodai was quite nice, and we enjoyed driving our cars on the fast highways up to Dindigul, and then about 50km of hilly roads (with plenty of hairpin bends) from Dindigul to Kodaikanal. The resort was also quite nice, and we absolutely enjoyed our time in the resort. We also enjoyed the food in the resort, which was always fresh, hot and tasty. Overall it was a nice vacation and we had a great time.

However, one thing that was the highlight (for lack of a better word) of our Kodai experience was fog! Except for a couple of sunny hours in the morning, rest of the times in Kodai we encountered heavy fog, mist, clouds and all those weather elements which reduce visibility to close to zero. When we went around for local sightseeing in Kodai, and walked around some of the famous walking trails in the town, the visibility was no more than about 100 feet. When we visited locations known for the beautiful valley views, all we saw was thick fog. In some of the pictures below, you will see the thick fog that I am talking about.

Our cars parked at "Radisson Salem", our breakfast stop at Salem, TN, on our way to Kodai:


Breakfast buffet at Radisson Salem is always quite nice, and this time too we enjoyed a sumptuous and heavy breakfast there. After Salem, it was a fast four-lane highway till Dindigul. Traffic was quite heavy between Bangalore and Salem (even in the early morning hour), and thinned down a bit after Salem till Dindigul.

After Dindigul, in a short while we hit the hills and the scenic part of the drive started. The 50km ghat road to Kodai was mostly in good condition. There were a few broken patches and a few potholes in the last 20km or so to Kodai (damage caused after the recent heavy rains), and we had to slow down to crawling speeds and drive carefully on those sections. But apart from those few bad patches, the rest of the roads were great and we enjoyed driving there.

On a scenic and smooth section of the ghats:



Arrived in Kodai around 1pm, with still some last sunshine of the day available (after about 2pm it became foggy quickly):



Parked in Tamara Kodai:



After checking into our suite, we were welcomed by this nice setup on the coffee table:



The resort was quite nice, and we enjoyed walking around there in that chilly evening with zero sunshine (it was all foggy and cloudy after 2pm):



It was quite cold in the evening, and this nice corner with a fireplace was a perfect place to hang out at and have a chit chat session:


Next morning, it was a nice sunshine for a short while, and we enjoyed the lovely weather till it lasted.

A few pictures from the resort in that morning sunny hour:










We walked around Kodai lake, then through a big and well maintained park known as Bryant Park (both of these are the typical tourist attractions in Kodai), and then walked on the famous "Coakers Walk" (https://kodaikanaltourism.co.in/coakers-walk-kodaikanal) which offers fantastic valley views. The weather was pleasant (although a bit chilly) to walk around at that time of the day, but unfortunately, it quickly turned foggy and visibility was very poor.

Instead of those picturesque valley views, all we saw was such clouds and fog in the valley:


After about 5km of total walk across multiple viewpoints and on the Coakers Walk, our plan was to have lunch at "Wyckoff's Dining Room @ Villa Retreat" (https://goo.gl/maps/ShkqYTxosEZkB6yS8). The Chef there (Chef Shadab) is a wonderful Chef and in addition to the great food prepared by him, and place offers beautiful open air sitting on the lawns overlooking the valley. Lunch here was a great experience. One needs to call in advance and book a table, as this is a very small and boutique place, and not a typical restaurant open for walk-ins. But if you can call in advance and arrange for lunch, the whole experience is totally worth it!

The path leading to the lawns overlooking the valley at Villa Retreat:



The scenic lunch area, and the weather was beautiful:



A live barbecue was the plan for lunch, and in that cold weather and in that scenic place, the hot barbecued food tasted heavenly:


After that lunch which we thoroughly enjoyed, we came back to the resort. By then, the usual thick fog had engulfed the entire Kodai town, and visibility was extremely low.

But that thick fog did help create some mystic views:






We then rented a local taxi for a drive around a few scenic points and valley views. Again, not surprisingly, all we saw was fog.

This is all we saw at one of the scenic view points known for great valley views:



And the story continued at the next point in that loop drive:


Then we reached a place known as "Pine Forest". This was a nice place, even though it was crowded. This place, as the name suggests, has thick pine trees and those engulfed in the thick fog looked lovely.

The "Pine Forest", as the name suggests, is exactly that:



Pine trees engulfed in fog:



A rare moment when I preferred using my ultra-wide lens:



A bit ahead in the loop drive, a view of the Kodai Lake, again covered in the fog:



Back in the resort, just when the evening had turned dark and cold, this fireplace again was a good place to sit and sip hot coffee:



A parting shot in the resort, in that cold evening setting:


Next morning, on our way back, we enjoyed sunny morning weather again.

On a beautiful corner on that lovely Kodai road:



A parting shot from that memorable drive:


It was yet another memorable drive and I enjoyed driving the car. Except for the few bad patches in the final 20km or so to Kodai, the rest of the roads were great and the car performed flawlessly. Some of the ghat sections were ideal to enjoy a dynamically sorted sedan. I can only imagine how much fun Robi would have had driving his M340i on this ghat road. Following that car and just watching that car gracefully tackle such corners is a delight by itself.

I love driving around in winter (or in any season, for that matter ), and I am hoping to get a few more drives soon. But for now, this is all.

Thank you for reading!

[Dr.AD]

My driving pattern with the 320d has emerged to be, as would be evident from the posts in this thread, long drives on weekends followed by a lull in the weekdays. On weekdays I rarely drive this car. For my business meetings in the city and for dinners/social meets, I prefer using Uber. And for running errands and driving around in the local market, I prefer taking my beater car. For outstation work travels, flights is the usual mode of transportation. Thus, the 320d has become, not necessarily by choice but by the circumstances, purely a weekend companion.

Following the same trend, since our Kodai drive posted above, the car was sitting idle in my parking spot.

This time I decided to break that trend, and took the car out for a night drive through the city. My wife loves coffee and I love driving. So a post-dinner coffee drive is our favorite activity together. Took the 320d for a nice coffee drive last night with my wife. Thankfully, the traffic was not bad, and we enjoyed a cool and peaceful drive with some nice songs on the radio.

Somewhat rare city drive for the 320d, for a late night coffee:



Hot and strong cappuccino on a cold night - priceless!:

[Dr.AD]

TeamBHP Drive and Meet

This weekend, I participated in the TeamBHP Drive and Meet organized by @RSUDARSANAN. Check out this thread and the posts there for more details: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/team-...er-2022-a.html (Team-BHP Meet @ Nadugani - 10th & 11th December 2022)

It was great to meet fellow BHPians and discuss cars and road trips. I met many of my old friends, and made some new friends. I absolutely enjoyed my time there, and had some great discussions on cars and road trips. Thanks to @RSUDARSANAN for organizing this fantastic meet, and for everyone who made it there for their company and the great discussions.

I mostly enjoyed spending my time talking to fellow BHPians, and I did not take many pictures. I just took a couple of casual photos of my car in the parking lots, wherever we parked, and sharing just these few casual mobile photos below.

I got my car washed before the drive, but unfortunately, the wash was a total waste as it rained all night before the drive and also during the drive, and the car got dirty again in no time:




Red red. With red CLA driven by @500ContyCruiser:



The two red cars parked in the resort:



Not two, but three red cars this time, at a coffee break:



Parked next to the blue 320d of my close friend and organizer @RSUDARSANAN.


It was great meeting my good friend and my driving buddy, @graaja there, who drove solo from Coimbatore to meet the Bangalore gang. He is an inspiration and motivation to me in many things in life, and I always enjoy meeting him at every possible opportunity.

With my close friend, my "driving partner", and "coach", @graaja:

[Dr.AD]

Highlights of 2022

Taking inspiration from this thread, I thought I should post a more detailed review of my 2022 with the 320d here.

2022 turned out to be a great year for me from driving and road tripping point of view. I drove both my cars to some memorable drives this year. Especially with the 320d, I had some really nice drives across the width and breadth of South India and Maharashtra. I drove from east coast to west coast, and from beaches to the hills, and even to deserts. I did plenty of solo drives (which I absolutely love), as well as plenty of drives with my driving buddies and fellow BHPians.

The year started for me when I was already on a long drive to Arunachal Pradesh with BHPian @graaja. On January 1, 2022, we were in Kaziranga National Park, in the middle of that drive. It was a great way to start the year, and that set the pace for the rest of the year.

Please allow me to recap here some of the memorable drives from this year . I have written detailed reports or travelogues for many of these drives (but not all), and I have given links to those travelogues as well.

Please click on the underlined links for the detailed report about that drive, and please click on the pictures to see a higher resolution version.

The first long drive (a 1000km weekend drive) of 2022 was to Maravanthe beach with my driving buddy, @robimahanta.

A drive to photograph the sunset at Maravanthe, KA:



And photoshoot at the sunrise too:



Posing with Robi's M340i:



This drive set the tone for many more memorable drives in the rest of the year:



With my driving buddies, at Srirnagapatna, on a weeked drive to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary



In the same drive, a group photo in Mysore:



On the East Coast, TN, in a weeked drive to Mahabalipuram:



Near Tungabhadra Dam, on a solo drive to Bijapur to explore the 17th Century Architecture:



Another solo drive to Karwar and Sadashivgad Fort:



On a Weekend Drive to God's Own Country:



Again with my driving partner, @robimahanta:



With our friend @abirnale's famous Red Sabertooth (XUV7OO) in the return journey:



Another drive with @robimahanta, this time to Chikmagalur:



Somewhere on scenic rural roads in KA, in our "Tea Estate Drive":



Driving through the tea estate:



This time, with Mahindra Thar of @robimahanta:




With the magnificent Audi A6 of @jkrishnakj in another Coastal Drive:




With @robimahanta and my other driving partner, @graaja, in search of Lion-Tailed Macaques at Valparani, TN:



And then there was the time of the year for our annual "Monsoon Drive to Maharashtra" , with my usual driving buddies:



Somewhere on the coast of Konkan, MH:



The full group in the monsoon drive:



At some scenic location:



What is a monsoon drive without a splash (picture by @graaja):



With my friend @praveenblan in an Eventful Drive to Karwar:



Somewhere in Coorg, KA, in an idyllic weekend at a homestay:



On our way to Bekal, KL, in another group drive with friends:



A very memorable solo drive to Hampi, to chase the sun:



"On the rocks" in Hampi:



On a lovely ghat road in TN, in our "Drive to Foggy Kodaikanal" with @robimahanta:



And finally, last but not least, posing with the 320d of @RSUDARSANAN, during the recent TeamBHP Drive & Meet organized by him:



With so many memorable drives, for sure it was a great year. I would be really happy in 2023 is equally good, if not better.

While wrapping up the year's summary, let me also mention about the maintenance and servicing trough the year. As I said before in this thread, driving hard and enjoying the car to its fullest, and then servicing and ensuring maintenance on time are two integral (and equally important) parts of car ownership.

This year I drove the BMW for about 19,000km (almost all of that is these weekend fun drives; I have almost no city driving and zero commuting). In these 19,000km of driving, I needed two oil change services this year (par for the course). Further, I needed a complete set of four brake pads and four brake discs. I also needed a set of four new tyres. And finally, I needed a pair of new ABS/speed sensors. All these are par for the course given that the car is nearing 80,000km on the odo now!

Overall, the car has been great to me. I love driving her and she loves long drives too. She is a beautiful car, and doubles as my model when I am in a mood to practice my hobby of car photography. She is extremely reliable (although does require frequent servicing and eats consumables at fast rate), and still drives well.

A big part of many of these drives are my BHPian friends and driving buddies. A big thank you to them for making these drives memorable. Hope to continue driving with them in 2023. We do have some plans for sure. Looking forward to those plans and hoping that 2023 is even better than 2022.

That is all for now. Thank you for reading!

[jkrishnakj]

What a beautiful summary AD. It’s a pleasure reading your logs. Here’s wishing several more miles of fun and frolic. Barring the tyre issue during the Karwar trip, I think it was bliss with your red hot one.

Cheers.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

What a beautiful summary AD. It’s a pleasure reading your logs. Here’s wishing several more miles of fun and frolic. Barring the tyre issue during the Karwar trip, I think it was bliss with your red hot one.

Thank you very much for your kind words, @jkrishnakj! And thank you for the wishes! Yes, barring that tyre burst in the Karwar trip, the car was just great throughout the year and in all those memorable drives summarized above.

It was great driving with you in that one trip together that we managed in 2022. Let us hope we can do more trips together in 2023. Looking forward to meeting you soon again and driving together soon.

[Dr.AD]

Happy New Year!

Wish you all a very happy new year (2023)!

As I mentioned before, I had a great driving year 2022. This was one of those years where the memories of the driving trips were worth reliving again and again, and also archiving in various forms.

I am not a video person, and never created any video before this. I like still photographs and that is where my hobby/passion is. But just for this year, to succinctly relive all the driving trip memories, I created my first ever YouTube video which is essentially a slideshow of my favorite photos of the year.

Please check this out when you get time, and please also listen to the sound track. It is a royalty free music, and one of my favorite songs that matches so well with the emotions of road trips.

https://youtu.be/OWfKcrQj9p0

Thank you very much for staying with me in this thread in 2022, and once again Happy New Year!

[sea_eagle]

Beautiful video summarising the adventures of the year gone by. Very inspiring. Thank you for sharing. Will try and make one for 2023, hopefully.

[Dr.AD]

January Recap: 4,100km of Highway Driving, and 80,000km crossed!

January 2023 turned out to be somewhat unusual on my driving front. I drove 4100km in this month. No, that is not the unusual part. The unusual part is that almost all of these km were flat out highway drives, quite literally! In this month, my city driving was just 10km (yes, that is jut ten kilometers, not a typo). A Sunday afternoon coffee shop visit with friends, 5km each way! That is all I drove in Bangalore. Rest entire driving was on highways.

Typically even my so called highway drives are on hills and mountain roads, coastal roads and beaches, and some scenic drives. But this month, all 4100km were straight, fast, flat interstate highways where I enjoyed the flat our performance of the car.

And in the process, I crossed 80,000km mark too. At the beginning of January, the odometer was at about 78,900km. And as of today, at the end of January, the odometer is at about 83,000km.

These 4100km were accumulated over two long interstate drives this month. The first one was a 2900km long solo drive to Aurangabad, Bhigwan and Hampi via Samruddhi Expressway. And the second was a 1200km round trip drive to Hyderabad with my wife, on the long weekend of 26th January.

The first drive is already described in detail in this travelogue. Therefore, I will not mention the details here again. But just including a couple of pictures for the sake of keeping this thread complete and up-to-date.

Somewhere on Bangalore-Hyderabad highway at sunrise:



On Samruddhi Mahamarg, a truly memorable drive:



Another sunrise somewhere between Aurangabad and Pune:



Early morning drive, on unpaved roads, to reach Bhigwan Bird Sanctuary boating point:



Another shot on the morning excursion:



Sunrise at Bhigwan:



Another shot of the memorable sunrise at Bhigwan:


Please check out the above-mentioned travelogue for more details on this drive.

Hyderabad Drive

On the long weekend with the Republic Day holiday, we (I and my wife) did another unusual thing for us - an urban vacation. We drove to Hyderabad and enjoyed a nice vacation there. We stayed at Taj Krishna. The hotel was quite nice and we enjoyed great food and huge buffet spreads, and the Taj hospitality.

We spent an evening at the Golconda Fort, and that gave me a good opportunity for taking photographs of the fort in the evening light. Let me share a few photos here.

"Old and New". High-rise buildings in the modern Hyderabad seen in the background, with the 600 year old fortifications of Golconda fort in the foreround:



Another view of the old walls of the fort against the backdrop of the city:



Golconda fort at dusk:



Another view of the fort at dusk:



Sunset from the top of the fort:



Another view of the sunset from the top:



The fort lit up in colorful lights during the "sound and light" show after sunset:



The fort lit up in the night:



And finally, for a change, an "Urban Sunset" shot at Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad:


Overall, we had a great time in Hyderabad.

Coming back to the car, the car did very well on these long, fast highway drives. In fact, the car felt like it was built exactly for these drives, and she was totally at home in these smooth, fast highways. I often enjoy driving the car in the hills and on the coastal roads, I enjoy the handling and the cornering, and the car excels there too. But these long fast highway drives were also fun with this car, and in fact were a lot easier for the car. For example, at the start of the month, the engine oil change was due in 10,000km. And after driving for 4100km, the oil change requirement has reduced to 7,000km. That indicates lesser rate of oil degradation that predicted, and that is due to all highway drives. I could also get to experience how efficient the car can be on such highway drives. Over the entire highway drive, I got an overall fuel efficiency of 17km/l, measured tank to tank. This is a great economy for a 2.0L diesel engine producing 190hp and 400Nm. These drives were fast -my average speeds were quite good. But in spite of that the car gave a great FE. And more than the FE, I care for range on such drives. I consistently got a range of around 900km to 1000km on such drives. In fact, in entire 4100km of driving, I refueled only 5 times. That indicates an average driving distance of 820km between refueling, and that is a very impressive number too. Again, all these numbers are without compromising on performance or the dynamics. I pushed the car hard and enjoyed the performance as well as the ride and handling package. Overall I am quite happy with the car. In spite of crossing 80,000km now (well, she is actually at 83,000km already; so even 80k mark sounds like an old story now), the car still feel fresh to me and my liking and appreciation of the car has not reduced a bit.

Well, so this is a summary of a rather busy and action-packed month of January 2023. Let us see how the rest of the year pans out on the driving front. For now, this is all. Thank you for reading!

[Dr.AD]

Sunday Drive: 430km, 8 Cars and Tons of Fun!

Yesterday, caught up with some old friends (all BHPians, except one) and had a lovely Sunday drive through the hills of Tamil Nadu. We drove on some fast highways, some lovely hilly roads and nice corners, some bad roads, and finally, to top it all, on some offroad trails in search of one waterfall that we could not reach to. We had seven BMWs (three F30 320ds, one F30 330i, one G20 330i M sports, one G30 530d, and finally, one M340i) and one Scorpio-N in the convoy.

At the end of about 8 hours of driving (and an hour of lunch), when I returned home, the total distance covered in the drive was 430km! Not bad for a casual, somewhat impromptu Sunday drive.

I absolutely loved the drive, and also loved just being part of this convoy. I was usually in the middle of the convoy, and that meant I could see the lovely BMWs in front of me and also in my rear view mirror, as those cars tackled the hills and took the corners in style and elegance! It was exhilarating to see this convoy tackle fast roads and then some winding hilly roads, and being in the middle of the action all day!

The eighth car, Scorpio-N of @Nerd1200, impressed us a lot. It is a lovely machine! It was amazing to see it keeping pace with seven Bavarian sedans, and taking the corners of the hills in its own style. That car is massive, and has great off roading capabilities. And yet it never felt out of place in company of the sedans. And above all, when we ended up on some quite bad roads, and some non-existent roads, where the BMWs eventually had to stop after commendably conquering a large section of that trail, the Scorpio N proved its worth as it effortlessly rang circles around the BMWs on that terrain.

Although we were driving most of the times and I was behind the wheels of my car, at a couple of places, I did get a chance to do what I love - to photograph the beautiful cars! To be honest, I am a bit bored of photographing my own car now. Therefore, this opportunity to photograph seven other beautiful cars was a godsend and I enjoyed it a lot.

Please allow me to share a few photographs I took of the beautiful machines we had in our convoy.

"Peregrine Falcon", the aptly named white 330i of @megazoid (this car was the leader of the pack yesterday, and showed us the path, quite literally, to some lovely hills in Tamil Nadu):



The blue 330i M sports of @HighRevving, with those stunning wheels which are always the talk of the town:



Another shot of the 330i:



Another photo of @HighRevving's blue 330i somewhere in the onward journey, on the backdrop of these tress that I really liked:



The central point of attention yesterday, the 530d of @d3mon, which was amazing to see in action and left us mighty impressed with its capabilities in all sorts of conditions (and above all, the car looks just so nice and sleek):



Another view of the 530d:



The regular member of our drive, the Sunset Orange M340i of @robimahanta, looked stunning as always (and those gorgeous alloys are worth a separate photoshoot just of the wheels):



One more view of the M340i:



Another regular member of our group, the blue 320d of @RSUDARSANAN:



The mighty Scorpio-N of @Nerd1200 that left us impressed:



The Scorpio-N looked at home both on the highways and on such terrain:



Two 320ds, the blue one of a friend who is not a forum member (yet), and the red one, of course, mine:



Finally, parting shot of my own steed, my trusted 320d, on a terrain that asked some tough questions like pitch of a Test Match that ends in three days:


Well, that is all from this drive. Thanks for reading!

[HighRevving]

Thank you @Dr.AD for the pictures! I had not met many of them before the drive but thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the group. Thank you again for making this a memorable drive and especially for your efforts with the camera, sometimes all by yourself while everyone else was whiling away.

The miles we clock across roads and terrains, especially people like you, is living proof that these Germans are very reliable. They've been made infamous by a handful who have not taken care of the car or have been simply, unlucky. The 2013 F30 320d I had, was sold at 47,000 KM mark and eventually tuned to Stage 2 by the next owner who is also a fellow BHPian. It was driven to over the 1,00,000 KM mark before he sold it to the next owner.

The current owner is still in touch with the BHPian who bought it from me and is in love with the car even after 1,25,000 KMs on the odo. He has installed aftermarket rims and M-Sport kits and enjoys it even after 10 years of the car averaging at least 12,500 KMs a year. So I really believe it is all about how we take care of these machines.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by HighRevving

Thank you @Dr.AD for the pictures! I had not met many of them before the drive but thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the group. Thank you again for making this a memorable drive and especially for your efforts with the camera, sometimes all by yourself while everyone else was whiling away.

Thank you for your kind words, HighRevving. It was great driving with you. And regarding photography, all I can say is "my pleasure"! Your car looks absolutely stunning, and deserves a complete photoshoot just of that car. Maybe someday we can do a separate photoshoot of your 330i.

The miles we clock across roads and terrains, especially people like you, is living proof that these Germans are very reliable. They've been made infamous by a handful who have not taken care of the car or have been simply, unlucky.

Agree 100% on this. Good knowledge and awareness of the maintenance needs, and ensuring basics such as tyre conditions and tyre pressures are correct, just as an example, is key to using such cars well. We do not baby our cars. Our cars are not garage queens. We drive them hard and drive them everywhere, but yet we take proper care to make sure the car is in shipshape. That is the key. With such care, the BMWs are extremely reliable and enjoyable!

The 2013 F30 320d I had, was sold at 47,000 KM mark and eventually tuned to Stage 2 by the next owner who is also a fellow BHPian. It was driven to over the 1,00,000 KM mark before he sold it to the next owner.

The current owner is still in touch with the BHPian who bought it from me and is in love with the car even after 1,25,000 KMs on the odo. He has installed aftermarket rims and M-Sport kits and enjoys it even after 10 years of the car averaging at least 12,500 KMs a year.

Great to hear about this, and the car still looks nice and fresh in the picture. This gives me confidence that I can use my 320d for a long time too, provided I take good care of the car.

So I really believe it is all about how we take care of these machines.

+100. This is the key statement that summarizes it well. I get many PMs asking about maintenance and reliability of BMWs. The answer is all this - you need to spend on maintenance and take care of the car. And after that, just enjoy the car and drive it, and do not baby it. The cars are very reliable if maintained well.

[Dr.AD]

Weekend in a Jungle Lodge

This weekend, we (I and my wife) drove to Jungle Lodges and Resorts' (JLR) King's Sanctuary Resort near Nagarahole Tiger Reserve. This was a short drive, just about 220km from Bangalore, and took just about 3.5 hours to reach there.

This resort is quite nice. It is better maintained and a bit more comfortable and spacious than most other JLR resorts we have been too. The overall ambiance was a bit more upmarket than other JLR resorts. However, at the end of the day, this is still a jungle lodge, and thus, the stay was in a jungle and overall facilities were just as good as what one could expect in the middle of a jungle.

We had a great time there. We enjoyed spending the weekend in the middle of the nature and loved the peace that such a location offers. We also did a jungle safari that was a part of the JLR package. Unfortunately, we did not have a great luck in wildlife sightings in the safari, and overall the safari was a bit of an anticlimax. Nevertheless, we had a great time overall.

The Drive:

As I mentioned, this was a short drive of just about 220km and less than 3.5 hours. Thankfully, the new Bangalore-Mysore highway has made it very easy to reach these areas in quick time, and we had a quick and relatively traffic free drive. After enjoying the new six-lane highway till Mysore, we had some rural and scenic two-lane roads after Mysore that go through forests. I love driving on those rural roads from Mysore towards Coorg, and this resort is somewhere in-between the two.

Somewhere on the road near Nagarahole National Park:



A close-up on the side of the road:



We reached the resort too early for check-in, so I spent some time in taking photos like this there:



Parked at JLR King's Sanctuary:

The Resort:

The "Resort", which essentially is a jungle lodge, turned out to be quite nice. It was spacious, and the "Maharaja Suite" we had was quite big, clean and comfortable. We had a nice balcony opening up to the forest, and it was fun spending time there listening to bird sounds and staring into the green trees.

The resort turned out to be nice:



Our "Maharaja Suite" that was tucked into such trees:



The suite has a nice living room and a dining area too:



And a spacious and clean bedroom:



A random photo of a tree next to the pool there:

The Safari:

Any jungle safari is a good test of one's luck. You may get varied experiences in the safari on any given day purely based on your luck. This time, we were not very lucky. While we enjoyed the open Jeep ride in the jungle, and enjoyed watching the trees and the scenery, on wildlife sighting front it was a disappointment. It is not that we did not see any wildlife. We saw plenty of deer, langurs, sambar, and also saw a few elephants. However, we did not see a tiger or a leopard that we were hoping to see.

On wildlife photography front, I did not get any great photos as such. Most of the animals we saw were far away, and somehow did not get any interesting composition with animals. Nevertheless, managed a couple of clicks in the safari, which I would like to share below.

A bird and a turtle on a branch:



Langur posing for my camera:



Deer:



What are they looking at?:


I love landscape photography and even in a jungle, when others are busy looking for wildlife, I like to spot opportunities for a quick landscape. Even here, I managed to sneak in one landscape.

Golden Hour in the Juggle:

Photo of the Trip:

A pattern has emerged in my recent road trips that I get one photo which for me forms the main highlight of the trip. One photo that symbolizes the whole trip and remains with me as the memory of the whole trip. Not that these photos are any great by anyone's standard, but they are to my own liking (by my own basic standard) and looking at these photos makes me feel good about the trip.

Luckily for me, even in this trip I got one photograph that I really liked and for me it became the highlight of this trip. No, this was not a tiger or any other wildlife photograph that I had imagined. But instead, I got a shot of the buzzing restaurant there in the late evening, in the middle of that forest. The lighting there, the bright lights of the restaurants on the backdrop of dark blue skies, formed the moment which I enjoyed capturing.

This photograph below, which I captioned "Evening in a Jungle Lodge", also got selected in the "Flickr Explore" section today, the section which highlights the most popular photos of the day from all around the world.

Evening in a Jungle Lodge:


Well, that is all from this short and sweet weekend trip. Thank you very much for reading!

[Dr.AD]

Weekend Drive to Dhole's Den, Bandipur

This weekend, we drove to Bandipur forest, and stayed at a boutique homestay named "Dhole's Den" (https://dholesden.com/). It was a wonderful experience to see the forest in summer season, and enjoy the hospitality and in general a great stay experience at Dhole's Den. I have written a detailed travelogue on this weekend drive here.

As I mentioned in that travelogue, reaching this place required driving on a mud road for about 1.5km. Please allow me to share a few car pictures from this drive. For more details, please check out the travelogue.

Somewhere just after Bandipur:



Tackling the mud road (in reality, this road was more difficult than what it looks like in this picture; it had stones jutting out, and had highly uneven surfaces and deep ruts at many places):



Adding color to the summer landscape:



In the return journey:



Parting shot on that tricky but charming mud road: