[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by s_pphilip

Forgive this noob question, but will the Tucson transfer power to the other wheels when 2 wheels are in the air and other two on the ground, basically replicating a scenario when the rear wheels have traction and front are slipping or when any one side has traction.
I believe it wont as it has open diffs on both axles, just to clarify, is TCS capable of doing something here, don't think it has any other electronics at work.

Tucson will transfer power to the rear wheels when front wheels loose traction. But it does not have diff locks, so if both left wheels (or both right wheels) loose traction, it can get stuck.

BTW, I just came back from Konkan where we had been for Ganapati. The house is on the bank of a river (at the base of a hill). The entire hill slope is a mango farm though which we have created a trail all the way down to the house. It's a safe trail in the summer but is covered in grass after the monsoons, so generally, in the Ganapati trip, we don't risk it. We park at the main gate at the hill-top and walk down. But this time, I decided to drive down as it would save a great deal of walk (especially, a great deal of climb on the way back) for my mom. On the way back, Tucson climbed very well.

The bottom part of the trail (near the house) is a bit steep and has some patches of gravel/soft soil. On one such patch (while exiting the gate - @3 second mark in the video), front wheels lost grip momentarily, TCS got activated (the TCS lamp flashed for a second or two) and Tucson gently moved forward :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F57vykbff1c

The upper part of the trail is relatively less steep, but it's still a climb nevertheless and fully covered in grass. No loss of grip here, no TCS and Tucson climbed to the top sure footed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgtTd5jQM1k

Note: The Sumos and Qualises have occasionally been slipping and getting stuck on this trail in monsoons and it's tough to get people to pull you out in these days as everyone is busy with the Ganapati festivities. So, we have been walking this path during Ganapati for last many years even though Tucson came to us in 2008. Now I am really thinking that I have been too conservative and under-estimating Tucson's abilities all these years. May be the Ladakh trip made me go for it(?) I should have tried this before, unnecessarily troubled my mom over the years...

[s_pphilip]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Now I am really thinking that I have been too conservative and under-estimating Tucson's abilities all these years. May be the Ladakh trip made me go for it(?) I should have tried this before, unnecessarily troubled my mom over the years...

Your faith in Tucson seems to grow everyday.

Some links displaying Tucson's abilities I had come across earlier while casually googling about 4x4's, posting here again as I think it relates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTk3hK1HU-c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q1o_ZIgpUM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lu4vhlR2vU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7xm44mMxIo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyKyxWg8kMg

In this video he tries to explain something with combinations between 4WD and ESC switched off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq07yPVV-3k

[anandpadhye]

The following parts were laying in various corners of the house for many days (or months) and mom finally told me that she is going to just throw them out:
- Clutch plate
- Pressure plate
- Both front brake discs
- Both front shock absorbers
- Both front lower arms

I didn't have any good/logical reason to prevent this anymore (I had been wanting to weigh them just out of curiosity and try to hammer the lower arm bushes out - again, for no good reason). And I hadn't actually done any of it so far, so had no more excuse and took them to a scrap shop. They told me the rate is Rs. 18/kg. So got a chance to weigh all of it.

Each brake disc weighs 8kg! Forgot the individual weights of other parts.
Total weight: 34kg, so total earning: 34x18 = Rs.612.

Mom is happy that first time I made some money on the car .

[debuda]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Each brake disc weighs 8kg! Forgot the individual weights of other parts.
Total weight: 34kg, so total earning: 34x18 = Rs.612.

Mom is happy that first time I made some money on the car .

When I was young (during initial years of bike and car ownership) I too used to keep all old parts thinking that they may be of some use in the future. But subsequently I realized that except for increasing the quantity of junk in one's house, they rarely serve any useful purpose.

You have done the right thing by getting rid of all those old parts. Now just make sure that you don't start collecting junk again!

[damanshaheed]

Hey guys, I am looking at a 2007 model with 1.97 lacs on the odo. The owner is a friend of mine and the Tuc has been really cared for. Had engine overall and clutch pressure plate done at approx 1.65 lac kms. Had the turbo changed and rear differential changed in the course of it's life. It drives like a dream, have got it checked from my mechanic. My only concern is the mileage on it, otherwise it is in mint condition, the interiors and exteriors with everything else on it in super condition, the ac, power windows, switches, etc. Asking price is 4.00 lacs, which I am sure I can bring down to 3.75. With your experience, should I go ahead.

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by damanshaheed

Asking price is 4.00 lacs, which I am sure I can bring down to 3.75. With your experience, should I go ahead.

Hi,

Sorry for a delayed reply, somehow missed your post.
A Tucson that's done 1.9 lakh km and runs smoothly is so comforting to hear. I am sure it has been well kept. If the turbo is replaced with a brand new one, you have one of the biggest probable expense taken care of. Why was the rear diff changed?

And what about injectors? Were they cleaned ever or still untouched? How is the blow-by?
Any severe oil fumes if you take out the dip stick while idling?

The prices seems OK for a 2007 vehicle, but a bit high for vehicle that's done close to 2 lakh km.

The Tucson guru

Digital Vampire

should also advise.

[damanshaheed]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Hi,

Why was the rear diff changed?

And what about injectors? Were they cleaned ever or still untouched? How is the blow-by?
Any severe oil fumes if you take out the dip stick while idling?

The engine has been checked by my mechanic, who has given me the go ahead. Also the timing belt, clutch and pressure plates have been changed recently. Did not notice any fumes on idling.

Regarding the injectors, that is a question I am going to ask the owner.

The rear diff has been replaced at a cost of around Rs 80,000. The guy is a rallyist, must have done a bit of offroading, but will still ask him.

[anandpadhye]

It's been one year since the Tucson was remapped. The car has done 19000 km since then. And it's been awesome and trouble free.

Here is a flashback on the remap experience - for the benefit of everyone except DV and Kash who were partners in crime, and my friend from Pune who was always with us but will probably never visit this forum:-):

It was on my mind for quite some time, but honestly, it felt a bit too much to drive all alone to Bangalore (and back). Finally, I could make a reasonable (looking) plan last Feb. A friend had a wedding to attend in Bangalore for which he had booked tickets to and fro (for himself and family). I asked him if they could cancel the tickets and travel with me in the Tuc. He agreed - a friend in need is a friend in deed :-). So I called up DV, asked if the remap could be done on the weekend. For the remaps,DV used to collaborate with a European expert who generally did not work on the weekends. But DV put up my case to him and made a special request and he agreed and we were all set.

I started from my home @5AM, picked up my friend and his family @6 and left for Bangalore. It was quite an event-less journey (especially if I look back at it as the Tuc as running the default factory map). In spite of being Feb, it was very very hot and we could feel the drought situation along the way. We reached the outskirts of Bangalore around 6pm and then got caught in the mad traffic for a couple of hours and reached the wedding place by 8PM. I had short listed a couple of budget guest houses nearby but the family was so gracious, they just did not allow me to leave without having dinner and even insisted that I stay with them for the night. It was so nice of them. I called up DV to check what time on Saturday morning should we meet as it as quite late for the day. But he asked me to come over right away so that he could TD the car, collect some parameters via OBDII and send to our expert tuner who would then work on it and get us a map by Saturday morning. So we met late Friday night (in fact that was the first time DV and I met face to face), did a couple of TDs, DV collected the parameters (of all the parameters, I found 2 very interesting ones - boost pressure, engine load). DV immediately said my boost pressure is reading lower than expected (his Tuc always showed higher values). We did not know about the leaking turbo at that time, but it's amazing how OBD-II can help spot such issues. He also mentioned that my engine felt better especially at low revs. After an hour or so, he collected all data and sent to his tuner and we called it a day.

Next day, I thanked my friend's friend and his family and left in search of a guest house. My friend took that day off (from his responsibilities of the wedding arrangements) and came with me! We found a decent one in HSR layout foe something ~Rs.1500/day and I checked in. Due to the time difference between India and Europe, there was nothing to do till afternoon, so we walked around HSR layout for hours, ate good lunch at the BDA complex, strolled around the Agara lake waiting for DV to call. Eventually, DV asked us to come over ~4PM as he had received the map. We rushed. My friend was really excited to know that we were upgrading the firmware of a car (he is into s/w industry like me but not into cars at all and he always thought this whole thing was weird - well I can't say that he was wrong :-). DV was ready with his laptop and the remap file. Kash - a fellow member and owner of another black Tucson also joined us and it was nice to see 3 Tucsons together - all 2005 models and all black. Well DV's is bottle green, but it's black - really :-). DV connected the laptop to the OBD-II port, read the default map and started writing the new one. I was a bit nervous but DV and Kash were calm. They had done this many times by then - on their own Tucs! The 4WD lamp flashed while ECU is flashed. That was amusing. DV told us it was Tuc's undocumented feature. Remap done and DV started the car. He just kept idling for some time to see if everything is OK which wasn't. After a few seconds, the RPM started rising on it's own! DV immediately switched off. Restarted the car after a few minutes and same thing! He immediately rushed to contact the tuner. I was worried as we did not know what happened and if Tuner would know, whether he will respond immediately or not, etc. But he did respond within half an hour and sent another map. DV flashed it, started the car and idled for a few minutes and all seemed OK. What a relief. According to DV, a single wrong bit here and there and such things can happen, after all it's all reverse engineering aka hacking. Hmmm...After a few km, I took over and found immediate difference. I was happy. Then we spent trying all the 3 Tucs one after the other as all 3 were remapped (though they were running different maps - DV's tuner provides custom maps for every ECU/car). But some things caught my attention more than the remap:
- Kash's Tuc has lumbar support which mine and DV's does not! All are 2005, but Kash's car is a couple of months newer! It's amazing how Hyundai could ship the initial batches without this!
- The OBD-II port is right above the clutch pedal in all the 3 cars. But it's vertical in mine (it can block the clutch operation as it can come in the way of driver's foot and the pedal), while it's tilted horizontal in DV's and Kash's car! So another bug in the very first batch that Hyundai corrected almost immediately!
- That dreading clutch - mine was the hardest. DV's and Kash's was much lighter! AGain they had overhauled their clutch relatively recently but the difference was huge.
- Kash'a car was fastest in the lower RPMs, DV's was the slowest to pick up, mine was somewhere in between. DV keeps claiming that his Tucson is the fastest in India, especially at the top end!
- DV's car had one injector which was making a lot of noise. But it created an interestingly wonderful engine sound and I was actually liking it!


Anyway, soon Kash had to leave, but we planned for a bigger TD on the highway. DV also asked me and my friend to have dinner at his place which was very nice of him. We left towards Mysore after Dinner, drove around 60 odd KM, stopped for some refreshments at Mac-D or CCD I forgot and then headed back. I was really enjoying the more powerful Tucson, but was closely watching the smoke. We decided to have another long drive in the day and left.

So we again got together on Sunday morning and went on the Mangalore/Hasan road. Drive was again awesome. On the way, DV gave me a pleasant surprise - he had another map in store which he flashed. Normally, he would idle for a few minutes, drive around and then hand over to me. But this time, He slotted the first, went a few paces and immediately gave the steering to me. I did not know why - at that time, but took over, and immediately felt it. This was a more aggressive map and Tucson was pulling like never before. I was perplexed and looked at DV who was smiling all the way! He told me this was the most powerful map still within the limits of safety, it may cause some smoke and a slight drop in FE, etc. But the feeling was so superior that we knew we had this one sealed. As we discussed FE, DV setup the Torque App on his Android to calculate the average FE (Tuc does not display FE on the instrument cluster but DV said Toqrue can derive it from other parameters via OBD-II). It showed 12kmpl as as long as we kept between 80 and 120, which was quite good for me. It was during this drive that we spotted the leakage in the turbo intake which spoiled the fun but I have already covered that in details in my year old report, so I will skip that part here.

Monday we spent at Hyundai patching the leaking pipe, etc and left Bangalore as planned on Tuesday. DV was always with me throughout my stay in Bangalore. He even took Monday off to ensure that we get all the work done on the car. Also, kudos to my friend and his family who traveled back with me in spite of knowing what we had done on the car. I asked them to take the flight back so that there would be no risk of getting starnded anywhere, but they stayed with me. We started on Tuesday @3PM, took it really easy all the way due to the potential leak (took a break at a good BPCL pump near Belgaum, allowed the engine to cool down even though coolant temperature was always normal, bought 1 L of diesel engine oil on a BPCL pump and topped up - to be on safer side), and reached Pune by @4AM Wednesday.

As they say, a lot of water has flown below the bridge since then. The leaking pipe, turbo oil seals, PCV valve - all replaced within a few days after the remap and it's been nice on song ever since. Tuc has had numerous trips to Mumbai and Konkan and a treacherous and grueling trip to Ladakh where it did not miss a single bit. Not a drop of oil consumed and the smoke has disappeared - literally. BTW, Tucson did 7kmpl on the Rohtang climb (where I stalled a lot for the first time in my life, eventually had to adapt and slip the clutch, etc), became an expert high altitude driver by the time we reached Leh and managed an extremely impressive 10kmpl on the Chang La route!

This has been a year of transformation for the Tucson: a fantastic and trouble free remap, rebuilt turbo, hand operated clutch and 235/60R16 tyres that Tuc really deserves...as they say in Korea: Life is good

[K a s h]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

This has been a year of transformation for the Tucson: a fantastic and trouble free remap, rebuilt turbo, hand operated clutch and 235/60R16 tyres that Tuc really deserves...as they say in Korea: Life is good

I cant believe its already a year since we met :-) Now some photos of the hand operated clutch (as promised in other thread) and the upsized tyres please.

[Digital Vampire]

A year? Time is indeed flying!!!

Thanks for the review.

As they say, a lot of water has flown below the bridge since the last remap on your tuc (guess you forgot the Goa episode) and we now have a LOT better map for Tucson which was completely developed in-house. The low-end is a lot more peppier and a vastly improved top-whack (True 189 kmph on GPS) when compared to stock (164). The FE is mildly compromised though, but the benefits outweigh the negatives by far. Will upgrade your Tuc as soon as we are in Pune! - A trip is on the cards since a lot of remap requests are pending from your geography.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

- The OBD-II port is right above the clutch pedal in all the 3 cars. But it's vertical in mine (it can block the clutch operation as it can come in the way of driver's foot and the pedal), while it's tilted horizontal in DV's and Kash's car!

Try tilting the OBD clamp gently. Recently, the OBD port on mine also became vertical (thanks to some monkey who was kicking the OBD dongle!) but I could twist it back to original position. If that doesn't work, try using a smaller OBD dongle.

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

DV's car had one injector which was making a lot of noise. But it created an interestingly wonderful engine sound and I was actually liking it!

It's actually a fault with a certain batch of injectors (all 4). They are just loud. Any ways since you liked the sound, you can have my injectors since I'm planning to replace mine. The injector clatter is getting to me and the poor low-end is not helping either - Tired of all Tucsons overtaking me from the word go ;-)

Now that we have a full-fledged garage and workforce at disposal, the Tuc may see a Turbo Upgrade as well. But at the moment, trying to toss between a 5.6 sec lux-barge and a 750 NM train!

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by K a s h

I cant believe its already a year since we met :-) Now some photos of the hand operated clutch (as promised in other thread) and the upsized tyres please.

Yes, I will upload the photos by this weekend.

Originally Posted by Digital Vampire

A year? Time is indeed flying!!!

we now have a LOT better map for Tucson which was completely developed in-house. The low-end is a lot more peppier and a vastly improved top-whack (True 189 kmph on GPS) when compared to stock (164). The FE is mildly compromised though, but the benefits outweigh the negatives by far. Will upgrade your Tuc as soon as we are in Pune! - A trip is on the cards since a lot of remap requests are pending from your geography.

That is awesome! I am looking forward to this :-)

Originally Posted by Digital Vampire

Try tilting the OBD clamp gently. Recently, the OBD port on mine also became vertical (thanks to some monkey who was kicking the OBD dongle!) but I could twist it back to original position. If that doesn't work, try using a smaller OBD dongle.

Actually, my family doctor has fixed it. We removed the connector and the metal plate, drilled a small hole in the plastic above (the open storage area above the pedals) and routed the cable and the port there. Now the OBD-II connector and dongle rest in peace with all toll receipts and change.

I will post a pic.

Originally Posted by Digital Vampire

It's actually a fault with a certain batch of injectors (all 4). They are just loud. Any ways since you liked the sound, you can have my injectors since I'm planning to replace mine. The injector clatter is getting to me and the poor low-end is not helping either - Tired of all Tucsons overtaking me from the word go ;-)

Now that we have a full-fledged garage and workforce at disposal, the Tuc may see a Turbo Upgrade as well. But at the moment, trying to toss between a 5.6 sec lux-barge and a 750 NM train!

Hmm... what's the cost of each injector?
Bigger turbo - yes, that will be interesting. VGT?
But now that you have a full fledged workshop, please explore getting the 6 speed GB. That will lift the top end as well as FE and will in fact better utilize this brilliant engine over the entire RPM range. I will surely go for it if you can arrange.

Cheers!

[anandpadhye]

For your viewing pleasure

[K a s h]

How is the Tyre noise? I'm hoping it must be too silent upgrading from an AT tyre.

[anandpadhye]

Yes, they are silent as they are highway tyres. In fact, Primacy LC aren't even listed as SUV tyres. They are categorized as passenger car tyres! Of course, the Yokohama's also felt good when they were new, but went crazy after 15000km or so with howling noise! I will form an opinion about the Primacy LCs after a year or so of usage. Hope they don't change character over next 40000km :-) BTW, there are some traffic circles on my way to office where 215's used to squeal and screech even at 30-40kmph. No such drama with the 235's and I am loving it.

[anandpadhye]

Thanks to my family doc, OBD-II is now safely rerouted


BTW, the other switch you see is the master switch for the vacuum clutch.