[musicmanaman]

rrsteer, you sure do log a lot of miles, 49k in 18 months is a lot of ruinning, my cat has done 42k in 5.5 yrs, also good to know your Safari is niggle free and gives fantastic FE.

[rrsteer]

The most recent odometer reading of my Safari is 54,000 Kms. The SUV is now in its 19th month of ownership.

Electrical problems - none
Mechanical problems - none
Rattles etc - none!

I read somewhere in T-BHP that diesel engines can run trouble free for 450,000 kms if the engine is provided clean air, proper cooling and regular oil changes. (I dont exactly remember the thread where I read it, but it was written by a distinguished bhp-ian)

So I have taken it upon me to test it on my Safari. Every 5k or 6k, it goes through the rotuine of engine oil & filter change & air filter cleaning. Every 10k kms i get the diesel filter changed and every 20k the gear oil.
Plus I have made sure so far that every 7.5 k the wheels get rotated and balanced. This costs money and a lot of time. But I love being in car garages and I have actually no other area of interest to splurge money on.

Every now and then I feel the need to do something different to my car. In terms of adding hellas, or alloys or redesigning the front bumper. But so far the deeper voice within always subdues this thought and forces me to keep the car stock.

I am also beginning to call My Safari Mr 10%. Though the Pak president is know by this name too, but I use that term for my Safari in a far more respectable sense. Heres why : Now, over an year of running it has been established that my Safari gives about 10% better mileage than my Scorpio (overall 11.7 kmpl for Safari vs overall 10.5 kmpl for Scorpio) & because of more space, we can transport more stuff in Safari and thus save on transportation costs of some business articles. Overall it contributes in its own way in keeping our business costs down.

So far as has been the tradition of this ownership thread, a big to my Mr 10%

[suman]

Nice update & an interesting name too! But don't you think it should be "Mr PLUS 10%"?

[ankur_gupta10]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

3) The plastic piece above the left hand side rear tyre has fallen off
4) The ash tray is now a separate piece from the dashboard
5) Handbrake rubber cover got torn sometime
6) The silver paint of the dashboard is peeling off from the edges.

I have faced similar problem with handbrake rubber cover and eyebrow - plastic piece below door, and above tyre.

[rrsteer]

I like mountains during rains. So this Wednesday I decided to make an impromptu trip towards Chamba side. The idea was to leave home (Jalandhar) on Thursday morning and return on Saturday evening.

It was raining on Wednesday so the probability was high that we will get the kind of weather (cloudy skies, intermittent drizzle or light rains and mist all around) we desired over the next few days. And that we got.

So early morning on Friday I walked up through a desolate trail. It was captivating. And the thought was that I will take my family through the same trail after breakfast on the Safari. Some pics of the place:

[PAVAN KADAM]

Congratulations on a trouble free ownership, wish you many more miles in the future.

Put some pics of your car buddy.

[rrsteer]

Little did I know that I will get my Safari stuck here for over an hour. I have no hesitation in admitting that I may have below par skills to drive a vehicle in such terrains. But I do feel, that a part of the blame also lies with the vehicle. Its over weight, its under tyred, it has very small turning radius and I also assume there are a lot of torque losses. The engine maybe producing a lot of torque but I am not sure how much is actually transferred on to the wheels.

here is what happened.

I knew that as we climbed up the road, I took, it would get narrower. But during my morning trek I had spotted a place where I could reverse the vehicle and hence I climbed up quite a distance.

As we reached the spot where I could reverse the car, I think three things combined to land us in a tricky situation; 1) lack of expert driving skills combined with over enthusiasm 2) Slippery gravel track 3) inherent character of the safari (listed above)

The safari just refused to reverse up the small hair pin bend. The rear wheels just couldn't get enough traction and kept digging into the surface. The result was the Safari sitting on the edge of the cliff.

Whatever place was their between the front tyres and the cliff edge, I placed some rocks there. My survival instincts coming into play. As my first concern was to anyhow stop the vehicle from rolling over. Now with the front wheels jammed, we tried reversing again. After 15 mins or so of experimenting we landed the safari in another difficult position. The rear of the vehicle got slipped or displaced sidewards. Now the right side rear wheel was now stuck against the wedge of the incline and the other rear tyre was just touching the surface and had no traction at all. Now if we tried to reverse the vehicle, it felt that the net forces would combine to push the Safari over the cliff, irrespective of the rocks placed in front.

For a brief moment we tried to use human force to lift the safari out of its troubles. As while writing now, even then I knew it was a stupid idea but we did try it out halfheartedly! What we knew had to be done was to somehow lift the vehicle from hitting the wedge. We used the jack to raise the stuck rear wheel and placed huge stones under it. We kept on placing the stones till the rear wheel was almost on level with the top surface of the wedge.

Thereafter we took out the jack from under the right side rear wheel which was now resting on the rocks placed under it. Now we reversed the vehicle again think that it should be able to get the required traction, while some 5 men also helped push it back. The vehicle wouldn't budge due to lack of traction for the left rear wheel. So now we jacked up this tyre and put some stones under it. Now the engine force and human force combined to reverse the vehicle back and create enough space in the front to help change the direction of the vehicle. Finally, after an hour or so we were able to reverse the vehicle and start our descend.

[4x4addict]

@rrsteer:

This is an inherent issue with any LWB vehicle when it comes to a tight turn. A 4x4 Safari would have easily come out of this as the front wheel would have given traction and the LSD in the rear would have send power to the wheels that are not slipping.

Glad you guys got out of this one without any major issues.

[dadu]

4x4 is definitely helpful here, but a bit of more toned up driving skills would have also helped.

[ACM]

Somehow the situation in the snaps does not seem that desperate - though it must have been - I guess it was just one of those things of getting the rear wheels into a sticky low traction patch with no way to go forward.

4X4 would have helped but then the safari 4X2 too does not get stuck easilty - provided one is not too ambitious and revreses out of potentially sticky situations fast enough without causing further damage (I mean without getting well and truly into muck).

What was the family reaction?

[tsk1979]

In a 4x2 safari or any RWD MUV ladder on frame chassis, if one rear wheel loses traction, esp when fighting against gravity you are stuck.
For example, once climbing ice, a sumo got stuck, but cars could go(FWD). Eventually we pulled the sumo up the hairpin.
In a FWD car the weight of the engine on the wheels helps, in safari or scorpio like vehicles, rear wheels are driven, but the major weight is on the front wheels.
In your case, all you had to do was determine which wheel was slipping, and put a rubber mat under that wheel. Your wheel had not dug into slush. It was merely spinning over slippery terrain.

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by suman

Nice update & an interesting name too! But don't you think it should be "Mr PLUS 10%"?

Thanks Suman and quite true with the name

Originally Posted by ankur_gupta10

I have faced similar problem with handbrake rubber cover and eyebrow - plastic piece below door, and above tyre.

Ankur just goes to show that TML needs to work hard in terms of getting their quality right.

Originally Posted by 4x4addict

@rrsteer:

This is an inherent issue with any LWB vehicle when it comes to a tight turn. A 4x4 Safari would have easily come out of this as the front wheel would have given traction and the LSD in the rear would have send power to the wheels that are not slipping.

Glad you guys got out of this one without any major issues.

Thanks. Yeah a 4X4 would have helped.

Originally Posted by dadu

4x4 is definitely helpful here, but a bit of more toned up driving skills would have also helped.

Or probably not. maybe changing the driver would have

Originally Posted by ACM

Somehow the situation in the snaps does not seem that desperate - though it must have been - I guess it was just one of those things of getting the rear wheels into a sticky low traction patch with no way to go forward.

4X4 would have helped but then the safari 4X2 too does not get stuck easilty - provided one is not too ambitious and revreses out of potentially sticky situations fast enough without causing further damage (I mean without getting well and truly into muck).

What was the family reaction?

ACM, Yeah the pictures do make one feel the situation was not as difficult. And probably a better driver would have known better how to reverse. But in very simple terms, while reversing in my opinion I had the vehicle in good position to back it up and I think I had enough space for the maneuver.

But before the reverse gear engaged the Safari had lunged forward a few inches and had sucked up a lot of space that was available due to the incline. And when it did try to reverse, the tyres just kept rotating on the same place, without moving. You can see that from the black soot at the back of the vehicle in the photos.

Originally Posted by tsk1979

In a 4x2 safari or any RWD MUV ladder on frame chassis, if one rear wheel loses traction, esp when fighting against gravity you are stuck.
For example, once climbing ice, a sumo got stuck, but cars could go(FWD). Eventually we pulled the sumo up the hairpin.
In a FWD car the weight of the engine on the wheels helps, in safari or scorpio like vehicles, rear wheels are driven, but the major weight is on the front wheels.
In your case, all you had to do was determine which wheel was slipping, and put a rubber mat under that wheel. Your wheel had not dug into slush. It was merely spinning over slippery terrain.

TSK, I buy your explanation and this actually seems quite logical to me.

[mercedised]

@rrsteer: I too encountered a heavy slushy mud condition today. I had a video will put it up later.

[rrsteer]

Ok, the SUV has now munched 58000kms in slightly over 20 months.
And I don't want to state the obvious, lest I cast an evil charm!

But here is one odd incident, the third-rate key of my safari broke into 2 god-damn pieces.. And...and ..it happened when the key was inserted to unlock the car. So, the key was inserted into normal position and, turned, in routine fashion, lo and behold it cracks up into two parts. Tata Motors.......!!!!

There after got a local key shop boy to fabricate a Maruti key for my SUV's central lock. Talk about security!
Reminder to self ---> invest in passive security systems.

[rrsteer]

Countered the most expensive service bill ever since I bought the vehicle in Dec -08. Service cost @ 60K : Rs 9,292/-

Things changed/replaced :

1) Right side tie rod

2) Brake pads

Immediately after service the steering started feeling tauter in a good way. Before the tie rod change the steering felt light and there was some play. I did not complain about this, but tie rod change was suggested by the TASC itself during inspection.

One happy outcome from this service is that my Safari for once darts straight like an arrow and now doesn't pull sideways even slightly when hands are taken off the steering.

Having driven the SUV for a day after service, the brakes have started feeling much better. Immediately after service they lacked feel.

After this expensive service, one more big expense is already staring at my face - tyre change. The current set of Bridgestones came factory fitted and have run over 62,000 kms. I have read favorable reports of Yokohama & Michellin. But I am inclining towards retaining Bridgestone HTs.
I'd like to ask members about their experience with other tyre brands and their suggestions for tyres. My usage is 100% on highways.

Overall vehicle rating : A+