[noopster]

Originally Posted by Guderian

Hi Noops,
Great 'peeve' analysis. Good learning for the other Vento owners.

Thanks!

Coming to the thorn in your flesh, read nail in your rubber - shucks, that didn't come out properly, read tyre - would suggest that you go to the tyre-wallah immediately, remove the nail and have the flat patched up.

Owww...that certainly didn't come out sounding right .

Originally Posted by akshay1234

Take the tyre to a puncture wala and get it removed and the puncture fixed. If you remove it now the tyre will deflate much quicker.

Yup- did it last night. The nail was embedded nicely and the moment he pulled it out it started losing pressure. A quick tubeless kit job was all it needed!

Also if you are planning on upgrading to S-Drives and you hate tyre noise it is not the ideal upgrade. S-Drives are quick noisy, think about the Db series or C-Drives.

Hokai. I had no idea about this. Need to do my research thoroughly before changing. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

"Assasinate the VW manager" . Thoroughly loved the idea. Lemme know if and when you plan to do so. Ill gladly be the partner in crime!

Heh- you know the feeling eh? I observe with some Schadenfreude that the Laura and even the Altis 7-speed CVT comes with beige carpeting.

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Hi noopster,

My first post on your thread; belated wishes for your Vento.

Welcome bluevolt!

Dropped in to have a word on low FE figures of your car. You should not be worried about the mileage as even the Honda City AT gives similar mileage.

Charthom owns a Honda City AT and reports similar mileage figures as in your case (you can refer to his thread).

Enjoy the luxury of an automatic.

Thank you! I am a keen follower of charthom's thread, as well as the other slushbox heroes on TBHP (Dippy, jesal, dot, mdsaab, etc.)

Originally Posted by selfdrive

Excellent pet peeve list noop. I hope you dont add more to it, but get better solutions in the long run without a blot on your crime record, if there is one at all (not sure if you owned a Tata before!)

No Tatas. A couple of Padminis, an M800, an Accent (MY first car), a Swift and an Innova is all we've had in our family before the Veedub.

You know with two petrol mills you are actually delaying the arrival of the 5 series? On the other hand you can think of the money you save on ortho/ physiotherapy visits for your ankle thats gone sore from using a manual

The 5 is still a dream- frankly I cannot conceive of paying as much as I would for a house to get a car. Maybe in 10 years...!

[subodh]

Noop, Normally I am driving a lot to mumbai now a days and so I always get to see a figure of 11.5 constant on my MID But in reality i know I am getting around 9 to 10 in city. One observation i have about the auto box is that there is so much power and torque in the first two gears, that i will guzzle that kind of fuel. Once or twice when i was on loose surface and floored the car, the tyres actually did a wheel spin like a manual car. Its exactly opposite in the higher gears.The gear i hate the most is No.4 and the most balanced gear is No.3. No. 4 just does not seem adequate to pull the car further. If you look at the instant milage figures, you can realise that the car consumes very less fuel in higher gears sometimes close to 20 to 25 kmpl when you are just cruising but it goes down to 3 and 7 when you are in lower gears and that is precisely because of the architecture of the gear box i feel.

[noopster]

Got me some more functionality in the ICE department today.

ipod nano connected via AUX-in to FM transmitter plugged into 12V socket:


It's a Worldtech branded one that dot had lying around and decided to donate via his poor friends outreach program. Man I love t-bhp!


Has USB and SD card support too. Problem is I have no idea how to use it. There are some buttons (e.g. Play/Pause and EQ that I can remember) but pressing them didn't seem to do anything.
It does let me charge my i-pod though


Carmakers should figure out a better location for the P position on the AT. Look how much I need to twist the neck of the thingy to accomodate it!


SQ is strictly so-so: if I go over 70% on my pod, it distorts like crazy. Bass needs to be flattened out completely. But hey- I got 16GB of stuff to play with here, and 2000 km is a long roadtrip, so who's complaining? (yes this is all pre-planning for Metallica \m/!!!)

Back on the FE issue, I tried something new today: kept the MID in instantaneous mileage mode. Then tried to achieve "85" as much as possible (explanatory note: 85 is the maximum the instt. display is calibrated to, corresponding to fuel cutoff to the engine and hence best for FE). Am already seeing a difference in the way I drive and ergo in the FE: it showed 13.2 on my morning commute (normally shows about 12 for the same stretch). Let's see if this develops into a habit.

One fallout of this however is that I am considerably more sedate on the road. A lady in an Alto overtook me and as she passed gave me a look that combined equal parts pity and contempt .

[krish11]

Originally Posted by noopster

Back on the FE issue, I tried something new today: kept the MID in instantaneous mileage mode. Then tried to achieve "85" as much as possible

Hi Noops
Can give some driving tips on how to get the magic "85" - would be very useful to know and emulate.

[dot]

Originally Posted by noopster

It's a Worldtech branded one that dot had lying around and decided to donate via his poor friends outreach program. Man I love t-bhp!

Lets say we understand our friends.

Originally Posted by noopster

SQ is strictly so-so: if I go over 70% on my pod, it distorts like crazy. Bass needs to be flattened out completely.

I had no such issues from the Aux-in of my Nokia X6 (which is my sound machine). However my laptop played pretty poorly. Looks like the source is important.

Tell us if the transmitter is catching interference in city traffic.

[nileshch]

Originally Posted by noopster

Got me some more functionality in the ICE department today.

...

Carmakers should figure out a better location for the P position on the AT. Look how much I need to twist the neck of the thingy to accomodate it!

It is not the gear knob that is at fault. Like you said earlier, the VW designer who put the 12v socket in that place should be "assasinated". This is the same problem in the MT. The 3rd and 5th gear come in the way of any attachment you put in the 12v socket.

Originally Posted by krish11

Hi Noops
Can give some driving tips on how to get the magic "85" - would be very useful to know and emulate.

It's simple, set your MID to the instantaneous mileage. When driving, lift your foot off the accelerator pedal. You wil get the "85" figure. Like Noops said, it is the maximum figure set in the Polo/Vento to indicate complete fuel cutoff.

[noopster]

dotty- will check tonight and let you know. I have set it on 108 MHz- not sure that makes any difference!

@krish11: tried to PM you but I can't maybe because of your newbie status. It's not rocket science: keep an extremely light foot on the throttle, upshift early and stay at round 1500 rpm. You should hit that magic 85 on the instantaneous FE on the MID around 4th gear; provided you don't brake hard, accelerate hard, etc. maintaining this over a sustained period of time (we're talking seconds here ) can magically increase your FE!

[Monaro CV8]

Hi noops,

Re: the FM transmitter, if it has USB support function, then you are better off using your iPod in 'USB mode', rather than using the aux-in cable.

This way you get to loose the extra cable, plus the sound quality is good - owing to the 2 aux connectors not coming in the circuit (losses at these joints)
And hey, in the USB mode your ipod charges too!

I'm using my pod similarly in my SX4 and the Ritz. No issues so far.

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by noopster

It's a Worldtech branded one that dot had lying around and decided to donate via his poor friends outreach program. Man I love t-bhp!

One fallout of this however is that I am considerably more sedate on the road. A lady in an Alto overtook me and as she passed gave me a look that combined equal parts pity and contempt .

At the risk of nitpicking, should you not say you love tbpians, or maybe that does not sound right?

I get similar looks from women at signals as they zoom past when the countdown to green is around 10 seconds. Well, as long as no one is running over my bike, and your mileage is goooood

[dkaile]

@noopster - I have tried many FM transmitters including Belkins which are supposedly quite good but am yet to be fully satisfied with any of them. The audiophile in me just refuses their sound quality. So ripping cd's of my favourite music it is for me now in my Falcon. Good thing that it has a 6CD one...

[Swanand Inamdar]

Noop- Why not try the iPod directly through USB? That would work better than Aux-in. I've used the iPhone through USB in the Swift and works like a charm. Let's figure that out when we meet.

@Dotty: Why would the transmitter catch interference? Or do you mean interference on other frequencies?

[Zappex]

Originally Posted by noopster

dotty- will check tonight and let you know. I have set it on 108 MHz- not sure that makes any difference!

It shouldn't make much of a difference Noop, But the FM frequencies of radio stations are the only interference you can expect. 108 sure does sound like a safe number, Keep us updated.

Originally Posted by noopster

You should hit that magic 85 on the instantaneous FE on the MID around 4th gear; provided you don't brake hard, accelerate hard, etc. maintaining this over a sustained period of time (we're talking seconds here ) can magically increase your FE!

Good going there my boy! This is EXACTLY what I was trying to understand when I asked you about FE. Keeping a very light foot while in traffic or otherwise and focusing on music rather than filling that gap you see ahead of you and you will do great! As I can see you are on the correct road...

Apart from that the Aria has that magic figure restricted to 25Km/l and I did get 21.7km/l , So drive with a light foot and you may hit up near 85, Wot? Remember the 20km/l Mum-Pune run.

Regards.

Your friend,

Zap

[noopster]

The Vento hit the hills today! Not literally, I mean .

What a day it was. The best weather I remember this year. Had an early breakfast at home and then supervised a thorough cleaning up of the Fräulein. The sun was blazing down when we left. The drive was up to Lavasa was absolutely divine. Traffic was low and the other drivers on their way up seemed to be in calm a mood as I was, which was great.

Some random pics from up there:











We ate at a place called Chor Bizzare. Decent enough Indian khana at atrocious prices (this is common across Lavasa, which is designed for the dollar spender ). But everyone seemed happy- my normally non-foodie folks appreciated the food and my lil one returned from a stroll around the place with a complimentary pastry in hand, so that made her day! I found the food a bit bland but passable.

The decor was another matter altogether. We were scratching our head wondering what this was:



Forgot all about that when dessert arrived!


Spotted a lovely sight, 3 beauties in excellent condition parked near the waterfront:


The only thing that would round off this perfect afternoon, I told myself, was a T-BHP spotting. On cue, a certain ajay_satpute called me and asked, "Which resort are you at?"!!

Met up with him en route the car at the American Diner (another ridiculously overpriced place that charges 350/- for a hot dog). Nice meeting up, man!

[Guderian]

Originally Posted by noopster

The Vento hit the hills today! Not literally, I mean .

Hi Noops,
Great pics those !
What kind of FE did you get on those twisties to and from Lavasa.
I guess that Chor Bizzare must be the off shoot of the one in Mumbai ? Some decors are never explainable - but could just be the designer's sense of humour or best a request that we humour the designer !

Nice scooters ! Was there a convention of Scooterists or a Lambretta club meeting on ? And these Lambys made it to Lavasa ? Nice !
The only thing odd I found about two of the Lambys - the yellow and green ones - normally the side panel levers are shiny aluminium pieces or why even chromed, here I find them painted over. Looks odd.

[dkaile]

Nice pictures Noops. The Lambi's reminded me of my father's 1st scooter...