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Hey amolpol,

Nice retro look pictures

Excellent and unbiased comparison between strome and fortuner

I am also looking for options for Fog and High beam upgrades. Bibin has opted for Osram night breakers for High beam, I guess.

Would be great to know your plan/thought.

On the headlamps, I'm not very happy with the xenon projectors but I guess there's no choice but to live with them forever. The high beam has been fairly okay for my needs, although I do feel a pair of aux lamps would make highway driving (especially in the rains) a lot easier. But most aux lamps are blinding for oncoming traffic and hence I would end up using them in very limited conditions.

The Osrams should be a good option to upgrade, I've used them in the Safari and they're definitely worth the money. Contrary to the popular opinions that they don't last enough, I just had one bulb replacement on the Safari in 3 years which is pretty good for a high luminosity bulb. And I did a lot of night driving so they were definitely used quite a bit.

I just finished the second free service with 6000kms on the odo and it costed me 7K since I opted for an out of schedule engine oil and filter change. However, there's a darker side to my whole service experience with Nandi Toyota at Hosur road. I was assuming it's going to be all hunky dory with the Fortuner service experiences, but in India you can expect to be cheated even by the most trustworthy brands.

My wife had booked the appointment for service at the hosur road branch since she could drop it on her way to work and pick up on the way back. I had asked her to call me when the SA was assigned for the job so I could tell him what all needs to be done. When I spoke to the SA, I told him that I wanted the engine oil and filter to be replaced now and I'll do that again in the 10k service. He agreed that it was a good idea to do an oil change earlier than 10k for a new car and gave me a cost estimate of 54xx rupees + Tax. I asked him to go ahead with it since this seemed normal as compared to the costs I've been paying for the Safari. The service was done and the car was delivered on time with a bill of 7K which included cost of oil, filter and labor for about 6k and rest of it was tax.

Today, I casually was looking at the invoice and discovered that the oil replaced was Synthetic and not the stock spec'd mineral oil. I called the SA and asked him about this and he was trying to hide behind the fact that he told me the cost estimate for the oil change, but he didn't tell me that it was going to be synthetic. When asked about the difference in cost, he sheepishly tells me that the mineral oil costs 2500 lesser than the synthetic. At this point, I get totally disappointed with the dishonest service and ask him to get his manager. He tries to evade the topic and wasn't ready to give me the service managers number. It seemed like he wanted me to let it go without raising any noise about it.

I made a couple of follow up calls to the service center, once speaking to the team leader and the other one to the customer care manager and both heard me out and promised to call me back in 15 mins. But their 15 minutes never materialized even after an hour long wait. I will pursue this tomorrow with some renewed rigor and see what can be done to make sure they get a lesson out of this episode.

Coming from Tata and Mahindra where they employ honest fools (I say this in a good way), Toyota just seems like a fraud enterprise when it comes to their service staff. I've had issues with the quality of work being done at Tata or Mahindra, but I've never been cheated for money even once. It's not about the money here, its about the trust!

All my hopes of having a trouble free relationship with Toyota have gone down the drains, unless they really do something to change my opinion about their Toyota Trust values.

Not that it makes up for the cheating:Frustrati, but I hope they at least had the decency to do the whole flush & replace routine properly when changing over to synthetic oil.

If you will rely blindly on the dealership, most dealerships will try to cheat you. Did you physically confirm whether the oil was actually changed? Synthetic oil can be felt by experienced hands by taking a drop on your fingers. That is why I was advising you not to get the OE oil changed before the 10k service. Synthetic Oil should be used in Toyota diesel engines only post 20~30k of running. A little pro-active effort from your side goes a long way to a healthy ownership experience, whether its a Toyota or a Skoda...

If you do long distance night driving in India Aux lamps are absolutely required. But as you said it can be an annoyance for on coming traffic. So,I followed the European guidelines for axillary driving lamps. Basically I have it hooked up to my highbeam with an additional switch. when I put on the switch for the auxiliary lights, they will come on with the high beam and go off with the low beam, so I don't have to keep putting them on and off. When I am in the cities, I keep the switch off so only high beam will come without the aux lights. The only draw back is that you cannot on them by itself without high beam, but I am okay with that.

Quick update: Nandi Toyota has agreed to foot the difference amount in the next oil change. However that doesn't take away the fact that they originally tried to cheat me.

If I'm supposed to watch over their shoulders all the time to avoid being fleeced, I was more happier dealing with Tata and/or who never ever tried to cheat me for money. And is it a norm to have customers policing around what was replaced and ask for evidence from the Toyota ASCs? The car was taken for service by my wife, you obviously can't expect her to know the difference between mineral and synthetic oils. End of the day, what quality is Toyota boasting about if the dealership is fleecing customers to make a fast buck. Shame on Toyota!

On a positive note, the synthetic oil has made noticeable difference in the engine performance. Its quieter and definitely smoother than before. Had it been that the SA would have made an appropriate sales pitch I would have anyway opted for the synthetic, if not now then at the 10k service for sure. 7k for an oil change service for a 3L engine is cheaper than what I was used to spend with the Safari so I'm going to stick with the synthetic oils moving forward.

Amol, Even I had a similar experience when asked for the estimated price for service. Even my friend had a similar experience for his Wagon R. Can I know which Service Centre of Nandi did you visit. I usually go to the Kudlu Gate one and have had a pleasant experience till time.

This was at the kudlu gate service center only. I guess I'll have to stop thinking of Toyota as a Japanese company and treat them with suspicions just like any other desi company. I'm sure if I tackle them with an open mind they'll turn out to be marginally better than Tata or Mahindra.

I must admit that I was probably misled to trust Toyota blindly because of the general public opinions about how great their products and services were. The truth is that, in India, you must be careful to trust your own, leave alone the big MNC names.

Lesson learnt, future course corrections shall be made! For now it's all good with the car otherwise.

Got my 4x4 Manual Fortuner delivered last week.

Really happy with the vehicle on the whole.

With the Current ICE setup, Not so much.

I want to retain the current head unit as I don't have complaints on the same.

1)would just a speaker upgrade suffice? (I'm into a SQ setup)

2)does the stock Have the ability to accommodate Amps (if required)

Thanks in advance.

I had driven a Fortuner some time ago in which someone had installed "Hi Bass" speakers by Rockford Fosgate. The ICE sounded pretty good to me with them.

I did the headlamp upgrade to Osram Nightbreakers just before I left for the trip to Rajasthan. The difference is quite noticeable and the high beams are now at least 50% more brighter and have a longer range than the stock bulbs. Costed me about 1800 bucks for a pair but its worth it I felt.

The beast is already 9k on the odo and will be at 12k kms by the time its sent for the second service in the first week of January, not bad for 3 months of ownership. No major troubles to report so far, it's gained our acceptance as a good replacement over the trusty old safari. The 4x4 system needs to be tested and the dunes in Jaisalmer are quite inviting, so that may just happen today.

9000km in three months ! You seem to be enjoying your ride to the fullest.
Enjoy mate!

Hi Amolpol,

Thanks for the information! I guess like you and Bibin, I shall go the same route for OSRAM night breakers for High beams. I too find them in-sufficient on our roads.

You seem to be setting the roads on fire with the way your Odometer is spinning...Happy motoring! clap:

On the last day at Jaisalmer I made it a point to test the Fortuner on the dunes. And guess what, it performed as expected!

I had the camel guy with me to guide through the dunes since the rest of the group had settled in somewhere in the middle of the desert. The beast made the initial incline at 40kmph in 2nd gear and 4w high. The camel guy was mighty impressed coz he said he'd done tge same stretch in the pajero and that wasn't so seemingly easy. Once at the crest I had to follow the crestline for about a km or two before getting down towards the left. There was enough sand to dig half the tyre if momentum was lost, the beast got stuck temporarily at one of climbs since I had to brake for an incoming camel cart. But a flick of the low ratio and I was out in no time. Overall it felt quite good that so much power is available to throttle your way out and being on sand helps avoiding any anxiety about damage to the vehicle. Btw, there are tractors available for recovery in case anyone does get stuck so its really not a risky affair to try stuff there.

We climbed up and down a few dunes until the sun set at the horizon. The rightful owner (wifey) also got her chance to bash it through the dunes. Though a bit nervous at the beginning, she had quickly gotten a hang of it.

I have a few pictures from the exercise but haven't gotten time to process any. Here's a teaser which is a snapshot of my camera screen taken with my phone camera.