[nivatakavacha]

And so the Ballista has quietly crossed 2000 kilometers.

Also for the first time since buying the car, I calculated the Mileage of the car using the tank-tank fill method and I have to say that I am impressed. While the electronic mileage meter told me that I was getting 13.1 km/L; the traditional method yielded a mileage of 12.9 km/L. We have only been using Shell fuel in the car so far.

It has been a busy work month so finally today I got a chance to visit the nearby 3M store for the mats. I opted for the black color mats and it cost me about 5000 Rs for the mats. This was badly needed in the car as the OEM provided mats were really worthless. Leaving you some more pictures. Apologies for the poor quality of pics.





The car is nicely chugging along and as always, I look forward to taking it out any chance I get. Is it just me or do other also find driving mildly stress relieving after a long day at work?

[nivatakavacha]

And so our Ballista has quietly been adding on the miles and has now reached 3000 kilometers. Finally after these initial few months, I got to take the car on a decently long highway sprint. On Sunday, we had to visit a village near Ambur (about 200 kms from my place) for a family function and we started from Chennai at about 5:30 AM. I am never one for high speed and I definitely do not go about 100 km/hr on our roads. The Ballista performed brilliantly during the highway run and I took her upto 100 km/hr for the first time. I found that at 80 km/hr, the engine is relaxed and is sedate in nature but the minute, it goes above that and at 100 km/hr, the engine is eager and spooling at 3000 rpm. The IVTEC too, has a delightfully urgent note to it and it felt great. I also got a chance to test the car’s ride quality because the “toll roads” upto Pallikonda were extremely bad. The car took a few hard hits on the uneven/melted tarmac but overall, it performed reasonably well.

After lunch, we got back to Chennai by around 4 PM taking the same route. The AC performed well during that time. Overall I got a mileage of about 17.4 km/hr for the highway run and I am happy with that.

I will be giving her for the second service soon and apart from the regular inspection, I really don’t have much to complain about in the car except:
1) I will definitely be adding rear parking sensors. The camera alone is not enough on this long car.
2) For the first time, I tried cruise control on the highway run and I could not get it to work. I will have to get it checked out.

As always, there is little to complain about in the car; loving it as it quietly demolishes the miles in its fuss free manner. With the 3M mats, I also do not have a problem about getting the car dirtied as well.

[nivatakavacha]

So the ballista has turned slightly older and has chugged along even more. Now that the initial thrill of owning a new car is over, all I am left with is a feeling of content; a real satisfaction whenever I get the opportunity to drive the car. Since I usually drive the Dzire Diesel, switching from it to a Honda City Petrol feels like switching from the 20th century tech to the 21st century.

Apart from that, I have had two not-so-good experiences with the service at Capital Honda, GST Road, Chennai.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I added rear parking sensors to car, and the cruise control unit was not working. Let me describe both individually.

1) The non-working Cruise Control: During the second service, we had complained that the cruise control was not working and they told us that the button assembly was at fault and that they had asked for a replacement. The part took about 2-3 weeks to arrive and I don’t even have complaints about the delay. They fixed the CC unit and told us that the issue was fixed. I tried it after that only to find that CC did not work. I could engage the main CC button but could not “set” the speed. I went back yesterday to the showroom and the technician quickly figured out that it was a loose connection of some wire just above the driver foot region. He tried it with me in tow and it worked correctly. I took the car home and later in the evening tried CC, only to find that it did not work again. I am slightly miffed that it has happened again. Is Capital Honda’s work so slip shoddy?

2) The finicky Rear Sensors: I have this problem with the rear sensors. At times, even when nothing is behind the car, the dial says “0.0” and gives out a long continuous beep. I usually find this to happen when the car is started for the first time in the day. After it has run for some time/distance, the sensors work correctly. I really cannot understand why this happens and it has happened to us, quite a few times. When I took it to the workshop yesterday, the sensors worked like a charm (as expected) , so it is going be hard figuring this one out.

Apart from these niggles; the car has been a pleasure to drive.

[Thanga_RS]

Originally Posted by nivatakavacha

2) The finicky Rear Sensors:
Apart from these niggles; the car has been a pleasure to drive.

I have no idea regarding the Cruise control but regarding the finicky rear sensors, my bet would be on the rats' hunger for your wires else the sensor might be taking quite a while to calibrate itself.

Either way you should get it checked. I faced the same issue with mine Honda City SV i-VTEC Tafetta White.