[Hayek]

Not much to report since my last post. 15 Feb - 27,000 km. Thanks to the lock down, on 21 June - 28,500 km. And yes, the bulk of those km were between 15 Feb and 20 March.

What have I done since then? Well, just taken the car for weekly 4-5 km spins within our building compound, a couple of trips to get tests done when my wife fell ill, and then, we were subject to a quarantine for two weeks.

Well, all that is behind us now - and I have taken the car for a few spins over the past 3-4 days. First, a loop down to Bandra, across the Sea Link (it was such a pleasure letting the car stretch its legs after a long time), and back home via Elphinstone Bridge.

Then a drive down to Marine Drive, up Peddar Road and Worli Sea Face, and back home.

And finally, a trip to the suburbs to let my parents in law have a socially distanced face to face conversation with my sister in law.

Going to Marine Drive and Worli Sea Face made me realise how tough it is to maintain social distancing in this city. The promenades were packed with people, most of who had masks where their beards should have been. Yes, outdoor transmission is relatively rare. But there were groups of people happily chatting with each other, as if this were June 2019.

The only good news - work on the Coastal Road seems to be progressing well - a lot has taken place since my last run in early March.

Some pics

Marine Drive Sunset Views - never thought I would miss this so much




Work under way for the Coastal Road at Worli Sea Face

[SnS_12]

Hi Hayek, that’s a fantastic thread on your X3 and glad you keep updating it regularly.

Quite unfortunate that you have faced so many issues with the AC over the course of the ownership and hope the problem doesn’t occur again in the future.

Also, a funny thing that struck me is seeing a meme created with a pic of your car from the delivery pictures you had posted.

It was doing the rounds on whatsapp a few weeks back and I happened to locate it on my phone gallery. Not sure if you have seen it before as well.

[TheHelix0202]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

Also, a funny thing that struck me is seeing a meme created with a pic of your car from the delivery pictures you had posted.

That happens all the time. I’ve seen photos of BHP-ians’ cars on OLX ads and other shady sites online.

[TheGearBox]

Attachment 1729019

I'm a little late to the party, but congrats on the splendid acquisition! I just have one burning question: What was the color of the GLC demo car that you used to check the boot space? Was it actually a shade of turquoise?

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by SnS_12

Also, a funny thing that struck me is seeing a meme created with a pic of your car from the delivery pictures you had posted. Not sure if you have seen it before

Very interesting - I had not seen this before, so thanks for sharing this. I guess Team BHP becomes the first source for anyone who wants to post anything about cars.

Originally Posted by TheGearBox

Attachment 1729019
What was the color of the GLC demo car that you used to check the boot space? Was it actually a shade of turquoise?

That’s what it looks like. I must confess it came home when I was in office and my wife checked it out and took the picture.

[Hayek]

I completed my first highway drive post the lockdowns over the last weekend, heading down to a Rental Villa beyond Lonavala. Felt really great to get the X3 back onto the Expressway and let her stretch her legs.

Had posted on this here (Pics: Your first post-lockdown highway drive).

I have always loved the area near Pawna Dam
- when the surface is good, they are among the best driving roads in the country. It is also the setting for two of my favourite runs - the 16 km Pawna run (Usually organised in August in his personal capacity by N Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons through Striders Miles, the running group I am also a part of), and the 35 km Tata Ultra.

The Pawna run was cancelled this year due to Covid - but I decided to follow its route in my car instead. This year the road surface quality was mediocre - some areas which were excellent, but with patches of just rubble which will break your axle if you are not careful. Nevertheless, I made the most of the good stretches, and took in the scenic beauty.

A few snaps from our trip are below:

















The waterfalls, the fog, the greenery, the lake, the light - and a BMW X3 in the midst of this - one is blessed.

When I got back home, the car was a right royal mess - full of highway dirt. Which was alright, since I had booked a detailing appointment with 3M Car Care. Some pics of the car during and after the detailing are below:

























3M is expensive - but does a wonderful job with the car. Truly worth it. With this trip, my car has reached about 29,400 km - so will be hitting the big 30 mark in the next few weeks with some luck.

[Hayek]

A few things to report since my last post.

1) A Tyre Replacement Saga

As I have reported on some other threads, I went through quite a saga with regard to replacing the tyres on my X3. How did it all start?

Back in mid November, I sent my Vento for service. And I was shocked when the Service Advisor reported that the front tyres were worn out and needed replacement. The Vento had run just about 3,000 km this year (and under 1500 since March) - but somehow tyres that were fine back in January had worn out by November.

But that got me thinking about looking at the conditions of the X3’s tyres. I had the X3’s tyres checked at its last service (which incidentally was in March, days before the lockdowns) and they had said they didn’t need replacement yet. But when I looked at the tyres now, they seemed worn



I took the car to my friendly neighbourhood tyre guy, and he said I should change them, especially as I was planning a trip to Goa towards the year end. What came as a shock was that he did not have tyres available of the size, though he promised to check through the inventory system and get back to me. It turned out that thanks to our brilliant Government’s return to Import Substitution, no Michelin shipments have been cleared since early March before the Covid lockdowns.

I called Infinity BMW next - who told me they would need to order Pirellis- but only against an advance payment since they had no available stock, and it would take at least a week for them to be delivered. They were not able to promise any particular date of manufacture for the tyres. Tried a few other prominent dealers and realised that Michelin run flats in my size (245/50 R18) were not available at all - and that lots of the Pirellis that were available were very old stock (one guy offered a mix of 2 tyres from early 2019 and 2 from late 2018; another had 4 mid 2019 pieces). One dealer finally came through and told me that he could arrange 4 late 2019 Michelins with warranty from Jabalpur - but I would have to pay an advance and wait for a week. I kept shopping around that evening, and then went down the following Saturday to pay an advance for the Michelins. A few hours later, the embarrassed dealer called back saying the Michelins were no longer available - but he could arrange 3 Michelins and a Pirelli instead. That didn’t make sense to me. So I finally turned to the guy who had 4 mid 2019 Pirellis, and picked them up. He claimed these had been ordered by him for a fleet supply, and they were left behind because the fleet had run less than expected due to the lockdowns - and that these were the last 4 tyres he had. Various dealers also gave me horror stories about folks who had suffered tyre failures, and had their cars stranded for weeks since tyres were not available.

At any rate, I thought I had lucked out and had the guy replace my tyres. The shop concerned had very complex equipment for removing and refitting the run flats. But I noticed that one of his guys was struggling with the valve of one my old tyres.



A little later, he came and claimed that 2 of my TPMS valves were jammed, and had broken while they were trying to remove the same. There was not much that could be done - I had him replace them with normal valves and give me the TPMS valve (which was attached to a sensor) to get it sorted through BMW.



So I had 4 new tyres fitted, and a TPMS system which kept insisting they were flat and that I needed to pull over. Called up Infinity, and sent the car over the next day. I was told they had only 1 valve in stock, and that I may need to change not just the valve but also the sensor (which would cost a bomb). Since replacing one valve made no sense, I told them to order an additional valve, and persuaded them to try to reuse my existing sensors. Was told this would take a few days to source. The days passed quickly, and it turned out that the valves were not available in India and would need to be imported from BMW Germany - and that because shipments were not working properly, they could not guarantee an arrival date. The only consolation was that they assured me that I could use the car with the warning signs (which had now toned down to a sign that there was a TPMS RDC failure) without a problem as long as I monitored the tyre pressure from time to time. A Michelin digital pressure gauge ordered from Amazon took care of that issue. Drove down to Goa with this warning blazing, and got the valves replaced yesterday, after my return to Bombay.

This post has turned out to be longer than planned, more later.

[AZT]

Originally Posted by Hayek

1) A Tyre Replacement Saga

Everyone's talking about Tesla launching in India but what about the tyres said Tesla would need eventually, or in case of emergency. Here's hoping this import saga sorts itself out soon.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by Hayek

A few things to report since my last post.
1) A Tyre Replacement Saga...

2) Travelogue - Another Visit to Goa

Drive to Goa

As mentioned in my earlier post, the travel bug had bitten us some time ago - and we had made bookings for a Christmas week trip to Goa. This would be my second trip to Goa in the X3, and my third driving holiday to Goa overall. (Not counting bus journeys in the good old days).

The planning for the drive started as usual through a perusal of the Mumbai - Pune - Kolhapur - Goa thread. It became clear that the best route to South Goa was the Belgaum - Bhimgad - Anmod Ghat - Mollem route. Given the pandemic, we were very clear that we did not want to stop for lunch in unknown places - but unlike some friends, decided that we would need to risk using loos on the way.

We set off at 450am, and made very good progress - though traffic even at this early hour was not negligible. Nevertheless, both the drive to New Bombay, and then the Ghat section were comfortable, and we had passed Pune by 720 am. We stopped for breakfast a little after the Khed Shivpur toll at about 740 am. While I had assumed we should be able to do this quickly, it did take some time to assemble the sandwiches from the ingredients we had carried - and by the time we freshened up, 40 minutes had passed.



That break cost us - because the traffic was much higher now, and by the time we were halfway up Khambatki Ghat, we were in the midst of a jam - with cars, buses and trucks weaving around like auto rickshaws. We moved faster after crossing the Ghat, but the next bottleneck developed at Anewadi toll. I was daunted by a long queue in the rightmost Fastag lane, and stuck to one of the lanes on the left. But I soon realised that two lanes of traffic were converging into a single Fastag lane - and several vehicles did not have Fastag loaded. This was the worst toll plaza of our journey - while most other tolls cost us under 5-7 minutes, this one took 20 minutes to clear.

Post Satara, the traffic started easing out. And the moment we entered Karnataka, it became super smooth. I had originally planned to stop just outside Belgaum - but ended up stopping and refuelling at a Petrol Pump just before Tavandi Ghat. We decided to eat our lunch here - but kept the cars engine running for half an hour as we ate lunch, since there was no shade where we parked.

The last time I went to Goa via Chorla Ghat, Google had told me to take the Bauxite Road and then Chorla Ghat. This time round, it directed me further ahead, through Fort Road and Patil Galli.



This turned out to be a disaster - since Fort Road was packed with buses waiting to enter a bus station (ok, not as bad as it could have been since the buses were maintaining lane discipline), while Patil Galli was complete chaos with traffic coming the wrong way creating a logjam which took more than some time to clear. I am not sure why Google maps took me through this road - since from what I remember, the other road was much better and we did reach a point where a right turn led to Chorla and the left to Bhimgad - but perhaps someone from Belgaum would be better qualified to comment on that.

There is lots of work being done on NH748 (the old NH4A). I thought they were looking to 4 lane this road, but in parts, it looked like 6 lanes were being built. Large sections seemed complete but for most part traffic in both directions were being diverted onto the service lanes to the left of the highway. I do hope the work on NH748 progresses quickly, and assume that there will be a suitable Belgaum bypass built which will let us drive on this highway without passing through town (there was a bridge under construction somewhere along the way - I assumed that would connect to NH48). We soon reached the fork where the road to Chorla went right - with plenty of warnings instructing folks to take Chorla if they faced the risk of passing through Bhimgad after 6 PM. We of course took the left, and made brisk progress, with part of the drive on the New Highway, and part on service roads (which were also well made), until reached the right turn for Bhimgad.

The Bhimgad road was narrower than I had expected - effectively only one lane, with vehicles having to move onto the shoulder to pass. I had been under the impression that trucks were not allowed on this road, and hoped that one could make good progress. I was initially stuck behind a Bolero, and then both of us were stuck behind a very slow Creta. The Bolero guy made it past the Creta quickly, but I couldn’t pass him, until he realised that I was getting impatient behind him, and was kind enough to pull over to let me pass. I made rapid progress thereafter - and when I sighted the Bolero, started feeling proud for a second - until I realised that the Bolero was part of a 4 car train stuck behind two trucks. The rest of the journey was really painful - the second truck and all of the cars managed to pass the first truck when he pulled over, but we could not get past the second truck (which was doing about 30- 35 kmph), and soon all of us were stuck behind yet another truck which was even slower. And then the road more or less broke up - with several craters over a 5-6 km stretch. My old friend the Creta had caught up with me in the midst of all this - and some of the local vehicles were passing me while I negotiated the craters. Finally, we made it through this stretch, and reached a better section, where we were able to pass the trucks and make good progress until the point where the Bhimgad road met NH748, close to the Anmod checkpost. I was tired by this time, and we pulled over for some tea and a rest room break.

The road from Anmod onwards was a concrete road, with the only hiccup being the absence of a shoulder which would mean a 6-8 inch drop for your left wheel should you be forced off the pavement. Fortunately, the traffic from the opposite direction was light and hence I never had to swerve towards the edge. There was however one spot where a rivulet under the road had caused the concrete to crack badly - and the road fell off sharply and without warning at the Karnataka - Goa border to join the tar road on the Goa side. I always wonder why we can’t build proper shoulders and joints between sections done by different agencies!!!

Progress thereafter was quick, and I made it to our hotel by about 505 PM. It had taken us about 12 hours and 15 minutes door to door- and about 10 hours 30 minutes drive time (though my trip meter showed 11 hours 15 minutes since the engine had been running during our lunch break, and rest room breaks).

Fastag had worked well except for the mess at Anewadi. The nice thing about Fastag is that you get to see when you crossed each toll booth. My record was as under:

Home - 4:50
Vashi - 5:12, 21 km
Khalapur - 5:49, 72 km
Talegaon - 6:29, 122 km (break)
Khed - 7:29, 175 km
Anewadi - 9:20, 247 km (breakfast + traffic at Khambatki Ghat / before the toll)
Taswade-10:05, 302 km
Kognoli - 11:48, 402 km (break)
Hattargi - 12:51, 453 km (lunch)
Hotel - 5:05, 621 km (break at Anmod)

The overall toll cost was ₹650. We filled just over 42 litres at Nipani, at a point where we had covered just around 420 km.



Stay in Goa

We stayed for the first night at the Alila Diwa, and then shifted to the ITC Grand Goa for the rest of our stay. The Alila Diwa was operating at approximately 60-65% occupancy. I had never considered this property before since it is not exactly on the beach front, but I must say that it was much better than I had anticipated. The rooms were large, even if in a more traditional hotel structure than the cottage structure that some other South Goa resorts favour. There did not seem to be excessive care being taken because of Covid - except for the QR Code based menus. We had a delicious Goan dinner that night.

The hotel is about a 5 minute walk from the beach - and the beach itself was pristine early the next morning.



The only downer was the certain sections of the hotel were cordoned off into a secure area for the one of the ISL soccer teams that was staying there. Further, the hotel was packed - we tried to request a late check out - but were told they needed the time to get the rooms ready for guests who were checking in - and hence that would not be possible.

Lunch that day was at Martin’s Corner. Unlike the very few restaurants we have visited in Bombay, the approach to Covid was once again quite casual - waiters were wearing masks, temperature checks were being done - but it did not seem like any attempts had been made to increase the social distance between tables. Of course, it has natural ventilation - and hence perhaps that was understandable. After a nice lunch and good live music, we headed out for the ITC.



If the approach to Covid at the Alila and Martin’s Corner was light touch, the ITC was at the other end of the spectrum. Even before you entered the complex, they stopped you at the security gate and sanitised your car tyres. Then all your luggage was sanitised and passed through X Ray machines. They did not have valet parking - you had to drive to the parking lot and park your own car. And you went through a very complex looking thermal imaging unit before entering. There were also screens separating check in staff from guests, and everyone was wearing masks.

Our room at the ITC was a wonderful sea view room - the speciality of this hotel is the baths which have huge sunken tubs which are roughly 5 feet square and over a foot deep. I had really enjoyed these in my last stay (at the old Park Hyatt) more than a decade ago - but I must say, I have become very Lefty in my old age - and as the tub started filling, I did a quick calculation of how much water each bath would use, and shifted to a quick shower instead.

The rooms in the ITC are laid out in 5 distinct areas - designed like a Mediterranean villa, with 4 rooms accessed through each stairwell (2 on the ground and 2 on the first floor). One of the quadrants was cordoned off for the exclusive use of the FC Mumbai team. There are 4 main restaurants (A Coffee Shop; North Indian; Goan; and Italian) and one beach side restaurant. You also had extensive outdoor seating (in restaurant seating was limited), with digital menus through which you could order food from any of the restaurants. Our first dinner was at the Royal Afghan, the beach side restaurant where we had exquisite (vegetarian) kebabs. Yes, you meat eaters may sneer - but let me assure you that the vegetarian kebabs are also delicious, and prepared with a lot of care. We ended up eating all our dinners, and a couple of lunches in the ITC itself - and never repeated a dish.

Some Pics at the ITC










The old Park Hyatt was always my favourite Goa Hotel, and under the ITC Management, it has moved up 2 notches with superlative food as well.

One interesting development that I observed on this visit to Goa is that there are now a large number of professional car cleaners who use pressurised water to clean the cars. Perhaps it has always been there - but I had not noticed it on my last trip. The next morning, I went down to Rosario car cleaners, which is located less than 500 metres from the ITC, and got the car spray cleaned - getting rid of all the grime that had accumulated during our journey to Goa.






Later that day, we decided to drive down to another of my Goa favourites, Thalassa for lunch. Thalassa is at Siolim, about 50 km from the ITC. Lots of people consider Thalassa as an ideal place for an early dinner - when you get the fabulous sunset views. But given that we were staying so far away, we chose to go for lunch - which was a good call since the drive time was just an hour and a quarter each way - and the views were just as good. Needless to say the food was superlative too.

We also visited one other excellent restaurant in Goa - one we had not been to before, called Cafe Amrapali. This was much closer to our hotel - the address is technically Velha Goa, but it is located just off NH66, on the way to Bambolim. It is located in a beautifully restored old Portuguese style mansion, and also has a limited number of rooms that you can book to stay in. The combination of fantastic views, great (if languid) service, and fabulous food (including for vegetarians) makes it yet another Goa destination to be cherished. The desserts here are sinful but cannot be missed.

Cafe Amrapalli







I must say the quality of restaurants in Goa makes it one of the ultimate destinations for Good Food - arguably it is better than the restaurant scene in most Metros.

So what else did we do in Goa? Long runs along the pristine beach of course. The beaches are just great, and I was lucky to have low tide in the early morning, so that I could go for a 10 km run on compact sand (which despite the inclination is easier to run on in my view than the loose sand further away from the shore). And plenty of long walks. And some amount of swimming, even if unfortunately, the water had been hit by jelly fish, which made swimming too far a risky proposition (one of us did get a minor sting, which was swiftly dealt with using Vinegar by the life guards).













And finally, we went for an evening cruise in a private yacht on the Mandovi, and saw some of the most spectacular sunset views possible. The night views of the new Mandovi bridge on NH66 were also remarkable, as was the sight of the casino boats anchored closer to Panjim.












All in all a spectacular holiday even if we did not want to go out and hit the Goa night life, or spend time at the shacks as we would usually have done.

The Return Journey

I had deliberately planned by return on Christmas Day (Friday), counting on the fact that everyone would be going away from Bombay on that day, and we should face lighter traffic than normal. The question that remained open was which route should I take. Opinion was divided on the MPKG thread with mod Moralfiber in particular strongly cautioning me about considering the Amboli route - not because of anything in Amboli but due to diversions and traffic between Mapusa and Pernem. I finally took the call to use Amboli based on two factors:
1. I checked Google maps at 730 am on the two previous days, and it showed me the Amboli route as the preferred one.
2. My call that early in the morning on Christmas Day, Goa roads cannot be crowded.
This turned out to have been the right call. We started from the hotel just before 7:20 am. We did get stuck at the level crossing near our hotel for about 5 minutes, but made rapid progress thereafter - with Google Maps estimated arrival time to Mumbai dropping rapidly as we drove on NH66. There were a number of diversions between Mapusa and Pernem (and a few even earlier) but traffic was so light that it did not in any way hinder us.

We made very good time into MH, and did not face any traffic or checking at the MH border check-post. By the way, the stretch of NH66 just before Sawantwadi Phata was in great condition - and it seemed to be that way heading North - not sure how long that super high quality road lasts, and if it opens up any new routes to NH48. At the outskirts of Sawantwadi town, Google maps diverted us onto something called the Sawantwadi-Otvane road. This was extremely narrow - though the surface was decent, and may have proved a hassle if we had faced traffic from the opposite side. Fortunately, the few oncoming cars we faced went literally off road to let us pass - and we soon hit the usual Redi-Belgaum road (the road that comes from near Sawantwadi Lake), and this was much wider and in pristine condition. Was stuck behind a couple of slow moving cars for a while, but once I passed them, I could climb the Ghat (which had a pristine surface) very quickly. Traffic in the opposite direction started to appear while I was on the Ghat - must have been folks who stopped overnight at Kolhapur or Belgaum; but by 9:40, we had halted for our first break in Amboli town. We set off within 20 minutes, and while the road surface was not perfect, it was very good throughout. We started facing more traffic after Ajara town, with long streams of vehicles coming from the opposite end making overtaking vehicles headed in my direction tougher. But fortunately, we were never stuck behind any really slow traffic (driving behind someone doing 60 is not bad), and hence it did not really impede us. We reached the Goa Phata on Tavandi Ghat at a little after 11 am - just 3 hours 40 minutes from the hotel, a saving of nearly half an hour vs our journey the other way.

There was the usual sugar cane tractor trolleys on NH48, but we made swift progress. I had originally planned our lunch break at Kolhapur - but given the swift progress we were making, we soldiered on and stopped at around 1 PM a little after Karad.

After a 30 minute lunch break, we continued on our way, making rapid progress. Road conditions headed North seemed better between Satara and Pune than those headed South (or may be it was the psychological effect of not being stuck in traffic at diversions), and this direction is usually a little faster at any time given you get to use the Khambatki tunnel instead of the Ghat. Progress was rapid and by 3:50, we reached the Talegaon toll on the Expressway. After a brief break at the Food Court, we continued on our way. The run through the Expressway was super fast - and amazingly, even the run home from Panvel was relatively crowd free - with the result that we were home before 6 PM. 10:40 mins door to door, 9:36 of drive time - truly exceptional in my view.

The return journey milestones were as under:

ITC Hotel Departure: 7:18 am
Amboli: 9:39 am; 111 km
Kognoli: 11:35 am; 209 km (break)
Kini: 12:11 pm; 250 km
Anewadi: 14:12; 366 km (lunch break)
Talegaon: 15:52; 485 km
Home: 17:56; 603 km

Now it is back to the WFH grind - can’t wait for a return to office so that I can use my car (even if in Mumbai traffic) more often

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by Hayek

A little later, he came and claimed that 2 of my TPMS valves were jammed, and had broken while they were trying to remove the same.

Mostly due to carelessness during removal of tyres. I too have suffered similar issue but on Toyota and they had on stocks. Costs with sensor was Rs 5000 or so. How much is the damage on yours?

Lovely details about Goa, especially ITC and the places to eat

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Mostly due to carelessness during removal of tyres. I too have suffered similar issue but on Toyota and they had on stocks. Costs with sensor was Rs 5000 or so. How much is the damage on yours?

Came to ₹4300 for just two valves and fitment- the sensors were handled free of cost. Unclear if they reused it or got it under warranty

[Hayek]

Just realised I have not updated this thread in almost 6 months. I must say there has not been much to update either - usage has been minimal for most of this period.

I must admit this was a period of two halves. Back in February, we thought things were returning to normal, and so started to move out a bit.

One highlight was a trip to Alibaug on the RoRo ferry. The Ferry itself was great, and made traveling to Alibaug far more comfortable than using the road - while you don’t save much time (15 minutes from home to Ferry Wharf; 30 minutes for the Ferry to load fully and start; 45 minutes to Mandwa; 20 minutes to disembark and 30 minutes to a friends house - all told 2 hours 20 minutes - not that much less than the 2 hour 45 minutes by road), it is much more comfortable.

Some pics of, on and from the Ferry are below










Even the most avid petrol head would rather cruise along with these views than deal with the broken roads of Vadhkal Naka!!!







I resumed work from office in early February, and had one opportunity to drive to Poona for a meeting - felt great to get the car back on the road, and since I was not in a hurry, did an eco drive - getting over 14 kmpl (MID) from home to Khalapur.





Overall mileage was also great - over 12 kmpl.

Come March and it was time for the 12 month service for the car - barely 4000km (IIRC) after the previous service in March 2020. Infinity provided a pick up and drop and there was nothing to report.

Of course, in March we also welcomed my X3’s younger sibling - our new Tiguan Allspace. We fortunately picked that car up just before Covid started spiking again in Bombay - and since then, while we have had a couple of trips out of town, they have both been in the Allspace.

A nice pic of the two cars next to each other



Since then, of course, we were hit by drastic lockdowns - the worst since the start of Covid. We had a 3 week period when our building was a mini containment zone - when we could not even step out for a walk. Driving has therefore taken a back seat. But I did cross an interesting milestone a couple of weeks ago - 33,333 km.



That’s all for now. Ciao.

[chaotic]

Originally Posted by Hayek

A nice pic of the two cars next to each other

Attachment 2171960

Is it just me, or do others also think the Tiguan looks more classy and premium of the two?
It kinda justifies VW's messaging around the Tiguan.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by chaotic

Is it just me, or do others also think the Tiguan looks more classy and premium of the two?

Don’t know about more classy but the Tiguan is the more spacious of the two and has the more comfortable rear seat. It also has much more boot space (even if you don’t count the space the tire on the boot floor takes in the X3). And the engine is much more refined - being a petrol rather than a diesel.

But I think the front seats of the X3 are much more comfortable, I like the leather (saddle brown) in the X3 better, and find the iDrive far superior to the touch screen on the Tiguan. And while the Tiguan drives very well for an SUV, the X3 is much better to drive. So guess horses for courses.

[Hayek]

Just got the car back after what is likely the last free service I get based on my BSI package. At 4 years 9 months and nearly 35,500 kms, the service light came on for a brake fluid change. The next oil service is due in March or after another 7000 kms. While the 7000 will probably drop towards 5000 as I keep driving, there is no chance I will cross that milestone before early January when my BSI expires. So after 5 years of spending nothing incremental other than for fuel and a tyre replacement, I will now need to start thinking about service costs. Would appreciate inputs for any reliable third party garages experienced at servicing BMWs - though for the near term, I would likely stick to authorised service.

Talking of fuel, just incurred the highest cost I every have incurred on a fuel up for this car - with diesel at ₹102.48 per litre in Bombay, just spend ₹ 5343 for just over 52 litres. Have been going to work regularly since late July - must say traffic was great through July and August but evening peak traffic has become materially worse since mid September. Fuel efficiency has still been relatively good since my morning drives through the BKC connector are great. Which comes to the next point, thought of posting some data I have tracked on this car over the last 57 months. Just shocks me to see how the cost of fuel and cost per fuel up has risen. This has been offset by low running in the last 18 months - but as that phase comes to an end, fuel costs will start mattering a lot more