[Hayek]

Quick update. Had to send the car in for its next routine service - at 48,000 odd kms just before Christmas. Covered about 8500 km since the last service in just under one year - and the condition based service required a service within 500 km, while the due date for Service was Jan 5.

Infinity gave me an initial estimate of about ₹59,000 including wheel alignment, polishing etc - which reduced to ₹28,000 after some push back and exclusions. Yes, I do need to get the car polished in any case - but I would prefer to do that at 3M rather than at Infinity.

Apart from this routine service, the car has been performing well - will be upwards of 48,500 km when the car reaches its 6th Birthday next weekend.

The Michelin tubeless tyres have been working well so far - ride has noticeably improved and road noise has reduced too.

[Hayek]

So it’s Pongal Day again - and my car just completed 6 years. Must say, it has indeed been a real pleasure to own and drive, and remains as good to drive as it was on Day 1 6 years ago.

Have not driven it as much as I would have liked to - but still ended up driving to Goa twice and the Bangalore & Coonoor once from Bombay. In this 6 year period, I have covered 48,800 km - 82% of which has been within cities (almost all Bombay), and consumed 5,600 litres of diesel which cost me about ₹ 430,000.


Despite having taken BSI, the car has been fairly expensive to maintain. BSI cost me ₹ 500,000, and other maintenance costs (including insurance) amounted to ₹ 614,000. The biggest single item has of course been tyres - with my second set of Pirellis which cost ₹96,000 lasting just 17,000 km ( the OE Pirellis lasted ~30,000 km).

Need to get the car detailed - was hoping to do it before today, but failed to find a slot. More later

[el lobo 6061]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The biggest single item has of course been tyres - with my second set of Pirellis which cost ₹96,000 lasting just 17,000 km ( the OE Pirellis lasted ~30,000 km).

Would suggest you to change over to tubeless (NON-RFT) for longer life.

These RFT tyres are designed for low life resulting in frequent rebuy.

What is the tyre size front & rear? Can suggest you an alternative.

[GTO]

Thanks for sharing the update!

Originally Posted by Hayek

Despite having taken BSI, the car has been fairly expensive to maintain. BSI cost me ₹ 500,000, and other maintenance costs (including insurance) amounted to ₹ 614,000.

What was the maintenance cost without insurance?

The biggest single item has of course been tyres - with my second set of Pirellis which cost ₹96,000 lasting just 17,000 km ( the OE Pirellis lasted ~30,000 km).

Agreed. These cars chew through tyres. Anyone who has high running of 20,000 km / year will be spending 1 lakh a year on tyres alone!

Originally Posted by el lobo 6061

Would suggest you to change over to tubeless (NON-RFT) for longer life.

I thought they would last longer, but it hasn't been the case with me. My current set of tubeless tyres is already showing signs of wear & tear at 13,000 km and will definitely require replacement at the 20,000 km mark (same as my earlier 2 sets of runflat tyres).

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by GTO

What was the maintenance cost without insurance?

₹190,000 for 2 sets of tyres (first lot Pirelli run flats; latest Michelin tubeless); ₹84,000 for brakes; ₹ 28,000 for an Oil Service; ₹ 50,000 for the battery; ₹ 60,000 miscellaneous stuff including body repairs, detailing, wheel alignment etc - ₹ 412,000 in all.

I thought they would last longer, but it hasn't been the case with me. My current set of tubeless tyres is already showing signs of wear & tear at 13,000 km.

That’s not good news - was hoping the Primacy 4s will last longer than the run flats I had earlier.

[el lobo 6061]

Originally Posted by Hayek

That’s not good news - was hoping the Primacy 4s will last longer than the run flats I had earlier.

Originally Posted by GTO

I thought they would last longer, but it hasn't been the case with me. My current set of tubeless tyres is already showing signs of wear & tear at 13,000 km and will definitely require replacement at the 20,000 km mark (same as my earlier 2 sets of runflat tyres).

Tubeless tyres which are designed for touring will last longer compared to sports oriented.

Eg. For BMW X1 F48 225 55 R17 comes in
CEAT Sport Drive Rs 8,200
Apollo Aspire 4G Rs 11,300
Yokohama Earth1 Rs. 11,600
Michelin 4ST Rs. 14,200

Eg. BMW X3 F25 245 50 R18
Apollo Aspire 4G Rs 13,800
Michelin P4ST Rs. 22,000

These tyres would easily give 50,000 kms life or even more.

Originally Posted by GTO

Agreed. These cars chew through tyres. Anyone who has high running of 20,000 km / year will be spending 1 lakh a year on tyres alone!

If you opt for similar tyres for 530d could help in longer life. Share tyre size for squared setup or staggered size.

13,000 Kms life is too low for a executive sedan.

[Hayek]

Quick update - the X3 completed 51,000 km yesterday - in 6 years and 3 months. It continues to be as much a pleasure to drive as it was on Day 1.

Got the car detailed shortly after the last update - but missed taking the before and after pictures to document the same.

Completed 50,000 km in February, and the next milestone yesterday.

Unfortunately, I have not managed to take the car on any long drives - bar one trip to Alibaug where we took the RORO on the way out and drove back at night. Must say I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that roads from Alibaug were not too bad at least late at night.

For most of my other cars, the 6 years plus threshold represented when I got the urge to upgrade. But that is not the case for this one - whether it is because of the car or because I am older, wiser (?) and more boring - I can’t tell. But barring any unpleasant maintenance headaches, I suspect I will keep this car for at least two more years.

Hope I get a chance to go for some long drives - though that is now likely only in the Monsoon.

Some pics from our Alibaug trip and of the milestones being hit

The 50 K Milestone




The X3 on the RORO deck



with the Tiguan Allspace a little further ahead (btw, it has completed 25,000 km in 2 years and 1 month)




Views from the RORO



(btw, the RORO does not save much time - but the views and comfort are what help)

Sunset at Mandwa Jetty



Alibaug Trip Summary



and the 51,000 km milestone

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Attachment 2442649

Hi Hayek, is that an amazon music app integrated into the bmw infotainment?
How exactly is this set up? I don't think I have any apps in my idrive 6 system.

[PapaBravo]

Originally Posted by d3mon

Hi Hayek, is that an amazon music app integrated into the bmw infotainment?
How exactly is this set up? I don't think I have any apps in my idrive 6 system.

Amazon Music icons show up when you connect the phone through USB & use the app. With normal Bluetooth connection it doesn't show anything apart from the track info. Although I use more of Youtube music which doesn't show up like Amazon but that is how it worked in my car.

[Hayek]

Actually Amazon Music Icons show even through Bluetooth. Same does not work for Apple Music - have not tried Spotify. Can look up playlists on Amazon - though it is easier when you work with selecting lists on the phone.

[Hayek]

Quick update after my next major service - at 82 months, and 55,555 kms (which I crossed a couple of days ago).

Unfortunately, have not had even a moderately long drive (to Poona or Lonavala) since my last post on this thread. It’s just been office, and back - and at best to New Bombay or thereabouts.

Had a sudden scare in July when my AC switch stopped responding, and audio controls from the central ICE control panel stopped working (even though steering audio controls were working). Around the same time, I also got an engine overheating warning. Sent the car to Infinity Turbhe - who fortunately confirmed that all that had happened was that a connector had broken which linked the panel to the rest of the car, and a bracket leading to the radiator was loose. They also took the opportunity to carry out the IGR cooler service campaign once again. The sense I get is they are checking these things - but replacing them unless needed. Cost was just ₹ 4,333.

Sometime in early October, a sign for a brake fluid update came on. The oil service was less than 2000 km away (though due only in early December based on time). So sent the car in for service in late October. The cost was higher this time - worked out to nearly ₹33,000, including for diesel additive which I had run out of.

Details are attached below.







Overall the car continues to be a joy to drive and do hope to get a chance to take it for a long drive during the Christmas break.

Happy Diwali all

[Hayek]

A Quick Run to the Rann

Finally managed to take the X3 out for a long drive during the year end break. This time, our destination was Kutch, for the Rann Utsav.

We started from Bombay at 520 am on Christmas Day. Leaving after the long weekend turned out to be a very good decision as traffic was relatively right throughout the journey. It was my first time driving to Gujarat barring a brief run on the way to Daman several years ago.

Early Start From Bombay



You can physical see the difference between MH and GJ - as soon as you cross the border, it becomes less green, less hilly, roads become smoother and lane markings appear. And of course the smell. I grew up in Chembur, the notorious gas chamber of Bombay, but nothing I had experienced prepared me for the smell of Vapi. Windows up, recirculation on - it didn’t matter. The smell persisted for about 10-15 km post the town, after which we stopped for a fantastic Jalebi Fafda breakfast. Must say the piping hot Fafda was far superior to anything we get in Bombay.

Breakfast Halt


Delicious



We then passed Navsari (the home town of Jamsetji Tata) and a short while later hit a town whose smell made Vapi seem pristine - Ankleshwar is the ultimate hell hole, and for a while I worried (having seen Railway Men a few weeks earlier) that perhaps there had actually been a gas disaster over there. We crib about pollution in Bombay and Delhi but rest assured, these cities are heaven compared to what I experienced driving through Vapi and Ankleshwar.

We then crossed the Tapti and made quick progress northward, crossing the Narmada on the Golden Bridge and then taking the Baroda Ring Road to NE1 - the expressway to Ahmedabad.

Golden Bridge Over the Narmada - Entering “North India”




A Quick Run to Ahmedabad




Road surface was super smooth, traffic was light and I was whizzing along at the limit. By 130 PM, we hit the end of the expressway. Despite our 45 minute breakfast break and a couple of other loo breaks, we made Ahmedabad in 8:10 minutes door to door with the car showing 7:06 drive time. The observant would have noted a small warning light in the MID of the car - as it happened, even though the condition based service showed a large gap to the next brake service before I started, the light went on for a rear brake pad replacement in 2000 km when we were about 150 km from Bombay. Will talk a little bit more about this in subsequent posts.

We headed straight to Agashiye, a really nice Gujju restaurant set on the terrace of a heritage hotel and had a delicious Gujju Thali meal. As an aside, the waiter showed us the table where PM Modi sat on his last visit there.





I am visiting Ahmedabad after a really long time - and the infrastructure development was truly astounding.

We spent the next day at a mix of the beautiful Sabarmati Riverfront, visiting the Sabarmati Ashram, the Adalaj Stepwell, and the Akshardham Temple. Traffic was smooth through the city, and overall the experience was very enjoyable.



Sabarmati Ashram








Adalaj Ni Vav








The following day, we set out for Kutch. The initial part of the road towards Sanand was not great - but once we crossed Sanand town, we hit a GJ state highway whose surface was outstanding. Traffic was extremely light and we could manage speeds similar to that we had done on the Expressway. At some stage, we joined a National Highway (coming from Porbandar - NH27 iirc), stretches of which were being widened or resurfaced, and were the only poor roads we experienced in GJ. The poor stretch was relatively short and we were soon on a truly outstanding National Highway stretch heading for the town of Bhachau. We stopped for some handicraft shopping on the way, were treated to a fabulous home cooked Kutchi meal and spent more than we would have at the Four Seasons in Bombay picking up various knickknacks.

Screen Printing in Progress





Drive to Bhuj




In Bhuj, we visited the Smritivan, a beautiful forest cum memorial for the victims of the Kutch Earthquake. The GJ government has built a number of check dams on a hill below the Bhuj Fort, and built a small but beautiful memorial at each of the check dams, with the names of the earthquake victims from a particular locality.







At the end of the memorial, just below the fort is a vantage point from which we had a panoramic view of Bhuj town and got to see an amazing sunset.






Will post on the rest of our holiday a little later.

[Shreyas Aterkar]

Looks like a great break. Coincidentally, we also did a road trip to Rann along with Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Statue of Unity. Great infrastructure and very tourist friendly too. Rann was amazing and Akshardham temple’s water & light show was the best one we have seen so far.

Planning to write a travelogue this time.

[Hayek]

The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we set out at about 915 am for Dholavira. The road from Bhuj to Dholavira initially heads due North along NH341 and then turns East at Khavda. The last 35 km before Dholavira is a straight road that crosses the Rann Lake - one of the few permanent water bodies in the Rann, and is hyped in tourist brochures as the Road to Heaven.



I must admit that I was a little skeptical about the hype, but the first sight of this section took my breath away.

This may look like an ordinary shot of a car parked by a waterfront…


… but as you progress, and see mile after mile of straight road with water on either side, it blows your mind





Further down the road, it got even better, with views of a White Rann stretch, where the water had evaporated leaving behind brilliant white salt deposits which looked like a snow drift.








After spending a considerable amount of time pulling over to take photos and spend some time of the White Rann (which was still very slushy), we reached the Khader Island where Dholavira is located.

We had pre booked lunch at Rann Resort, which is among the first properties when you enter the island. That was a good decision as they did not have the ability to cater to walk in customers.

Next we headed down to Dholavira, which is one of the 5 or 6 largest towns of the Indus Valley civilisation, and perhaps the most complete town that has been excavated in modern India (given that Mohenjo Daro and Harappa both went to Pakistan post independence). Dholavira was discovered in the 1960s and excavated between the 1980s and 2005. Archaeologists have found 7 phases of settlement here with the first three phases between 3000 and 2600 BC, the city reaching its zenith between 2600 and 1900 BC, and then shrinking before being finally abandoned around 1500 BC. Like many other Harappan towns, Dholavira was extremely well planned - laid out in a grid pattern, with advanced drainage and a rain water harvesting system. The city was 770 m Long and 600 m wide - occupying nearly half a square kilometer, which is remarkably large for a town located on an island with no permanent sources of fresh water. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and the people of Dholavira had developed techniques to harvest every ounce of fresh water - each house was connected to separate plumbing systems for fresh water and waste, with the fresh water draining into larger storm water drains which were large enough for one to walk in (and whose covers are still intact 4500 years later), which recharged wells and a series of 16 reservoirs located to the South and East of the city. They had also built a check dam on a river that flows past the city and used seasonal rainwater to fill the reservoirs. It was truly remarkable to see what Indian civilisation had achieved so long ago, and arguably the town was better laid out than most of our cities even today. Dholavira was a trading town - the Rann of Kutch was then a navigable water body connected to the Gulf of Kutch, and Dholavira was probably a source of minerals and stone for cities in the Indus Valley. One of the most amazing things they found here was a sign with 10 Indus Valley Pictograms - each of which is a foot tall, and made of a material that glowed in the dark - a neon light from 4500 years ago. Unfortunately, that is shown only to VVIPs such as the G20 delegates and the hoi polloi have to make do with just a description of the same.

Some pictures of Dholavira - pardon the poor quality.

Very nicely done plaques, giving a detailed description of the city





Probably the Oldest Know Step Well



Reservoirs





Neatly Built Storm Water Drains



Sun Dials - they cared about the time 4500 years ago



More Water Storage




Grinding Mortars / not very different from those I saw in my grand parents house 40 years ago



Pottery in the Museum - which is still being built





After a stunning experience at Dholavira, we left to see two more sights on the island, a fossil park with would fossils dating back to the Jurassic Era, and a sunset view point. After a nice day on Khadir Island, we headed back down the same road we had come towards the Tent City at Dhordo, where we had booked our accommodation for our last two nights in Kutch.

[Hayek]

The return journey from Dholavira to Dhordo was fairly smooth - roads were narrow but the surface was good, and most slow moving drivers were decent enough to yield where possible to let faster cars through.

The tent city itself was huge - we kept driving through a public area before finally reaching the location where we could park, unload our car and hand it over for delivery to our tent.


Our tent was nice - not super luxurious but clean and spacious, with air conditioning (which proved necessary the next afternoon even in winter) and a clean attached bath area. The tent was part of a cluster, with a cluster head available to attend to any needs and to arrange golf carts which shuttled folks around the campus.

Our Tent



Part of this Cluster



Our cluster head also gave us an invaluable tip - while night trips to the Rann to see it in moonlight are usually only on the full moon day, there was a special trip on that day and he signed us up for it.


We were quite tired by this time, and decided to head out for dinner as soon as possible. Dinner was great - even if a week full of Gujarati meals was starting to get to us.

The Dining Area




Post dinner, we headed out in buses for the Rann. The Rann by moonlight was quite magical - in a city with all the artificial light pollution, we never realise how bright the full moon (or even a mildly waning gibbous moon) can be. Yes, this is shot on an iPhone, but when you see a shadow, it tells you how bright the moonlight was.





The next morning, I was up early for a trip to see sunrise at the Rann. The dawn lights were nice, but there was some smog / fog, and the sun itself could be seen only once it was someway up in the sky.





The only downside of the Rann is that there isn’t much to do during the day. The air conditioned tents came in handy, and we spent the day reading, shopping and getting a nice massage.

That evening, we signed up for a bicycle ride to the Rann to see the sunset. Our group was a small one - just one couple apart from our family. Sunset at the Rann was outstanding once again. There were also plenty of activities out there - people flying in motorised gliders (which looked extremely unsafe to me), musicians, dancers and spectacular views.






The next morning, we were up and ready quite early but by the time we finished breakfast and were ready to leave, it was past 8 am. We bid farewell to Kutch in a somewhat poignant mood. An hour and a half later, we crossed Bhuj, and hit the highway heading towards Bachau. We had made good time till this point, and thought that this is highway stretch would be the last relatively narrow road we would face.



We made reasonably swift progress till Bachau and turned towards NH41, which had been among the best stretches of road on our way in. The map was showing some Red up ahead, which surprised me a bit. A hundred metres later, we realised something was wrong, since both cars and trucks were turning around. We saw a cop and asked him what was happening. He told us there was a trucker’s agitation (later learnt it was to do with the Indian Penal Code amendments) and we should turn around too. The map was now useless, and we followed the traffic for a while into village roads, asking locals for the way to Ahmedabad. They told us that the series of trails we were taking would get us to the 4 lane road leading to Ahmedabad. This diversion did not add more than 10 km of distance but cost us more than 30 minutes. But we finally reached NH27, the famous East West corridor, and were able to pick up speed.

While planning the route from Kutch, I had spotted a food court called Sir Jadeja’s Food Mall on the GH SH7, and planned to stop there for lunch. But given we were running late and that was still about an hour away, we stopped at another Food Mall on NH27 and picked up a lunch. The 130 km stretch on highways after Bhuj had taken us 2 and a half hours and put us well behind our schedule for driving into Baroda.



Shortly after lunch, we hit the SH7 and were now able to pick up speed. Sometime after we had been on this road, Google Maps told me it had found a faster route which would save me 6 minutes and asked me to divert from this highway and take another route to Baroda which would not hit Sanand and Ahmedabad. I thought about it for a while but decided that would be risky and dismissed the suggestion. I suspect that was a bad decision - by the time we crossed Sanand, traffic had become extremely bad, and we crawled our way through the city. I could also see that the stretch from the road we were on to the Baroda Expressway was showing dark red at one point. When we turned at the sign towards Bombay, we realised why. One of the bridges over the Sabarmati was closed and 4 lanes of traffic was merging into a single lane on the bridge that normally takes traffic the other way. The map showed a 10 minute delay initially, and may be it was my poor and conservative driving but I had lost another 20 minutes by the time I entered the bridge. Progress thereafter was in relatively smooth traffic and we soon hit the expressway. On our way in, the expressway had been very smooth. But on a Saturday evening that was not the case. You had slow moving trucks creating a series of chicanes, lots of impatient drivers using the hard shoulder to overtake, and the entire drive was slow and stressful.

Net result, it was 7 PM by the time we reached our hotel. The drive of 525 odd km had taken us 10:30 hours door to door, more than 1 hour more than the map estimate (my assumption on highways is usually that I can compensate for our halts which added up to about 1:30 minutes on this trip).

The next morning, we set out at 530 am, heading home to Bombay. There was material truck traffic between Baroda and Ankleshwar, and there didn’t seem to be any open restaurants to halt for breakfast. Ankleshwar was as smelly as ever, and we decided we would not stop there and finally halted at a place that was almost all the way to Navsari for breakfast. Roads in the rest of Gujarat were good and we had made very quick time till Virar. But after that, there was concreting work going on, with all the flyovers having only one lane open, and traffic was crazy. I followed some drivers on the extreme left lane, and realised that avoiding flyovers was the right way to go. Except when you get close to the Bassein creek, where I had to slice across the traffic to get to the right lane to take a bridge heading towards Bombay which was relatively empty, while the bridge on the left which let people take a left onto Ghodbunder Road and Thane was insanely crowded.

Progress post that was smooth and we reached home just before 2 PM. It had taken us almost as long from Baroda to Bombay as it did from home to Ahmedabad on the first day.



The observant would have noticed two red warnings on the MID. As mentioned earlier, the condition based service warning saying a Rear Brake Pad service was due in 2000 km came on shortly after we left Bombay. This distance to service fell very rapidly. I checked a number of online forums and concluded that it was safe to continue - what I read was that the Red Warning light comes on when there is about 15% pad life left, and so based on the distance covered since the last Brake Pad replacement, I concluded I would have about 2000 km range left once it came on. The Red light came on just as we were leaving the Rann.



But my conclusion also seemed to be borne out by the above message in the instrument cluster. I did not drive very slowly but did maintain a larger margin of safety on this journey.

By the time we reached home, the MID told us the service was a 1000 km overdue.

Sent the car to BMW Infinity on our return and got the brake pads replaced and disks skimmed for about ₹ 27 k.

Our fuel efficiency during this journey was the best I had experienced in this car, about 12 kmpl consistently.

Overall, it was a great experience and makes me more convinced than ever that long road journeys are doable in today’s India - even for folks like us who are used to comfort. We have now covered 58,500 km, and are getting close to the Big Six O.

Today is the 7th anniversary of our getting the car - and I must say I was blessed to have picked it up.

Until next time.