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-   -   Extreme xtreme! Force Gurkha Xtreme 4x4 ownership review (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/218974-extreme-xtreme-force-gurkha-xtreme-4x4-ownership-review-3.html)

Haha, participating in Formula student competition has helped me gain a lot of knowledge and interest in automobiles.

It looks splendid! This vehicle is owned by Mr. Rakesh who just messaged in our WhatsApp group after seeing this post. Kudoos!

I checked with some of Force vehicle owners and they all said they had 2100+ on odometer at the time of delivery. Surely, I tried my best to convince them to sent it by container, which they refused. During PDI, I also saw a Tempo Traveller being delivered to the showroom by a Force Employee. I will confirm with them at next visit and bring more clarity to this.
True that, Kerala MVD takesstrict actions against modifications, lot of my friends had similar experiences.

Thank you, I remember my Dad saying the same to me after seeing the vehicle. Yes it really excites me to learn more about the vehicle and try and fix minor issues by myself

I don't know the exact reason, But I think it doesn't need to be faced in the direction of incoming air, the plenum box act as a reservoir and serves air at a constant rate to the engine.


Also I just wanted to add this. After my purchase, My vehicle was reviewed by a Youtuber Vlogger, Mr Rakesh Narayanan, (aka Vandipranthan). You can find the link here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm7ST1vi_5I&t=94s
Its in Malayalam

Heartiest congratulations for owning this beauty. Cars like Thar, Gurkha and Gypsy require a emotional connect to enjoy the ownership. I was in a similar situation like yours and eventually bought Thar signature edition 6 months back. Even with the imperfections and lack of creature comforts in these beauties there is nothing else which gives a satisfying and soothing feeling when you are behind the wheel.

Congratulations again and wish you many happy miles in the year to come!!!

Congratulations on owning this beautiful piece of offroad machinery. Hope you get to conquer all the difficult terrains in India and abroad with this beast! And meanwhile, please keep updating this thread with your adventure stories for all the Gurkha fanboys !

Wonderful review. The decision of the heart prevailed over the head I suppose.

I have been looking forward to the updates provided by Force on this car. Even the 2020 Auto Expo version's interiors are way off the standards we look for in a 15L car.

@Eza, one question, how are the NVH levels in the car. Also how is it to drive it in the city traffic?

As many have mentioned, you have purchased the car at the right age to enjoy its truest form in the woods and exploring places. All the very best and happy mile crunching with this beast

Congrats brother, a bold choice I must say.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attac...za_5146min.jpg
But the interiors on this 15 lakh car is day light robbery.

We shouldn't see and think of every car like that. Do we call it a day light robbery suppose if a 15 lakh rupee car doesn't have 4X4 capability? Do we? We shouldn't expect from a low volume car to have it all at 15 lakh rupees.

At any given budget, it will be like, get few, lose few.

Want it all in a single car? forget about budget and handover more briefcases to the seller, more so if it is a low volume seller.

The vehicle is really refined. Not much vibrations at all from the engine. My Ertiga makes more noise than Gurkha @4000 rpm. Driving is the city is pretty similar to Ertiga. Other than the heavy clutch, nothing to complain really. The commanding driving view makes it easy to navigate through tight spots.

The primary function of a snorkel is to suck in clean and cooler air which is better for combustion in IC engines. Now coming to 4x4 vehicles, the purpose of a snorkel seems easier water wading and even for show or style enhancement. Many people install dummy snorkels in their 4x4 vehicles to add a character. But for any active snorkel, I personally feel that the head should be facing backwards given the dusty environmental condition in most of the Indian roads. Imagine a vehicle overtakes you at good speed while on a dusty road and in dry weather condition. The snorkel doesn't have a strong pre-filter to eliminate all the gush of dust and the evident result is premature death of the air-filter!:Frustrati A backward facing head can eliminate this situation to some extent.

The same goes for driving in torrential rain/snow. As one speeds through heavy rain, it is obvious that some water must sip into the snorkel through the front facing intake head, and the water will make the air filter wet or make some troubles for the engine. Although air filter boxes usually have some drainage holes at the the bottom it doesn't guarantee the air filter to be completely dry with the aforesaid situation.

Some people tend to think that a front facing snorkel head (ram head) has ram air effect for power boost, which is hardly true. Any modern IC engine can't intake more air to boost power unless programmed in ECU. So despite being called 'ram head', those type of snorkel heads, in reality, have nothing to do with 'ram-air' functionality.

On the contrary, some people believe that there is a vacuum effect near the backward facing snorkel head at high speed and it results in lesser air suction causing power loss. But that may be a complete placebo effect as some high end CFD simulations also validate the fact that even if there is a temporary vacuum effect it barely makes any difference in engine performance.

So to sum up, the backward facing snorkel head boasts of many advantages when compared to the other setup.

In Gurkha, the snorkel-head is a detachable part and can be installed in alternate ways as preferred by the users. But some OE snorkels are single piece, front facing unit and there is no way to change the orientation-- an obvious drawback!

There are some other types of snorkel heads like mushroom heads (to prevent water-sipping-in issue and to lessen dust intake) and vortex or cyclone type heads (as found in tractors). The latter is equipped with a pre-filter, dust and water separation mechanism by centrifugal effect. If you notice carefully, most of the commercial vehicles have snorkel type air intake system and the head portions are facing downwards to deal with these reasons.

I beg to differ. The RAM effect is real, just put your cupped hand out from the window at even 60kmph and you will find the ram effect is real. the design also takes care of the dust and water removal from the intake air. you can read more about this here
https://www.suncoasttowbars.com.au/n...hicle-snorkels

IIRC, the ram snorkel will help build up a positive pressure in front of the air filter, reducing the manifold vaccum so that the engine breathes better. more air in the engine equals more working medium and hence more power. it might also improve fuel economy. If you check under the hood of most modern cars, the air intake is shaped in a way that it is facing forward to aid air intake at speed and also cool air intake.
A backward facing ram snorkel will have none of these benefits....

The same article says that ram snorkels should be faced backwards in extreme weather condition to prevent excessive dust from being sucked in!

And I repeat, a general IC engine will only need the specified amount of air to burn air-fuel mixture with a given throttle input unless the ECU is programmed to act otherwise! In case of Gurkha, Thar, Xenon etc. it has literally zero effect; even the stock air intake system of Thar is not faced forward but downward in the engine bay itself.

Congratulations on your beast... Gurkha is a very capable offroader and have seen it perform in one of the most tough 4wd terrain Sandakphu. I too have driven it a lot and did experienced it's offroad capabilities in Nagaland. We have 3 Gurkha's in our Assam Offroaders group. I don't want to dishearten you but would like to highlight one of the major flaw of the Gurkha which is it refuses to start in cold weather reason being the absence of a cold start kit/glow plug. Our groups 3 Gurkha's took 4 hrs to start in the morning in Sandakphu and same experienced in Nagaland too where the weather was not that cold.

Force should have considered this very important feature in such a capable offroader. You will feel royally stranded in a cold/sub zero weather location.

lol: I recently faced a starting issue with the Gurkha. I took the vehicle to a nearby estate to take some pictures. I saw a steep incline and decided to stop it there while i clicked some picture ( not sure if it was the best decision to switch off the vehicle at such steep inclines stupid:). When i got back in and cranked, it just wouldn't start. I slowly rolled back the incline to a level ground and primed the fuel pump. After few more cranking, the vehicle started and was good to go. I nearly got stuck in an really remote area, Few other Gurkha owners have also reported this issue, a major chink in its armour?

Attaching few images i took with the vehicle stopped at incline.

What was the fuel level in the tank? Was it full or near 3/4th?

It was near 1/2. Do you think thats the issue?

A low fuel is usually the simplest explanation to it, considering you did have half tank - this is something else. Possibly something like a connection being loose when the vehicle is on an incline. Checking the fuel pump cables, starter cable, battery leads etc should be a good place to start.