| 800 KM report
Back from my long trip and covered 800 KMs already! In short there were both bitter and sweet moments.
First the good news -
Drive - The ride is super smooth and comfy. Drove the car for around 6 hours (with minor breaks in between) but did not feel a bit tired. Guess the lumbar support did its trick! The seats are awesome too.
Handling - Love the Electric Power steering. The ease in controlling this car in all kinds of traffic is just awesome. I have read in other posts where people have had issues with the power steering being too sensitive at higher speeds on highways but I haven’t had any such issues so far.
GC - Did not have any issues with the ground clearance at all. We drove through all sorts of terrain and everything was perfect!
Right leg room - I can almost lay my entire leg in right angles and ride the car and still not bump into the sides of the door! There is that much room for my right leg. Good utilization of space.
Negative Points (can probably live with) -
Fuel Efficiency - I received the car with an average mileage of 7.X KMPL shown on the MID and around 30KMs driven. I figured that the long distance trip can do good and raise the average quite a bit. After all my sincere determined efforts, I got it raised to around 9.8 KMPL. I know its too early to conclude that this would be the average mileage and I am open to experimenting more to see if I can raise it up a bit more.
(FYI- Tank was filled up to maximum too)
Vehicle Noise from the outside- I found this strange, but I could hear all the vehicles passing by quite clearly (or more than I did in my Aveo) from the inside. I had to check twice or thrice to see if all the windows were closed shut and they were. This became quite annoying when all I heard was the vroooms of other vehicles, but I guess immunity kicked in after a while.
Clutch Foot rest room - Either I have a really big feet/shoes or there isn't much room for my left feet to rest if its not on the clutch. I have to really twist it to fit in that small gap. Its another thing that I miss from my aveo, where there was enough space to the left of the clutch and even behind/under it so that I could stretch out my leg fairly straight.
Seat belt warning beeps - It does not die off! It just goes on and on until you are forced to put the belts on just so that you do not have to hear the ticking beeps! Oh well, Its a good thing, but I would rather have preferred for the beeps to die off after a few seconds or minutes.
Rear Parking Sensor - The voice over is really getting on everyone's nerves! Its like having a lady bus conductor saying there is room to pull over or ding ding ding ding ding stop stop stop stop. It has worked at some instances, but at some cases I just found it annoying and prefer the old fashioned quiet gestimation way.
Rear view Mirror - I feel its really small and does not cover the entire length of my rear scene view. The view from the rear window is also very narrow which is another thing I have to get used to. Having a small mirror is not of any help and I find it uncomfortable.
Now for the really bad news -
Well I got my first ugly scratch! Somehow I missed this billboard stand that was on my rear left, and my bumper ran into it. It left a 5 inch scratch with a little more scraped paint on the panel above the left bumper. Even the annoying rear parking sensor could not help me with that one!
Worst for last -
11pm: Around 40-50KMs away from my destination and in god-knows-who's land, with my wife and 6 month old baby on board, the worst kind of scare that no new car owner should face happens! A yellow warning light goes on with a Beep sound! It looked like a Yellow old fashioned tap icon so I thought it might just be some water shortage. But my gut said other wise and minutes later, the multi information system said "Check Engine System"!!! And then I noticed... it wasn't a yellow tap icon, it looked like an engine transmission with the fan and all that! (Oh comon, how was I supposed to know that at first sight… I have been driving error free cars for the last 3-5 years)
Stopped the car, pulled out the manual to look it up, and it says it was some kind of Electronic Engine malfunction and if you see this error, stop the car immediately or else if you continue accident may occur! Yeh Right! Stop the car or turn it to the nearest dealer was the best advice that the manual had for me at 11pm in the night with family on board. I would rather have preferred to see some do-it-yourself remedies!
Having no other way, I did a few checks on my own. Engine was not heating up and the water levels were fine. No other vibrations or anything else noticed while driving, so I had to put my brave face on and continued driving slowly keeping my speed below 60kmph, and 2k rpm.
Finally after an hour long journey of slow mental torture, we reached home safely, and I did a quick search online on the error. The only 2 false-positive cases were if the Petrol tank cap was not inserted or locked properly, or if the battery terminals were loose. Reconnecting the negative terminal could reset the memory and erase this error if it was a hiccup, but it isn't recommended.
So I called up the dealers at 9am and told them about this. They said they would need it brought in immediately because its not recommended to drive not knowing what set the light off. And the irony, they asked me to drive it and bring it in! Sure... don’t bother sending someone or a toe truck but let me drive "my 4 day old new damaged car" back to your service station 20KMs away and find my way back!!
Reached the service station, and handed over the vehicle. They said they would do a complete checkup and tests. Since it was around 800+ KMs, they said they would do the first Service too.
Their estimate on the paint job for the scratch on the bumper, and the panel above it is Rs7800 and Rs4000 respectively! This involves painting the bumper completely, and the metal panel above it. Sounds a bit pricey and even more - takes 4 days to get it done! I told them I cannot stay without a car for 4 days and that too with New Years eve around the corner! So I decided to just do the service for now and leave the paint job for a week or 2 later. Sounds good... vehicle will be ready by evening.
Called them up in the evening, and they still haven’t completed the checkup, and will take another day. Tomorrow is a holiday due to some harthal and they will be able to resume only the day after! I would really make someone’s life miserable if they keep me without a car on New years eve!
It’s really sad that this has to happen on one of Toyotas best cars and just a few days after purchase! :(
Last edited by jocreative : 29th December 2009 at 00:56.
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28th December 2009, 23:24
I see that you are from TVM, where abouts. The company I work for, back in India is in TVM. Have you met up with any of the tbhp guys in TVM?
