[MileCruncher]

Congrats Sahil on the Fortuner. It does look awesome in white. From sibling/rival comparo pic, it looks like that the Fortuner is taller than the Endy with a higher GC as well. Please also tell us how is the handling at high speeds.

Also I'm unable to decipher the 4WD shifter, may be could explain that bit as well.

Cheers

dear sahil,

I have a serious complaint brother. you have an amazing fleet and you have an amazing choice/reasoning behind gathering such a great fleet. I really appreciate how you think before spending a buck (inspite of spending more than a crore on your fleet. he he)
Can you please put up better pictures my friend? dont take this the wrong way, but i know you must be really busy, but if you could please put some clearer pictures of your fabulous cars.
Out of all your car threads, i believe the only one where you put some nice pictures were the night pictures of your 525d.

Please brother please take some nice pictures of your beauties and beasts, from a nice digital camera. Thanks.

Oh and congratulations for yet another amazing addition to your collection.

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by MileCruncher

Congrats Sahil on the Fortuner. It does look awesome in white. From sibling/rival comparo pic, it looks like that the Fortuner is taller than the Endy with a higher GC as well. Please also tell us how is the handling at high speeds.

Also I'm unable to decipher the 4WD shifter, may be could explain that bit as well.

Cheers

The Fortuner stands taller.

To be honest I don't know too much of the 4WD function myself, I was hoping someone could better explain what H,HH,HL etc are ?

Originally Posted by superveloce

dear sahil,

I have a serious complaint brother. you have an amazing fleet and you have an amazing choice/reasoning behind gathering such a great fleet. I really appreciate how you think before spending a buck (inspite of spending more than a crore on your fleet. he he)
Can you please put up better pictures my friend? dont take this the wrong way, but i know you must be really busy, but if you could please put some clearer pictures of your fabulous cars.
Out of all your car threads, i believe the only one where you put some nice pictures were the night pictures of your 525d.

Please brother please take some nice pictures of your beauties and beasts, from a nice digital camera. Thanks.

Oh and congratulations for yet another amazing addition to your collection.

Pardon my poor pic quality and photography skills. I'm a camera phone slave and almost never use a proper camera in-spite of having a SLR at home Soon I will get my lazy backside and put that SLR to use!

[S350L-E240]

Sahil, Im not the best but here's what I know,

HH is High Range centre diff unlocked and best used for your day to day tar driving.

HL is to lock the differential and good for sand and slippery conditions etc.

I don't know about H, but if you have LL or if H and LL are the same then use it for steep hills , crossing water etc.

Sorry like I said i'm not the best but this bit I know from a Land cruiser we had in late 1990's.

Oh and congrats on your new car.

[dadu]

Congrats Sahil, the Mirror is indeed worth its price, it shows the front bumper and the left side together. Great view for a new owner.

[Ashley Nair]

The dealer did not allow me to take photos of the old pads saying they dont give details of the parts changed under warranty.

Don't bother to claim warranty any more. Instead, the next time you see someone from your dealership, run him down and then claim insurance

[drrajasaravanan]

Hi
Congratulations. The Fortuner looks fantastic.
I am surprised at the audacity of the sales personnel. Forging signatures and asking to compromise. I think you have let them off easily. When you are spending a fortune to get the car the least the sales people can do is act their part professionally. I suggest you report to the toyota customer care too.
Enjoy driving your new vehicle.
Cheers.

[GTO]

Congratulations Sahil! Been a long time coming, but I'm sure that punchy mid-range makes it all seem worth it. Interesting to read your viewpoints on the SUV, coming as they are from an Endeavour owner. Your Fortuner has got to have the upgraded brakes...best way to check is if your build is March 2010 (or later).

Shinrai Toyota did a "Skoda" on you. I would report the matter to Toyota at the earliest, just so that other potential customers don't get swindled. So what if you don't have the original order form? Their copy is enough to prove that the signature is forged.

Your garage is looking tight. However, what you really need is a high-revving manual petrol car. Believe me, for all of the torque that diesels have, theres quite nothing like working a quick petrol through the gears.

P.S. I see you are a fan of the DC-font numberplates as well.

Originally Posted by MileCruncher

Also I'm unable to decipher the 4WD shifter, may be could explain that bit as well.

Originally Posted by Sahil

To be honest I don't know too much of the 4WD function myself, I was hoping someone could better explain what H,HH,HL etc are ?

From my Fortuner review:

Originally Posted by GTO

The Fortuner comes equipped with Full time 4x4, Torsen (torque sensing) limited slip differential and a dual ratio (high / low) transfer case. The diff is lockable too.

4x4 Drive Options:

Broadly, there are four options on the transfer box (smaller gear lever).

H : Default mode. Running in all time 4x4 with the center diff unlocked. This is what you will use 99% of the time. For tarmac use.

HL : 4x4 with center diff locked. 50:50 torque between the front & rear axles. Do NOT use this mode on tarmac (you will ruin the drivetrain). Best in slush, sand etc.

LL : 4x4, center diff locked, low ratio. Use in extreme offroad applications. Only crawling speeds possible.

N : Neutral. No drive provided to the front or rear wheels. Purpose is to serve as a bridge between High & Low ratio shifts.

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by GTO

Your garage is looking tight. However, what you really need is a high-revving manual petrol car. Believe me, for all of the torque that diesels have, theres quite nothing like working a quick petrol through the gears.

P.S. I see you are a fan of the DC-font numberplates as well.

This completes the garage for the next few years. BUT, I have something on my mind.. Hopefully will be going to grad school next year, I hope to fullfil my high-revving petrol choice there

Regarding the brakes, I too had read here that march onwards the cars will be with upgraded brakes but it doesn't seem true. My car was manufactured end mid march. I contacted Toyota this morning and informed them of the same, as always they called back quickly. It will be looked into at the 1000km service, next week.

I try and maintain that font style on all my cars. Get it made from the same chap every time, near bandra station. Another font style has caught my eye of late, the one Bavarian Motors,BMW,Pune uses on their cars. But no local shop here has that style.

[iraghava]

Congratulations Sahil! The Fortuner looks good, planning on doing a thread on the Endy vs Fortuner driving & ownership experience soon??

[brijesh1977]

[

oMy signatures had be forged !! Date of the order form was now October, waiting time 9 months and color Silver instead of white !
I took the matter up with the highest authorizes at Shinrai, the owner and VP. The denied the allegations, but at the end of the day I just wanted my car ASAP. I threatened to report the matter to Toyota unless the car was delivered before march end and color HAS to be white only. They tried to convince me to take a silver but I stuck to my ground, wrong had been done and I wasn't willing to compromise, finally a white one came home on 28th March.
Now what premium my original booking car went for is anyones guess [/quote]

signatures forged is not at all acceptable and expected by a toyota dealer . you should take him to task and ensure that this doesnot happen to any other customer , what do these idiots think of themselves .. by the way congrats on your new fortuner

[Sahil]

Originally Posted by iraghava

Congratulations Sahil! The Fortuner looks good, planning on doing a thread on the Endy vs Fortuner driving & ownership experience soon??

I'll give you a brief and precise comparo here: (I am comparing it to our 2.5TDCi Endeavour that we bought 2 years ago, unfair to compare it to the first gen model)

- The interiors of the Endeavour are better. The plastic quality is far better, so is the leather. The dash is much more modern too.

- The Fortuner holds the road better and much more stable at high speeds. Although the Fortuner has slightly more body roll.

- Noise levels and vibrations are slightly more controlled in the Fortuner

- Performance-wise the Fortuner is defiantly better as it's an unfair comparision. But the Endy does well for it self.

- Suspension of the Fortuner is much better ! It is not near as bouncy or bone jarring as the Endeavour. This was the strongest factor for me choosing the Fortuner.

- Seating position of the Fortuner again is better. Especially at the rear, the Endeavour makes you feel like you are sitting on the floor. Second strong factor for me choosing the Fortuner.

Overall: The Endeavour is better VFM. If you can live with the low seating and bouncy suspension then there is no reason why you should pay 3 lakhs extra for the Fortuner. Unless ofcourse a punchy engine and 4x4 are important to you, in my case they were not as important as I will almost never go off roading and this car will be chauffer driven 90%.

[Amit Taneja]

Originally Posted by Sahil

The Fortuner finally came home 2 weeks back after a 6 month wait ! It wasn't an easy task getting this car, I will mention the reasons below.
=======================
Now what premium my original booking car went for is anyones guess

Hi. That indeed is a great fraud. Surprising, that Toyota follows this procedure for bookings. I recently purchased a humble Maruti Suzuki Swift ZXi with the K Series. The dealership issues a computer generated receipt with a unique reference number. Quote that number anywhere and it throws up all the details. I was vary while booking my car as Maruti had just launched the K series engine but the deliveries had not yet started. Also since it was the Feb, i was vary i may not be given the 1300 cc engine that too Dec made. (Have heard too many stories). However, my concerns evaporated when i saw the receipt.

[Sahil]

Got the 1000km service done and as I suspected inspite of my car being a March mfd, it did not have the new brakes. I complained about the same to Toyota via their helpline and they arranged for the brake kit to be fitted at first service at Madhuban Toyota.

Brake upgrade kit: The brake feel is a whooooole lot better ! No more spongy feel or need to push it in all the way. My only complain with the brakes were not it's stopping power, they performed well even when I had slowed down from 140km/hr. But in stop & go traffic it was a pain and got scary at times because you had to push the brake paddle quite a bit which we aren't used to unless at higher speeds.
I did not go in and check what components were changed or if my car indeed did come with the new brakes but required just the paddle to be set. According to the service advisor not all March cars have the kit, April onwards they certainly would.

The car was kept overnight to install and test the new brakes and Madhuban cleaned it up nicely before returning it- tyre foam, dash shined up and interiors cleaned well.
I have been pretty satisfied with their service and send both the Altis & Fortuner to them.

It's only last week that we realized that the air pressure the car was running on was almost 40psi ! The summer heat really makes the air expand on these huge tyres. The car had become very bouncy, even then was less than the Endeavour But now the air pressure is back at 30psi and the ride quality is soooooo much better !!

[FlyingSpur]

Congrats dude. I know this had been in the pipeline for really long, and man you have some patience waiting for a car for 6 months. That's custom config territory.

Were you happy with Madhuban's work? They've been annoying me with my Corolla for really long. A steering column issue remains unresolved despite two visits, and a third one coming up now.