[funkykar]

Thanks Architech!

I too feel that atleast 50% of the alignment work done by the alignment centers and A.S.S is just an eyewash and is overlooked by most customers.

How do we really deal with these? I am unsure how the other Palio's manage to get this to what it is supposed to be.

I will try and research on more trust-able alignment centers and see how it goes.

[funkykar]

Attended the Palio Users Group breakfast drive to Kamat Lokaruchi near Channapattana. Here are some of the pictures. By the way, the kid in the pic is my niece , also one of the pic shows my Garmin GPS

[lloydofcochin]

Karthik,

Nice pics of the PUG meet. It is really colorful with all the beautiful Palio's lined up

Btw, Regarding the alignment I would suggest you to go to Madhus in Langford Road. They are the best in Bangalore and do an excellent job and is owned by a T-bhpian. I have been visiting them for the alignment and am completely satisfied with their service

[funkykar]

Over the weekend, I drove off to Lonavala with a few friends. My Palio SDX, along with a Mahindra Jeep and a Ford Fiesta diesel went on this drive. The idea originated by the jeep guys who were attending the Off Roading event in Lonavala. When offered to go along, no second thoughts, just took off in my Palio. Until then, I had only heard of Lonavala and Khandala, but did not know what are the places to visit there. Simply to make it short, my agenda was to drive and just drive. I exactly did that!

The SDX is such a darling of a cruiser on the highways. I enjoyed every kilometer of the total 2000 kms and I drove all by myself. Out of 2000 kms, atleast 1400 kms were in rain. Out of the 1400 kms, atleast 600 kms were in heavy rains. I love driving, and driving when it is raining, I cant ask for more . The Palio gives so much confidence that I was still able to easily cruise at 100-120kmph with heavy rains, with wiper on at full speed. It was only during the night driving with rain I drove at 80-100kmph, just to be cautious.

The real ability of my Palio, I got to know when I got down the curves of Tavandi ghat at 100KMPH +, it could handle very easily. Mind you, there was clear visibility and it never felt like I was over speeding. Overall, it was a wonderful drive. I did not carry my camera, my friend has captured the pics, I will post it some time this week.

[funkykar]

.... By the way, my Palio SDX has completed 10000 kms on this trip. Its all too dirty and it deserves a wash.


Only sad thing I witnessed during the entire trip was an accident we saw that had happened less than 5 minutes ago after the Khambatki Tunnel (Two killed, 3 hurt in accident near Khambatki tunnel - Times Of India). Just after the tunnel, its a decently steep decline and on top of it a 'S' curve. We suddenly finish the first half of the 'S' curve and see a small mob gathered. At first, I thought some trouble happening, then I saw the flipped sedan and knew something serious. We stopped by, the people were just been removed from the car and placed at the side. One of them lay a few feet ahead, clearly dead with blood all over and his face was badly defaced. The others did not have any visible injuries, but appeared totally unconscious/dead. Some locals and drivers took charge of the road to divert traffic to the left of the road since the mangled car was at the right side. Me and my friends offered help, by then a Qualis and an Indica already had offered help and the Qualis was parked at the right side of the road before the crash. Oncoming traffic was above average, no matter what, most vehicles would be coming at at-least 50-60kmph and on the second half of a 'S' curve.

I stood on the left side of the road (the occupants of the car were being lifted and put to the Qualis), and after analyzing the entire scene, I just told my friend that the entire scene looks like a bigger disaster waiting to happen. It looked too obvious for me. Any vehicle taking the second half of the S turn could crash into the Qualis and the people around it because of the blind spot. I was telling him, especially the truckers would have a difficult time to slow down at the accident spot.

Just when I told this to my friend, in less than 10 seconds, there came 2 fully loaded trucks, one on the center of the road and one on the extreme right lane and some 50 feet behind the center truck. They were at at least 60-65 kmph. The center truck fellow noticed the mob and the person flagging down to slow traffic and he braked and was moving slowly. The truck on the right was in a real bad blind spot and realized the situation only when less than 30-50 feet and he braked hard and locked wheels for couple of seconds, he seemed to be a seasoned and experience driver, while the wheels were locked, I am sure he realized that the truck would no way stop on time. If he hung on to the brakes, he would have crashed into the Qualis and the death toll would have gone much higher. The truck itself could have gone turtle. He let go of the brakes and swerved dangerously towards left and tried to sneak between the slow moving truck in the center lane and Qualis at the right. He had no choice. In this melee, he scraped the Qualis with the trucks right rear and also scraped the center lane truck with its left rear. It was a miraculous escape. It would have been a huge disaster. It almost got my heart in my mouth. I and my friend got recalled of Final Destination. I said something and it happened in just 5-10 seconds.

Accident car was badly mangled and couldn't make out which car it was. I could see the Toyota badge. I think it could have been the Toyota Etios, may be without ABS and air bags. Still hard to ascertain what caused the topple. The driver may have zoomed from the tunnel and taken the 'S' turn, but should have been little slow on second half of the 'S' turn just because of the first curve. My opinion was, he was speeding at around 110-120 at the tunnel, was at 90-100 at the first curve and suddenly might have realized he is too fast to complete the 'S' turn and braked hard while trying to complete it. The wheels could have locked causing the car to topple multiple times. Since they were returning from a temple, chances of DUI is less. Being a weekend and young people, no one can say. If and only all occupants had worn seat belts...

[bottle]

2000km drive alone is really something, how long did it take to cover the trip from Bangalore to destination?

The previous post seems to be a really scary incident :( feel sorry for the people involved

[funkykar]

^ I still felt I could have easily notched up another 2-3k, that means I am ready for my Leh trip in September. We would have multiple drivers in 2 cars, but I challenge myself to drive all the way on mine.

I think onward we roughly took 14 hours to reach Khandala. It was unusually heavy truck traffic once we crossed Belgaum. On return, we did it in 12 hours.

Yes, the accident was ghastly. May be their time on earth was over. RIP!

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by funkykar

^ I still felt I could have easily notched up another 2-3k, that means I am ready for my Leh trip in September. We would have multiple drivers in 2 cars, but I challenge myself to drive all the way on mine.

I think onward we roughly took 14 hours to reach Khandala. It was unusually heavy truck traffic once we crossed Belgaum. On return, we did it in 12 hours.

Yes, the accident was ghastly. May be their time on earth was over. RIP!

That turn has been designed by someone with a racetrack in mind. On a decline/ slope of that gradient, the turn is a bit too much for a lot of drivers who get carried away just by seeing the tarmac. Whenever I travel that road, I hope there is no one speeding up, but there are a lot of morons who honk & overtake as if there is no tomorrow.
I dont think a speed breaker would help either; it is just a design quirk. Indicative boards do not help either as drivers fail to look at these signboards, keeping in mind traffic and the speeds being done on this stretch.
Just be careful on this stretch and avoid speeding up

[vamsi.kona]

I have a query related to Palio and let me tell you I literally know nothing about the technical stuff. I own black MJD and as is well documented, the palio mjd's, especially those that were manufactured around second half of 2008 and later had hard clutch problem, which at some stage was so problematic that it would be difficult to even engage gear. Mine was changed under warranty around 35k as was done for many others. I have done 65k on this vehicle and as said by many, this beast is a mile muncher.

After a lot of hue and cry by PUG (Palio Users Group) Fiat has designed a new component. But it seems there are still some problems with this new component also.

My question is can a Punto (75bhp) clutch be fitted to a palio MJD? As said before I literally know nothing much about technical stuff, but felt since they share same engine if it is possible. May be along with the gear box?

[Karthik1100]

A short-film trailer casting Karthik Makam's Red Palio SDX and Sujith's BW Punto, the video was shot long back but recently edited and promoting.
watch this video on youtube.

drag of diesel Jets - YouTube

[Schoudhury]

Originally Posted by Karthik1100

A short-film trailer casting Karthik Makam's Red Palio SDX and Sujith's BW Punto, the video was shot long back but recently edited and promoting.
watch this video on Youtube. drag of diesel Jets - YouTube

Wow, thats a real nice one.

The angles were really nice and the sound track was kool.
Bdw where was this shot ?
Grt stuff , would love to see some more of this kinda stuff.

Grt work .
Cheers

[beetle_boy]

Karthik,

Good Shoot buddy. Hope we have more stuff like this in future.

Regards
Saleem

[Karthik1100]

Thank you guys for liking the video, we shot this video at Bangalore-Hyderabad road, 120- 160kms from Bangalore

[funkykar]

^ K1100, I guess since this is an ownership thread, not everyone would be interested to follow. Also, this thread has been going very slow as I am not updating as frequently as I used to do earlier. Try and find to see if any thread specific to show casing videos exist on this forum, like the one for photo's. You might get an excellent response if any such thread exists or created in the right section.


By the way, the video you did was excellent. Proud to see our Palio and Punto in it

[gods-envy]

Originally Posted by Karthik1100

A short-film trailer casting Karthik Makam's Red Palio SDX and Sujith's BW Punto, the video was shot long back but recently edited and promoting.

Karthik,
A good video!!
what is next in line for the two ?

Edit - I second funkykar's thoughts. This is an ownership thread and not many people might bump into it regularly. I too opened this thread by chance. Why don't you create a new thread for this ?