[prince_pervez]

That is some experience Bunny.
Last month 4 guys from Bangalore did
Bangalore to Pune in a Maruti Omni 1988 model.
It has a gas kit fitted.
Took them 31 hours to get there.
There were a few problems during the
drive. Somethings getting burnt and a
heat ups.
Boy, 31 hours.
Ironically the folks in Pune whom they
went visiting remarked that they would not
have attempted the feat in a 1998 model even !

[Guderian]

Hey Bunny !
That was one great run ! And a good write up.
Ahhh Zen...fond memories of my steed - Zen !
If you are again going to bypass Mumbai through Thane - Ghodbunder Road on your way back - give me a holler & we'll meet up along with with HV Kumar who lives here as well !
Again - a wonderful adventure with a 8 year old Zen !

[BunnyPunia]

would love to meet up with you guys (specially HV!) , but sadly, the Zen will remain in Davanagere for a while, till the Nano is on sale that is. My better half will using the Zen as a temp car. I have my eyes on the Nano for her.

[BunnyPunia]

Completed the last leg of Pune - Davanagere two days back.

Plan was to sleep for 4-5hours and leave on Sunday morning by around 6am. Work meant I could only hit the bed by 1am, and managed to got up by 7am.

7:18am/156048km : Left place (near NIBM)
Headed via the old Katraj ghats. Filled fuel at the first pump before the ghats
7:42am/156060km : Fuel topped up, time to leave. Katraj ghats start
9:08am/156160km : 86min and 100km later, I am comfortably cruising at the ton mark. Alls well.
9:42am/156202km : 2 hrs, 142km later all is still well. The fuel needle refuses to budge! My eight year old Zen doesnt have a CD player. I m running the music via my Ipod (connected to a cassette). Surviving on water and biscuts!
10:42am/156285km : Better roads mean i cover 83km in the last one hour. Note that I am still keeping 100km/h on the speedo, with a very occasional 110km/h.
11:42am/156365km : Its been four hours since i started from the pump. Covered 305km @ 76.25km/h avg speed. Stops only for nature's call and toll. Good going.
12:42pm/156454km : Cruising speeds increased to 100-105km/h. Cover 89km in this hour
1:42pm/156537km : 6hours and 477km later, I am a tired and hungry driver. Still surviving on water and biscuts. Avg speed equals to 79.5km/h. Note, all this time i have been around 100-105km/h which means on a good (and new) car, it is possible to avg beyond 80km/h on NH4.

Haveri is where things become bad. The last 100-105km or so were done in two hours. One has to pass thru towns, thru bad roads including two railway crossings (on a Golden Quad mind you).
I finally reached home (the Davanagere home) at around 3:30pm, approx 580km from my Pune home. The car returned an astonishing 20+kmpl. The A/C was used for hardly 25% of the time, but for a 8 year old car running at the ton mark, this kind of fuel economy is mindblowing.

ROUTE:
The NH4 runs from Mumbai to Bangalore. The bad stretches are between Haveri and Chitradurga, and they can get real bad in monsoons. Otherwise, for a 1020km Mumbai-Bangalore trip, on a good car, you shouldnt take more than 13 driving hours.
The stretch near Hubli too is one way for around 35-40km, but traffic is less and roads are wide.

FUEL PUMPS
Good availability, better than NH8 (specially Rajasthan). Good places to eat too, like the A1 plazas and the superb new 'Dhaba' (by BP petrol pump?) near Ranebennur, around 35-40km before Davanagere.

TOLL
Between Pune and Davanagere, I paid a total of Rs 324.
Between Delhi and Pune, I paid a total of Rs 861.

PICTURES
1. I almost picked up the keys to the Superb for this drive
2. The Katraj Ghats
3. Lot of traffic till the Mahabaleshwar turn off. Kept 95-100km/h till this point
4. Kambhatki ghats - time to rock and roll
5. Certain stretches had this white cemented roads. Far better than the expressway. They are smooth and dont have undulations at all
6. Note - 157km from the pump and the fuel needle still shows full. Later on, while fill up, calculations showed the car returned more than 20kmpl!
7. Scenic views : the NH4 is far scenic than NH8 (overall)
8. The ups and downs of NH4.
9. Stop for Nature's call
10. Random pic...
11. Experimenting with the cam (Canon 350D)
12. The one way stretch near Hubli
13. Stop for Nature's call : Approaching Haveri
14. Is this NH4? A part of Golden Quad?
15. Railway crossing
16. Yet another Railways crossing!!

The car now shows 156650km on the odo (including some Davanagere city runs).
It will used by my better half till the Nano arrives.
Marutis are known for engines, and it shows. The Zen's 1.0L mill (60bhp) is still frugal and zips when required. The body does rattle, but I am sure the 1145 (reg no) will go on and on for another couple of year. Love ya sweetie...
PS : Couple of Davanagere-Ooty or Davanagere-Chikmagalur drive is on the cards...

RELATED READING:
Pune-Davanagere-Chikmagalur-Pune run on the i10 - http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...e-updated.html

[HappyWheels]

Good one, travalogue & photos.

8 years old vehicle and you still get 20+ on higway drive is very remarkable, to say the least! (That too doing 100+kmph). Great!

[Technocrat]

Great Drive Bunny & nice to see the Zen munching miles with such an ease

[whitesquall]

You drove all alone?? great that your loving car didn't let you down!

[Jeep]

That's what you call a fuel-efficient car! Great travelogue, Bunny.

OT: seems you need to get the wheels aligned

[BunnyPunia]

Happywheels: On the Delhi-Pune run, i never got above 17kmpl - May be because of traffic and going thru cities and all. But the stretch between Pune and Davanagere is devoid of traffic - hence higher avg speeds and better economy too!

Technocrat : Yo. Hey can u update the topic name to "8 yrs,1.56lakh km,Delhi-Davanagere on a Zen with pics"

Whitesquall : Delhi-Pune with a friend, Pune-Davanagere alone

Jeep: Yeah, after the 2300km trip, the car badly needs one. My better half will be getting it done in Davanagere itself

[ramkya1]

Hai Bunny,

Short quick one with photos.

When i reaad your travalogue compleately, I understood the adventure part of it. Doing this trip on a 8yr 1.55 lakhh Zen, is quiet an advanture, that too sleeping on the way and eating on the dhabas.

NH8 is relatively safe with facilities. I wouldn't dare to do this on a 8 year old car with tyres like this in some other highways ( no offence intented)

Yours is a quicky, compared to waht I have put up, a long one. Maybe next time around, I would shorten it to just bullet points and 250 words.

--Ramky

[hrag]

If I'm not mistaken, Pic 14 is where the Haveri bypass ends abruptly - 120 kph to 5 kph in the blink of an eye. Pics 15 & 16 are the incomplete Ranebennur bypass.

nice report, you must have enjoyed the stretch from Kolhapur to Belagavi

[BunnyPunia]

hrag : spot on. Yes, Kolhapur to Belgaum is one fast stretch