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-   -   Bangalore-Chennai-Bangalore with i10 AT (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/80385-bangalore-chennai-bangalore-i10.html)

Background:
It had been an Year and a Half since i bought a Red-i10 Magna-AT (and joining Team-BHP) yet, i had never had any chance to take my AT on a long trip. Few trips to Airport, Nandi Hill and Innovative Film City were the only highway like experiences i had but in all the case drive was about an hour long only. Though i10-AT is a greatX2 city car i always wanted to see whether it is good enough for highways or not (and also check whether i can do long stretches).

Bangalore-Chennai(24th April 2010):
So, last weekend (24th-25th April 2010) , when i had to go to Chennai, i decided to put the driver and the car to test. The previous night i tanked up at Shell C.V.Raman Nagar and the 3 of us left our house at 4:53AM on the 24th.

Overall:
I am pretty satisfied with the performance of my car and would love to do such trips again. I will be attaching few pics my friend took en-route Chennai and a table for capturing my trip details between toll booths. The timings mentioned in that table are from the toll tickets.





Thanks to Team-BHP, the route was very clear to me (via Hosur-Krishnagiri-Vellore) and so was what to expect on the highway including the
dare devil TVS riders who always ride on the right most lane in the opposite direction! Having read about them in TBHP posts i was actively looking for them so it saved me from lots of surprises.

Overall, the 4 lane highway(6 at some stretches) is excellent and well marked though I did notice that at many intersections the bushes on the median were obstructing the view. A good thing to notice was that at all the villages/towns the road had yellow grills on both sides as well as median.

There are hardly any good places to stop at on this way except for Sarvana Bhavan, close to CMC in Vellore. We also saw one A2B board, on the left side en-route to Krishnagiri, at an HP station. On entering that premises we saw 'Dhaba' written on it, I am not sure whether that was the A2B people have referred to in other threads. Anyways we did not eat there and drove for an hour and a half more to reach Vellore.

The entire drive from Bangalore to Chennai was smooth without any holdups/jams except for some congestion from Sri Perambadur.

CAR:
I clocked a max speed of 140kmph on Krishnagiri-Vellore section though i mostly drove at 80. i10-AT is not one of the quickest cars so overtaking car-trailers can be a time taking process. However, one can switch off O/D while overtaking to reduce that time(this shifts the gear from 4th to 3rd and is a better way of shifting down than using kickdown method).

I covered the first 260km in 16L of Shell Premium which means a F.E of 16kmpl (so close to the published figue of 16.5kmpl). Overall i got about 13.5kmpl for the round trip (730kms in 54L). AC on all the time.

Chennai-Bangalore(25th April):
We started from Saidapet at 9:20 AM and stopped at Vellore at 11:20Am. The return trip was quite fast (we took one hour less) mainly because it was too hot outside and traffic was minimal. We reached C.V.Raman Nagar at 3:38.

you left at 4:53. When did you reach chennai (your final destination)? Sometimes you can't trust the toll receipt times. I've been pawned off receipts of other vehicles sometimes printed 1 hour earlier. I used to insist that my car number is there on the toll receipts when I'm on vacation availing LTA.

A2B is also called Ghar Dhaba. But you get all south indian stuff!
Also 13.5 overall is very nice of i10AT. Though I have one, I have never taken it on the highway. Need to try sometime.

Well, the last time I got a FE of 15.5 in my age old WagonR with A/C ON & more than fully loaded

Do you have ABS in your car?lol:

You have an AT WagonR ? If yes then that's great 'coz WagonR AT's gear box has only 3 speeds.

I verified the toll receipts times in real time and at most places it was within 2 minutes. Also the time at Nemili was in sync with my car.

I dont have abs that is why I mostly drive under 100

Attaching time of arrival at various toll booths.

How much avg do you get for your AT in city? I get just over 10.