49,000 km in 3 years with my 2021 Fortuner: 8 ownership highlights

Toyota dealers especially in Bangalore while good, try to add many "Value added stuff" . I have to ask them to stick to what Toyota recommends else the bill can easily cross 20K.

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Year end drive to KL

For Christmas weekend, wanted to do a drive , idea was to keep it short and spend rest of the vacation time at home. Locations up North were rejected due to time constraints. Decided to take long drive back home, drove to Kanyakumari- Poovar- Kochi- Vythiri-Puttur. We started at around 4 PM on Friday and idea was to drive as much as we can until 8PM . Thanks to long weekend traffic and road construction at Hosur, we managed only till Salem.

Next day, started post breakfast and there was good enough traffic until Dindigul, though we could maintain 70-90KMPH. Post Dindigul, it was breeze. Since we had time, decided to drive to Kanyakumari and then to Poovar. Spent some time by the beach and drove off towards Poovar. Reached Poovar by around 7PM.

Started leisurely from Poovar after breakfast and boat ride, none us were in mood to visit tourist location enroute. Took few interior roads, visited local beach and by evening we hit Fort Kochi. From our previous visit, we liked this place , though this time we preferred strolling around the streets and enjoying the views.

Wasn't sure next if to head towards Calicut or drive via Wayand. Drive across coast was getting bit monotonous plus the there is too much traffic. We decided to drive towards Vythiri. This was my first drive via Thamarassery ghat(or is it called something else?), encountered quite heavy traffic and progress was slow. Reached hotel at around 4 PM.

Drive back home was uneventful and reached on time for lunch. The drive from Kutta-Kannangala-Murnad was fantastic with very little traffic and Madikeri to Puttur was beautiful as usual. That wraps up the 1500KM short trip.

Few highlights from 3 years of ownership

As I write, the car is 1 week short of completing 3 years, with 49,000 km on ODO. Car is still running on stock HT tires which are good for another 10K KM's are per service advisor. The car has seen all type of roads , from the high passes of Arunachal to fantastic butter smooth highway, from slushy off roads of my farm to country roads of western ghats, beaches to mountains- the Fortuner has taken us places and how! Most of the travel, car is packed to the brim with luggage and rear seat is set up for kids. While the 3rd row is used occasionally, the extra luggage space comes in handy and the flexibility is very helpful.

• Wished the Adblue range was little longer. While filling takes less than 5 min, have to refill every 5K KM's.

• Storage space for only 1 phone, additional phone has to go inside glove box or other closed storage box.

• People complain about lack of features, which to certain extent is true as car doesnot have fancy features like Sunroof, ambient light, EPB etc. My other car has these, and frankly don't remember when was the last time I opened sunroof or appreciated the presence of ambient light. Only feature I wished car came was with ADAS.

• Overall fuel efficiency is around 11.5KMPL. Most of the drives are on highway and may be 30% city driving.

• People do cross country in bumpy Thar/Tiguan/Ecosport and boats(read: 1st gen Safari, Hexa, 1st gen Scorpio, Hector etc.) and yet complain on ride quality of Fortuner. Yes its not as comfortable as a nice sedan or a well tuned crossover, but offers reasonable comfort. The ride is pretty good by body on frame vehicle standards.

• Toyota dealers especially in Bangalore while good, try to add many "Value added stuff" . I have to ask them to stick to what Toyota recommends else the bill can easily cross 20K.

• Most complain about Dueler HT, I find them pretty decent. They are not very noisy, offer reasonable comfort, can perform well off road in 4H mode and have lasted well. Yes they don't look good and traction off road is not as good as a AT tire. But I don't find a compelling reason to swap other than looks. Yes, for next set I will go for AT, as Dueler HT are about 19-20K a tire and there are cheaper ATs.

• While the audio is great for front seat occupants, is quite average for rear seat occupants, the loudness is missing and the subwoofer hardly adds anything.

Closing the post with some recent shots.

At a recent off road drive

Thanks AD for this click, one of the best shots of car till date

@Kanyakumari

Somewhere near Trivandrum

With the 3 series

With garage mates

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