Quote:
Originally Posted by R2D2 Parag's and Shashi's cars are "beater" cars? LOL! Seriously, those cars are more precious to their owners than a brand new vehicle. |
Precious yes because I love what I drive but that's about it.
In my case both my cars are treated equally; as regular cars to serve their purposes wherever they deem fit! There is no such TLC that I do and I prefer it that way. Hence, you would not see me lurking around the detailing threads
. I want my cars to be mechanically fit and to certain extent I can spend some time to do the regular cleaning on the inside too. During WagonR's glory days, I have driven it across the country quite a few times too.
There are quite a few things that I don't do:
- I do not intend to baby any of my cars and the reason why I will pick something that can withstand such abuses. Sorry, no seemingly sensitive cars with gizmos for me even in the future
- I do not wash my cars regularly or get them washed. I prefer to let the car remain dirty for longer duration during rainy season (almost for 2-3 months) and then get it washed once for all
- Post warranty, I have not followed a strict oil change interval for both the cars. I prefer to do that based on what type of driving/roads both have been through over the last 10,000 Km. For instance, I replaced the engine oil for the Ertiga last time after driving for more than 13-14K kms. But one thing I am very sure of is that I have replaced parts pro-actively most of the times.
- I do not detail any of my cars but I do clean them inside out once in a while
- I am not overly careful about bad roads and this is true when I use both of them; No wonder the suspension for WagonR was replaced as early as 70,000 Kms and its running on the 3rd set now
- I am a reasonably fast driver on the highways but I don't ever drive Pedal to Metal nor I abuse with higher RPMs soon after starting the cars
Quote:
Originally Posted by headbanger A person having Merc might have a roomy sedan as a beater while a person having a City may think of an i10 or swift as a beater. The same hatch may be someone else's only car with a scoot as a beater. |
Absolutely agree with this. It is only because I picked up the Ertiga and retained the WagonR that today the latter is treated more of a beater car than a highway commuter. In fact, I will prefer to take the WagonR for all the shopping on the narrow lanes due to the ease to drive and park. Till Covid, the same car was driven 20Km a day on some of the super bad roads by wife to commute to work and back.
The same beater car today was my faithful highway commuter car few years before that even today, without a wink I can vouch that I don't need to carry a single spare anticipating any kind of breakdown and I am referring to drives beyond 2500 Km. Heck, even when the Odometer was at 166K, I managed a non-stop run of 1800 Kms due to the frugal nature of the F10D engine and of course my confidence that nothing can go wrong.
In the end, the concept of beater car for me was never existent till I started treating my cars as such. So I would now have to agree that I will always be happy to have one such car in my garage all the times that I can call it as a beater car and coincidentally as on date, it happens to be the WagonR most of the times which even otherwise is a fantastic beater car for many. A friend picked a beautifully maintained K10 WagonR last year and on weekends he prefers to take out the WagonR only instead of the longer Ciaz. Even for me, there have been many occasions where I have wished that I was in a beater car than the one I was driving to some really congested areas of the city.
Adding to this, I will call both my cars are beater cars (and workhorses) for they have served many purposes during my ownership till now, including being part of many drives tagging along with proper highway cars then.
And of course, the beater car that it is today has one of the most practical designs to stack the luggage in the boot too:
And at times, whenever I felt the Tallboy would not be able to do the job, I have without any second thoughts, used the Ertiga as a beater.
This load had 10 ft long Pine wood planks:
To me,both compliment each other as of today and if I end up buying something better tomorrow, I would still not baby my cars but instead put it to full use like I always have.
Thank you for referring my WagonR in this thread. However, since there were posts that mentioned about why certain cars including mine should not be called beater cars, I had to disagree because as an owner I know why they gladly have to be referred to as beater cars. This is also not to unnecessarily glorify when I have owned or driven because tomorrow if I pick anything else, I am sure I will put that car to right use too.