A trip to Yercaud, 70k km up and almost cracked the sump!
Since we had an extended weekend 2 weeks back thanks to the elections in TN, we decided to visit Yercaud. Departed Chennai early morn around 4 AM on the Sunday and took the usual route – Chennai – Krishnagiri – Salem – Yercaud; all 4-laned and 6-laned roads. This was the route:
Breached the 70k mark en route:
We took a break at Vellore for tea, had breakfast at Sri Gokul Veg. Hotel, Krishnagiri (located besides the Bangalore-Salem highway), drove through the 20 hairpin bends and reached Yercaud around 11:15 AM.
We stayed at MM Resorts which is located a few km away from the main town. Here’re some pics of the resort:
This was an amazing place to stay and extremely VFM too! A 3 BHK resort for the 4 of us with an open car park area for Rs. 1900 per day plus clean rooms, linen and good homely food served within the resort. Since it was located away from the town, it was a lot more peaceful as well. And the weather was very pleasant when we drove there. Visited all the major points of interest – the lake, Pagoda point, Gents Seat, Ladies Seat, the Shevaroy temple etc. The waterfalls were dry though. Some clicks:
Obligatory selfie
![Stupid](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/Sign stupid.gif)
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All of us loved Yercaud! Such an awesome getaway close to Chennai – perfect for a short weekend unwind. Not much commercialized unlike Ooty or Kodaikanal, the route isn’t too harsh on the passengers (in terms of road sickness), amazing climate and ambience. Reminded me of Saputara!
And so, we started back around 11 AM on the next day and after descending Yercaud, instead of going through Salem, which is this route:
We decided to take a bypass the city through a route indicated by Google Maps which passed through a zoological park!
This wasn’t a public road so to say (we had to tip a guard to have the gate opened) and it was narrow. Except for a few passing bikes, we seemed to be the lone traveler through this route. All seemed fine until we took a turn and the road suddenly gave way to an extremely bad patch and the car which was at 40-50 kmph didn’t brake hard enough to stop before this patch and the underbody took a major hit! The hit was so bad, all of us felt it for real and a nervous me parked the car besides the road and we got out to inspect the car for the damages.
The sump guard cover (a piece of cloth essentially) had come off from the front and it was hanging. The exposed sump (which was boiling hot!) had a few scratches due to the hit. I wasn’t in a mood to click the snaps of it. It was drizzling at that time and we jacked up the car to fix the fallen sump cloth. We wanted something like a long cable tie or a rope and we didn’t have neither of those. Around the same time, a biker who was passing by, drenched in the rain helped us with a spare cloth he had. We tore a piece off it, threaded it to make it like a rope and gave them what was left of it. My friend, Gagan (an equally passionate auto enthusiast) laid down on the road and tied the fallen sump cloth to a frame nearby with the
jugaad rope. And we resumed the journey after an hour and changing our clothes (they had gotten dirty). I was a lot more nervous, unsure if that scratch on the sump would lead to a crack when the engine was under load.
Adding salt to the injury, thanks to the elections, no restaurants were open on the highways! A2B was closed and so were most of them. It was almost 4 and we reached Krishnagiri where we’re supposed to turn right to Chennai. We managed to find an outlet which was open and served some selected items. We devoured whatever was served and left around 5 PM. The road ahead was nearly empty so we decided to go a little faster (usually we cruise around 100 kmph on 4/6-laned roads) so we can touch Chennai outskirts (Sriperumbudur) around 8. And we did manage to and reached our apartment around 8:30 PM.
All in all it was a lovely 2-day trip except for that bad instance of the car underbody scrapping. And this experience also makes me want a sump guard fabricated out of Aluminium checkered plate (the kind you see on the private bus flooring; 4 mm thk, reasonably hard and can take some abuse like these). Got worried with the recent bouts of rain in Chennai! Luckily, the clouds had moved towards AP.
Headed to Madurai tonight which also happens to be my first night drive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kishore1984 Does the Auto headlight module you installed work for a VW polo TDI comfortline Variant |
Yes it works irrespective of what variant it is. It is a standalone module and doesn’t have anything to do with the variant of the car.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kishore1984 the Sensor and Knob you installed, are they OEM ? |
The light switch is. The auto headlight module and the sensor is not a standard VW part. It was developed by the Chinese folks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunilsoft Please let me know for how long we should let the bondtite dry? |
Bondtite dries up quickly in about an hour or so. You should use some masking tapes over the mount after it is glued to the windshield to hold it in place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunilsoft Is there an alternative glue for the same? |
There may be but I am not aware of it. The OEM VW glue is a lot more expensive along with the primer.