Phew! Today, I spent a couple of hours and shed quite an amount of sweat in making the moody five tyre pressure monitoring sensors [TPMS] of P Cheetah learn the new Michelin tyres. One or more buggers refused to learn the new tyres in each attempt, resulting in all the four tyres deflated to just 10 psi each after several failed attempts. In the last attempt, I inflated all the tyres to 40 psi, deflated them to 35 psi - except the spare that has 42 psi - and they learnt the new tyres, thanks to my German electric tyre inflator.


____________________________

Originally Posted by Sheel

Very good choice I must say and just the right time to change your tires

Thanks a lot for the clarification, Sheel.

Originally Posted by RacingForIndia

Wishing you many more adventures with the beloved P Cheetah!

Thank you so much for the wishes, RacingForIndia.

[supertinu]

Ravi sir, waiting to hear your feedback on Michelins.

Indian brands are long lasting but when it comes to noise and comfort, I am certain Michelins are unparalleled. In 3 of my cars I changed to michelins on 2 and 3rd got Yokohamas and it made a night and day difference compared to older indian tires from MRF, Apollo.

Originally Posted by Sisu

Can you please share initial impressions of these tyres?

Originally Posted by supertinu

waiting to hear your feedback on Michelins.

Here is my FIR on my first Michelins in my first diesel after driving about 50 km on Chennai roads: felt super comfortable, while driving; experienced absolute silence, when the wheels are turned while P Cheetah is stationary with the window glass down; braking was sharp and the road grip was adequate.

[sk7671]

Originally Posted by J.Ravi

... cleaned the brake pads....

Hello Ravi Sir - were you Brake pads ever changed or are you still on your first ones? If changed, how much did it cost and did you go to Mahindra service center or bosch or other? My beast now has 37K km and no sign of 'brake pads worn out message' yet.

Thanks in advance...

Originally Posted by sk7671

If changed, how much did it cost and did you go to Mahindra service center or bosch or other?

P Cheetah's front brake pads were changed at 39,676 km at the authorized service station, India Garage, Chennai, costing ₹ 4,179.04. I too did not get any warning at the time of replacement, but accepted the advice of SA. The rear ones are still stock OE. The details are here.

My pet Purple Cheetah brought us safely and comfortably to our Bangalore home at 4:45 am today. We had left Chennai Royapettah home at 10:45 pm last night.



Mr Murphy demonstrated his law successfully - not once or twice, but thrice - at the first 3 crowded toll plazas, viz., Sriperumbudur, Chennasamudram and Pallikonda, where the vehicles on the non-FASTag lanes moved faster than P Cheetah. But, Mr Murphy failed miserably in the last 3 toll plazas at Vaniyambadi, Krishnagiri [manually scanned, not yet deducted] and Attibele, where P Cheetah passed through without waiting on the dedicated FASTag lane, while others waited in the long queues of non-FASTag lanes!



I am fully satisfied with the new Michelin Latitude Sport 3 tyres, which provided cushioning effect on the highway driving.

Yesterday, I noticed the dreaded white ring on the battery due to prolonged disuse, indicating it needed charging, but P Cheetah started in the very first cranking. I connected the battery terminals with CTEK battery charger and left it in the charging mode overnight. Today, the white ring is gone with CTEK illuminating number 7, indicating the battery is fully charged!





I cleaned the interiors and washed the wheels. I noticed that there were no stone chips caught in the tread as the grooves are wider in Michelin tyres than their predecessors. Michelin tyres are as good as their predecessors in retaining the tyre pressure. They lost hardly 2 psi in 1½ months.

Today, P Cheetah has got a new Amaron 85 Ah battery, costing ₹ 5,400 COD at home, including fixing and in exchange for the old battery from a friendly neighbourhood dealer. The OE stock Exide displayed the dreaded white ring from the past one week. Twice, I charged it continuously for 2 days, using CTEK, but the white ring remained on even after fully charged. After one day after the charging, CTEK came down to position 4 ['ready to use'] from 7 ['fully charged']. So, I decided to replace the battery. The dealer had 90 Ah Amaron too, but made in 02/2017. So, I selected the 05/2017-made 85 Ah-walla. The price quoted was less than the one quoted in batterybhai.com.

P Cheetah brought us safely and comfortably to our Chennai Royapettah home at 3:35 am today. We had left Bangalore Basaveswara Nagar home at 10:25 pm yesterday. P Cheetah had diesel for ₹ 2 k @ ₹ 60.61/litre at Reliance, Kamandoddi, after Hosur on LHS. At the Krishnagiri toll plaza, the person, who was in charge of manual scanning, was having an argument with a lorry driver and I was asked to proceed without scanning. When I asked for scanning, he simply told me to go by saying 'ponga, sir'. So, P Cheetah had a free passage there [perhaps, at Attibele too!] just like last Chennai - Bangalore drive!

[Reinhard]

Those are rocking fuel economy numbers I must say. Stop posting these on public forums...There are hatchback owners who'd start a nationwide agitation looking at these - I'm willing to be the convener.

Nice shots of the polished tyres. Loved them!
A wonderful detailed thread. Happy motoring.

P Cheetah was hectic today. Left Chennai Royapettah home at 8 am, visited Kanchipuram, did some shopping, attended to some works, lunched at a new eatery called Hotel Upasana [formerly Sangeetha, IIRC], near the bus stand signal and returned home by 7 pm. My FASTag account was deducted ₹ 50 at Sriperumbudur toll plaza during the up drive and ₹ 30 in the return drive.

[pm25264]

Hi Sir I am a regular follower of your threads. So was wondering that there is no update from you for such a long time. How are you doing . Hope purple cheetah is serving you well and munching more miles.