[Dr.AD]

Weekend Drive to Valparai

This weekend, I did a drive to Valparai along with @robimahanta (driving his Thar) and @graaja (driving his BMW 330i GT). The main agenda was spotting and observing the rare Lion-tailed Macaques that reside in this area. With Robi and Ganesh for company, wildlife photography was always in the agenda too.

We stayed in a secluded bungalow in the deep forest, totally cut off from the rest of the town, and we had an amazing weekend in that place. We drove on some really scenic and butter-smooth tarmac, then ventured into the forests where the BMWs had to drive on forest trails and stay parked in the forest for two nights, explored some proper off-roading trails in the Thar (yes, I got to drive the Thar too ), and of course, did plenty of nature walks and finally saw the rare but famous Long-tailed Macaques and got to photograph them.

Here are some quick highlights of this memorable drive:

The three cars on way to Valparai:



The two BMWs parked in the forest, next to our secluded hideaway in the deep woods:



A solo shot of my car parked away in the forests for 2 nights:



Next to Robi's Thar, which was our vehicle for driving around on those forest trails:



The three cars parked there, as seen from our place of stay:



The famous tea gardens in Valparai:



We had such views and landscapes all around:



Lion-tailed Macaque (LTM)! We got tho see them and observe their behavior quite closely:



LTM eating jackfruit:



One photo of Thar while driving around there:



And finally, a parting shot of my car on the lovely roads of Valparai:

Reached 70,000km on the odo

While on my way back from Valparai, I hit this 70,000km milestone:


What an amazing experience this has been to drive this car for all these kilometers, through all these memorable roadtrips and to these lovely locations. 60k km to 70k km was a relatively quick journey in about 6 months, and almost all of these last 10k km were full of amazing memories of lovely roadtrips (I work from home since covid outbreak, and practically never get to drive the car in the city; thus all these last 10k km have been practically weekend trips).

Originally Posted by abirnale

For now, I could retrieve a rare picture of your car:

Your ownership details and the trips you do are amazing - thrilled to have spent participated with you on those trips!

Thank you for that photo and for your kind words! It is always great to drive with you and looking forward to more such trips in future.

[shibujp]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Another Weekend Drive, and Life with CBS

Condition Based Servicing (CBS) is BMW's way of doing car maintenance. With my experiences so far, I am not a fan of CBS for sure. But more on that later.

!

So did you get a chance to visually verify whether there was indeed only 500km worth of pad thickness left?

Drive on
Shibu

[Dr.AD]

Bangalore 3-Series Club Meet

We have a small group that is called "Bangalore 3-Series Club", and a few members of that group (four, to be precise ) met last weekend for a short morning drive, photoshoot, and of course coffee and snacks.

Although we were just four members, the four cars had a nice variety. We had two F30 320ds, one G20 330Li, and then the fourth was the monster, the M340i.

The F30 320d owners were myself and another gentleman who is not a forum member, who was driving a lovely white car! The G20 330 Li, in Cashmere Silver, was of fellow member @Gaboonviper04. And finally, the famous Sunset Orange M340i was of @robimahanta.

Our driving circuit, about 100km long, included a loop around some rural areas in the North of Bangalore. We drove on some fast national highways, then some smooth and scenic rural highways, and then finally even ran into small narrow village roads and even faced a road blockage due to excess water from on overflowing lake. We had enough fun and enough drama in one short 100km drive! (The 100km loop was from the meeting point and back to the meeting point. For me, the total door-to-door drive from my home was about 200km).

Anyways, let me share a few pictures from that short but memorable morning drive:

The "Four Musketeers", met on a side of a wide highway on a rainy morning:



And then drove on to enjoy such lovey tarmac and some mild corners:



The four-car convoy claimed a tad above 1000hp (thanks mostly to the 6 cylinder monster in Sunset Orange)



Time for some solo shots now. The elegant yer sporty 330Li:



The timeless F30:



The hottest car in "The Club", the M340i:



And then finally, my humble 320d:



Another view of the convoy:



After driving a bit ahead, the convoy reached another picturesque corner :



I did not mean to exclude the 330 Li, but this frame with these three cars somehow looked nice:



Back to all four cars, on the side of a lake:



The M340i looked killer, as it always does:



I could not resist taking more photos of the M340i:



My favorite photo of the day. The 19" BMW Style 792M wheels on the M340i looked sizzling hot:



I am very bad at taking people photos, but here, one photo with an added "human touch":


From this spot, we continued driving on. We had lovely roads (similar to what you see in the images above) for next 25km or so, but then our luck ran out and we entered into small narrow road which had seen plenty of damage due to recent heavy rains. At one point, the road was totally submerged under an overflowing lake, and we had to take a U-turn on that narrow rural road, and find our way out of that mess. We somehow managed to find a way out, and then reached back our usual pit-stop in that area, "Tribal Cafe".

The M340i at Tribal Cafe.



Coffees and BMWs:



Finally, a parting shot of my car and @Gaboonviper04's 330Li, as we stood back there discussing various topics (Run-Flat Tyres is always one of the most discussed topics when BMW drivers hang out like this and discuss various things):


Thanks guys for the lovely meet and drive. This was the 1st meet on this smallish club, but I hope there will be many more in the near future.

Originally Posted by shibujp

So did you get a chance to visually verify whether there was indeed only 500km worth of pad thickness left?

Yes, I visually checked and indeed, the brake pads had very little life left. It is impossible to judge whether the remaining thickness was worth a 500km driving distance or more (that would also depend a lot on the driving style and driving conditions) , but for all practical purposes the pads were due for an immediate replacement. I am glad I changed the pads that time as the new brake pads immediately improved the braking performance!

[ACM]

I experienced this a lot during ownership of the BMW X3 30D.

The culprit for Brake Pad premature wear is its stability programs acting under fast cornering on twisty bits to give us better control. So regular stop go traffic doesn't affect the life, but high speed cornering does. Also more the power and weight lower the life.

[Varun_HexaGuy]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Another Weekend Drive, and Life with CBS

Condition Based Servicing (CBS) is BMW's way of doing car maintenance. With my experiences so far, I am not a fan of CBS for sure. But more on that later.

Experienced exactly that right now. In under a 100 kms of driving in city the other day, I parked the car yesterday night. i-Drive said the front brake pads were good to go for another 11,000 kms. Didn't take out the car today until now. Had to step out for some work. Started the car up only to be greeted by the CBS warning. Asking me to replace the front brake pads ASAP

Have an exam tomorrow morning followed by a highway drive soon after. I have no time to get the pads replaced. Nor do I have my other cars to my rescue

CBS turns out to be more of a bane than a boon IMO.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by ACM

The culprit for Brake Pad premature wear is its stability programs acting under fast cornering on twisty bits to give us better control. So regular stop go traffic doesn't affect the life, but high speed cornering does. Also more the power and weight lower the life.

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, I Agree with you. However, the problem I am describing is not the low brake pad life by itself (that is a separate topic). However, it is the very inaccurate prediction of brake pad life in the CBS, and the sudden drop of brake pad life from say 5000km to 800km in a short 300km drive! That is what catches the owners by surprise (the unpleasant type) rather than the overall low brake pad life.

Originally Posted by Varun_HexaGuy

Experienced exactly that right now. In under a 100 kms of driving in city the other day, I parked the car yesterday night. i-Drive said the front brake pads were good to go for another 11,000 kms. Didn't take out the car today until now. Had to step out for some work. Started the car up only to be greeted by the CBS warning. Asking me to replace the front brake pads ASAP

First of all, congratulations on your 525d! That is an awesome car and you are going to have a lot of fun with this car!

Second, welcome to the CBS surprises club. I understand your situation and fully empathize with you. What you mentioned is a classic example of what I claim to be a major fault with CBS. You can never trust its predictions and it will catch you by such nasty surprises which can ruin your driving plans. That is exactly what happened to me, and now you too.

But anyways, besides this minor irritant, the car is a lovely car and I enjoy it thoroughly. Just go out and enjoy your car and forget about CBS, of course after you get a new set of brake pads now!

[ACM]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, I Agree with you. However, the problem I am describing is not the low brake pad life by itself (that is a separate topic). However, it is the very inaccurate prediction of brake pad life in the CBS

Actually this fast consumption can go to the extent of wiping out a few thousand kms of life in a hundred km of high speed driving in curvy roads. It is afterall just about wearing out a few mms of thread.

To stop this from happening I started taking curves on Mumbai Pune expressway and ghat sections much much slower that the car limits and my heart desired.

[vivekshukla]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Turns out that under the boot roof (further inside from the boot lid; this is the interior boot roof that we are talking about), there was a plastic bracket attached. And this bracket was making this rattling sound. When we tapped on that bracket by hand, I heard the exact same rattling sound that was annoying me for so long.

I could not see any purpose of that bracket. The BMW expert explained to me that this bracket has no purpose in my car, and it is meant for some accessories used in the international market. Basically this was a plastic piece attached to the roof of the boot with no apparent purpose in my car.

So, as the best solution to that rattle, he simply unscrewed a screw holding that bracket in place and removed it. Voila! The rattle was gone!

Attachment 2312727
The bracket was attached to this hole that you see in this picture (note: This is not the boot lid which is covered with a soft liner; this is the interior roof of the boot)


Attachment 2312728
This is that bracket, removed from that roof spot.

I am still not sure why that bracket was there, but it was there and it was making that annoying rattling sound. I am so happy that the sound is gone, and quite impressed by the rattle expert from Navnit BMW who identified this so precisely and fixed it.

For fellow F30 owners who are also suffering from what is assumed to be a sunblind rattle, it might be worth checking if this is the part that is actually rattling.

This is not a completely useless part and also not meant for some European accessory. It's purpose is to hold the boot floor board when you lift it up. The notch on the floor board clips to it. The rattle in my F30 was also there but got fixed after fixing the sun blind mechanism. Some lubrication and tightening worked.

[DRIV3R]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Bangalore 3-Series Club Meet

Although we were just four members, the four cars had a nice variety. We had two F30 320ds, one G20 330Li, and then the fourth was the monster, the M340i.

Who doesn't love to see a pack of BMWs? Nice pics there.

BTW, the LWB 3 is a G28, the regular would be the G20.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by vivekshukla

This is not a completely useless part and also not meant for some European accessory. It's purpose is to hold the boot floor board when you lift it up. The notch on the floor board clips to it. The rattle in my F30 was also there but got fixed after fixing the sun blind mechanism. Some lubrication and tightening worked.

Thank you very much for this explanation. Yes this makes sense and I understand it now. Surprisingly, even the BMW service center people did not know of this and they told me this is some useless part. Also, I have never lifted the boot floor board yet. So never realized the use of this part. With the spare tyre residing on top of the boot floor, and other toolkits kept in the side compartments of the boot, I never felt any need to lift the boot floor board. So never realized this. Thanks again for pointing this out!

Originally Posted by DRIV3R

Who doesn't love to see a pack of BMWs? Nice pics there.

BTW, the LWB 3 is a G28, the regular would be the G20.

Thank you! And yes, that is a G28. Thanks for pointing this out. I mistakenly mentioned that as a G20. The 330 Li is indeed G28. Thanks again.

BTW, on another note, I have a few exciting "monsoon drives" in the plan for this season, and in preparation of that, got Wheel Alignment and Wheel Balancing done at Madhus Tyre Care in Wilson Garden. This is the most trusted place in Bangalore for any wheel and tyre related work, and I have been going there for more than 10 years now for all my tyre and wheel work. So this time, it was no exception and I visited Madhus for WA/WB work.

At Madhus for WA/WB:




Looking forward to some monsoon drives now.

[adi58]

The wheel alignment shop looks very professional. Do we have anything like this in Mumbai for German cars?

[iliketurtles]

Originally Posted by adi58

The wheel alignment shop looks very professional. Do we have anything like this in Mumbai for German cars?

Pal in Santacruz is very good, they have the latest Hunter machine too. It's perpetually popular though, so be prepared to wait if and when you go, especially on weekends.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by adi58

The wheel alignment shop looks very professional. Do we have anything like this in Mumbai for German cars?

Yes, this Madhus Tyre Center in Bangalore is a very professional and state-of-the-art setup. This is one of the most trusted places in Bangalore for any tyre related work. Unfortunately, I have no idea about similar places in Mumbai. Sorry about that. But @iliketurtles has already answered your query.

Originally Posted by iliketurtles

Pal in Santacruz is very good, they have the latest Hunter machine too. It's perpetually popular though, so be prepared to wait if and when you go, especially on weekends.

Great! Thanks a lot.

[Dr.AD]

Monsoon Drive to Konkan Coast

This weekend, along with a few BHPian friends, we did a monsoon drive to the Konkan Coast.

This drive was an amazing fun. Full of adventure (given the conditions) and fun. The car handled some very tough road and weather conditions (this was a monsoon drive after all; so bad weather was a given) with aplomb, and I had a plenty of fun driving this car in the hills too.

A detailed travelogue will be out soon, but could not resist sharing a few pictures of my car along the coastal roads of Maharashtra:




























And finally, a perfectly timed capture by @graaja that summarizes the fun we had in this drive:

[BeMyWings]

Excellent photography Doc and Graaja, thank you for sharing!