[vredesbyrd]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Another Casual Morning Solo

Fantastic roads, fantastic pictures and fantastic car!
Solo drives are like therapy, the "me-time" where it is just the man and the machine.

Apparently I have been looking at F30 LCIs in the used market for quite some time. Just need that yearly bonus, a raise and some confidence

[AMG Power]

Nice pics.

There have been a lot of sightings of leopards, cheetahs and even tigers all over Tamil Nadu - mainly in wooded terrain. Do be careful about leaving your car and taking pics in such deserted areas when you are alone.

The article below is about Coonoor, but pretty
much applies to all wooded / forest terrain in Tamilnadu.

https://flip.it/TpdYtq

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by vredesbyrd

Fantastic roads, fantastic pictures and fantastic car!

Thank you very much!

Solo drives are like therapy, the "me-time" where it is just the man and the machine.

True. That is why I love solo drives so much!

Apparently I have been looking at F30 LCIs in the used market for quite some time. Just need that yearly bonus, a raise and some confidence

All the best for your search. F30 LCI is a nice car, especially if you find a relatively newer one in top condition. F30 does feel outdated compared to G20, and G20 certainly is much better than F30. However, keeping aside that comparison with G20, F30 is still a good car in its own right. It is a great highway tourer and offers exceptional ride comfort and quite good handling too (although not as sharp as the G20). Overall, it is a great combination of good handling and comfortable ride for Indian roads. And these cars are extremely reliable too. My F30 has proven to be more reliable than any other car I have owned, including a a Maruti SX4, and certainly more reliable than my current other car, a Thar 4x4!

Originally Posted by AMG Power

There have been a lot of sightings of leopards, cheetahs and even tigers all over Tamil Nadu - mainly in wooded terrain. Do be careful about leaving your car and taking pics in such deserted areas when you are alone.

Thank you for that warning. Yes you have a very valid point. I will be very careful in future! Thanks again!

[Dr.AD]

Short Drive to "Mekedatu Sangama"

A few days ago, did a short drive to a beautiful river location called "Mekedatu Sangama View Point" (location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/p6A6ARQL6NXKDKgk7) on the outskirts of Bangalore. This place is about 100km from my home, and with a couple of photo stops on the way, took about 2 hours to reach there.

I stopped at a couple of hillside view points along the way, and took some car photos there. The weather was fantastic, and the light was also perfect for car photography.

Car photography with hills in the background:



The weather and the light was good, and this was a fun photoshoot:



One more car photo:



Fantastic roads leading to Mekedatu:



And then lovely forest roads in the end:



The Sangama point (the water level was too high now, submerging all the rocks and stones; else the view looks much better when the rocks are exposed and water flows around the rocks):



One shot around the trees there (with water flowing above the usual level):



Spotted some nice cactus on the side of the road:



Parting shot on the awesome road there:


Overall, it was a nice drive of about 4 hours and 200km total. Good roads, good weather and scenic locations. And yes, a good car too! What more can we ask for on a relaxed weekend afternoon?

[Dr.AD]

New Battery, and a Drive to Kerala

It has been a couple of months since I drove this car for any real long drive. In the last couple of months, I did a few drives in my Thar, and also did a trip to Kashmir (by flight). In all that, the BMW was lying a bit underused.

One of the issues I was noticing lately was a delayed start on occasion. One specific problem I had was the car sometimes refused to start specifically on "hot start" (trying to start the car immediately after shutting down the engine, when the car had already ran for about 2-3 hours and the engine was hot). It would start again if I cool it down for a few minutes, but instant hot start was a problem. BTW, this I faced even in my long drives in last six months or so, and this is not related to the recent under-utilization of the car.

While I discussed this with the service center and also discussed the battery health as a possible issue, we always ruled it out because of two reasons: 1. The car would start absolutely fine on cold start even after a week or so, and 2: The iDrive is supposed to indicate when the battery goes weak and needs replacement. It supposedly gives plenty of advanced warning. I had not received even one such warning in iDrive or any fault code related to battery. Further, the battery was also tested at the service center last time I complained about the hot start, and it was again shown to be fine!

Thus, prima facie, it looked like battery was fine and it was not the problem. However, given that the battery was now 7 years old, and I had ran the car for more than 98,000km on this battery already, I thought I had already extracted good battery life, and it was better to change the battery proactively anyways. After all, there is no point in waiting till the battery shows any real problems and I get stranded somewhere because of a bad battery. No point in waiting till that iDrive warning comes up.

So with that thought, still without any warning sign or any other telltale signs of a poor battery, I went ahead and proactively got a new battery installed at my usual service center, KUN BMW. The cost of the new BMW OEM battery, including the installation and programming (BMW needs some minor programming to register the new battery, which is quite simple actually), came to ₹40k. The exact odometer when I got this new battery was 98,840km.

As always, I got excellent service at KUN BMW and the overall service center experience remains 10/10 for me!

Overall I am very impressed with the BMW OEM battery life (it is a Verta AGM battery actually, rebranded as BMW battery). I got 7 years and almost 99,000km of battery life on my first battery, and even then it had some more life left. That is indeed very impressive!

With the new battery, I instantly realized that the engine starts much better now, immediately on the start button push and with a crisp crank. There is a noticeable improvement in engine cranking even on cold start now, and now I realized that I had a slow, a bit delayed start even on cold start earlier. So definitely the new battery is helping and a battery change was indeed good, even though the iDrive did not show any warning sign yet.

And most importantly, the hot start problem also disappeared after this battery replacement. With the new battery, I purposefully tried the instant hot start multiple times just to test it, and the car started absolutely fine every single time, even on hot start! Overall, I am glad I went ahead and proactively changed the battery.

Drive to a Beach in Kerala

After the new battery, I had to have a long drive in this car. Was really missing the drives in a nice sedan after a few recent drives in my Thar.

So I decided to make a quick trip to a lovely beach resort in the northern parts of Kerala, called Kanan Beach Resort. This is located on a serene beach near Neeleshwar, Kerala, around 400km from Bangalore.

The drive to this place is beautiful. The routes goes through beautiful forests roads, followed by the scenic district highways in Kerala.

Somewhere on the scenic routes:



On one of the many bridges I crossed:



Bridge and the scenic roads:



Parting shot on the bridge:


The resort, Kanan Beach Resort, turned out to be a fantastic place! It is a small and quiet place, with a few independent cottages scattered around the beach side areas. Each cottage is a proper independent villa with a large living room, a kitchenette area, a bedroom, and a large patio with deck chairs. And it had a nice restaurant with sea views! Overall a perfect place for relaxing in quiet and serene ambiance without any hustle and bustle and noise! I loved this place.

My "Sea Facing Cottage" at Kanan Beach Resort:



The living room in my cottage:



Another view of the living room, where you can see kitchenette area complete with a refrigerator and counter top:



Spacious bedroom (this also had a french door opening to the beach area):



The lovely deck with deck chairs, outside the living room:



The sea was right in front of the deck, and I could hear the sea waves all the time while sitting here:


In fact, the cottage was so close to the sea that all night I could hear the sound of the sea from my cottage, and it was amazing to wake up in the morning hearing the sounds of the sea waves!

The hammocks outside my cottage:



The restaurant with sea views:


This restaurant was great! The food was awesome, and more importantly, the service staff and their hospitality was great too. Absolutely polite and 5-star service experience here from the service staff. They used to come to my room with a menu card and politely ask me what I want, and then cook it to order and to perfection, and then call me to the restaurant when it was ready!

For lunch, I had this amazing vegetarian Kerala meal, called "Sadya" :


After the delicious lunch and some rest, I stepped out on the beach in the evening. I spent next 2-3 hours walking around on the beach and enjoying the beautiful views of the sunset and the colorful sky from there. It was a very quiet, peaceful and idyllic evening experience!

Beach chairs to spend the evening on:



Vantage view points to enjoy the sunset views:



The beach was clean, not crowded at all, and beautiful:


The beach was clean and beautiful, the weather was perfect, and the sunset light and clouds were all amazing. I had a plenty of free time to just sit there and enjoy the scene, and I also had a camera in hand. Unfortunately there wasn't any prominent foreground subject for photography, but I did a workaround with my camera and tried to find some compositions just with the sea and the clouds, and nothing else!

The water patterns on the sand:



The colors through the clouds, the colors on the water, and a boat far away on the horizon:



Coconut trees offered some framing for an otherwise subject-less composition:



The amazing colors in the sky:



The footmarks of the beach walkers, in the golden light of the last moments of the sunset, became my subjects to form such compositions:


After spending a few memorable hours enjoying the mesmerizing sunset scenes, I had a good night sleep and drove back to Bangalore the next day.

Morning walk on the beach, and this tree looked worth a photograph:


My good friend and fellow BHPian @PrideRed was in a nearby area (Puttur, KA), and we decided to meet on the way, in my return journey. It was very nice of him to drive from Puttur to Sulia where we met. It was great meeting him there and chit chatting about the local areas, the travels and the locations there, and the local cultures and festivals. He drove his Hilux to come to meet me, and I got to see his Hilux too.

With Hilux of @PrideRed:



Many thanks to @PrideRed for driving to this CCD to meet me, and for the nice coffee and the meet:


So that is it from this quick drive to a lovely beach in Kerala.

That is all for now. The car is now nearing 100,000km mark, and in ship shape now with new battery, and everything else in top condition! Looking forward to the next drive now in which I would cross the 100,000km mark!

That is all for now. Thank you very much for reading!

[last_samurai]

Really enjoyed reading the thread and probably the motivation I needed to take the plunge and get a 320d myself.

I have been in the market for a 320d/ 530d for sometime now and recently came across a fellow car enthusiasts 320d sportline that has come up for sale.
It is a 2014 with 45k on it and it has the following upgrades.

1.) BMW M Sport steering wheel with paddle shifters
2.) BAVSOUND sound system
3.) P3 OBD performance gauge
4.) M Sport Exuaust pipes (OEM for the 320d variant)
5.) NBT infotainment system with larger screen than OEM, in-built navigation, and hard drive
6.) Soundproofing material on doors, bonnet, hood, underseat areas
7.) Quantum Stage 1 ECU Remap
8.) LCI LED Tail lamps


I am still in the process of negotiating the price the seller has quoted 16.5 but i feel this is on the higher side even with the given upgrades (Your inputs and advice on the price would be highly appreciated).

I am planning to book a 360 inspection with the local bmw service center this weekend once we finalize the price. Also, given that the car is 10+ years old is there anything i need to be cautious of apart from just getting the 360 done?

[Dr.AD]

Drive to Kadamane Tea Estate, and 100,000km done!

Just came back from a 3 day trip to Sinnadorai Bungalow at Kadamane Tea Estate (https://maps.app.goo.gl/xKczaNH3V9nGdjhE9). This is one of our favorite places, and we have been there a few times already. This trip was with my work friends and ex-colleagues, and it was a fun group of friends and families.

One of my previous drives there is covered in this travelogue: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...estate-ka.html (A Car, a Thar and a Tea Estate | Our weekend drive to Kadamane Tea Estate, KA)

This time, we were four people in my BMW (I, my wife, and another couple) and their luggage. One of the very rare occasions when the rear seat of my car was used, and also the trunk was full to the brim with our luggage.

It was a great fun trip. The place and the weather was just fantastic! Our last trip to this bungalow was in April when the area was hot and dry. Now in October, with the rains still continuing, it was lush green everywhere, and it was lovely to see the hills with lush green carpet on them!

Parked at Sinnadorai Bungalow, with rain, clouds and fog for company:



Fantastic weather and misty hills:



One more photo of the rain-drenched car at the picturesque parking spot:



Could not stop staring at the clicking the car even while sitting in the bungalow:


On one of the evenings we went to the famous 5 Acres View point. This is a nice hilltop location that requires some off-roading. In my previous trip I had driven my Thar there. This time, the bungalow arranged Jeep rides for our group to reach the location. And nice of them that they even sent hot snacks and tea/coffee along with their Jeep.

It was a fantastic evening there. It was cool, cloudy, and windy, and lush green everywhere. Eating hot pakodas and sipping hot tea while enjoying that view was a magical experience!

The lovely green hills all around:



Rolling hills:



Sunset colors:


Another unique and equally magical experience was a river picnic organized by the bungalow the next day. They drove us on a long off-road track through the tea estate, and took us to a river. That river had about knee deep water flowing over rocks, and it was a beautiful spot where the river was flowing under thick trees, and on the rocks, and a lovely natural pool was formed in the flowing water. The water was very clean, fresh and cold. Just being there and enjoying that location was great, but to make it even better, the staff put chairs right in the middle of the knee deep water, and we all sat there on the chairs in the middle of the river. They even served hot tea and coffee right there while sitting in the middle of the river. It was indeed an amazing experience!

River picnic, with chairs placed in the flowing water inside tea estate:



Hot coffee and tea served while sitting in the fresh cold water:



Some photographs as we spent time relaxing in the bungalow and walking in the gardens around the bungalow:







Water drops on the flowers:



While returning to Bangalore, we stopped at another lovely location, the hill temple called "Mavanuru Shri Bettada Malleshwara Gudi".

Parked under a tree in the parking lot:



The beautiful temple on the hill:



Views of the windmills all around the temple:

100,000km reached!

While returning from this drive, I reached the milestone of 100,000km on the odometer of the BMW.

100,000km and counting:



A close up of the odometer:


It has been an amazing journey with this car so far. It has been absolutely trouble free and totally reliable all this time, even when driven hard and driven to remote locations and far away places! The car has been a wonderful partner for me in so many drives and has created so many memories!

On reaching this 100,000km milestone, at first I thought I should create a collage or something similar to relive the beautiful moments I had with this car. But then I realized it is not even needed. All those memorable trips and those lovely moments are logged in this thread, and every trip report in this thread is a tribute to this amazing journey. Many time I open a random page from this thread and read my own posts to relive those moments. Every single page here is full of those memories and those memorable journeys I had with this car.

The car is still running fine and I plan to do many more drives with this car, and continue to drive here beyond 100,000km mark on the odo now. I hope to be able to share more trip reports in this thread in the coming months. And talking about this thread, I really appreciate all the comments, interactions and the encouragement from the readers of my thread and the fellow members here. Thank you very much to all of you for staying with me in this journey which has reached this milestone now, and I hope you will stay with me as I continue driving this sweet car to many more places!

On a philosophical note, I know that some day I will have to part ways with this car, but till then, I am determined to drive her to more places and she seems equally determined to continue giving me company without a hint of a complain or a whine! Please allow me to summarize my feelings at this point through a sher of the legendary poet Ahmed Faraz:

जुदाइयाँ तो मुक़द्दर हैं फिर भी जान-ए-सफ़र
कुछ और दूर ज़रा साथ चल के देखते हैं

Rough Translation:
Separation is certain in the end, but oh my beloved co-traveler,
Let us continue together for some more distance, let us see how far we can go!

Once again, my sincere thanks to all of you for staying with me in this thread, reading my longish posts, and for all your comments, interactions and encouragements!

[StormShadow]

I was here last year in a resort called Tusk and Dawn. Hands down one of my most memorable and favourite trip of all time. Our family went in a couple of SUV's fortunately because the last 3-4 KMS legitimately required us using the 4x4 hardware in the vehicles.

Signing off with a picture I captured in the trip, pretty sure it's one of the same mountains you have captured but from a different side.

[androdev]

Fabulous trip update @Dr.AD. I love reading your posts on this forum - they capture the beauty and essence of the places like few others do. You being from Bangalore is a real bonus for us looking for destination ideas. If I had a little more agency and passion for travel, you would be by reference. Hope your red hot BMW beauty continues to be a great companion for many more years - touring sedans are an endangered species.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by androdev

Fabulous trip update @Dr.AD. I love reading your posts on this forum - they capture the beauty and essence of the places like few others do. You being from Bangalore is a real bonus for us looking for destination ideas. If I had a little more agency and passion for travel, you would be by reference. Hope your red hot BMW beauty continues to be a great companion for many more years - touring sedans are an endangered species.

Thank you very much, @androdev! I love being in Bangalore too. There are so many nice locations just a short drive away, and that is the biggest USP of Bangalore for me. Also the driving community here is great and I learned about so many nice places from fellow weekend trippers and the TeamBHP members here. Overall a great place and a great community of road trippers here!

And yes, touring sedans are indeed endangered species, and I would love to have many more drives with this car before I give in for something else eventually.

Thanks a lot for your kind words and wishes!

Originally Posted by last_samurai

Really enjoyed reading the thread and probably the motivation I needed to take the plunge and get a 320d myself.

Thanks a lot. If you are OK with a diesel car, the relatively older and basic feature set, and the older design, then F30 320d is indeed a very good and reliable car for an enjoyable driving and touring experience!

It is a 2014 with 45k on it and it has the following upgrades.

I am still in the process of negotiating the price the seller has quoted 16.5 but i feel this is on the higher side even with the given upgrades (Your inputs and advice on the price would be highly appreciated).

The price looks fair to me for this car. However, note that this 2014 model is a pre-LCI model. The LCI (or facelift/refresh) came in 2015, and among other things, it improved the suspensions of F30. There is a noticeable improvement in the ride and handling of the LCI F30 compared to pre-LCI. Therefore, if possible, I would suggest find a 2015+ F30 320d and that would be a much nicer car in the long run for you. However, if that is not available or if you very much like this specific 2014 model for some reasons, then I think the price seems quite good.

Regardless of all of that, a 360 inspection from a BMW authorized service center and a thorough check on service history is a must, and your decision to go with that check is the right one. All the best in your search and decision making!

[neeravnaik]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Drive to Kadamane Tea Estate, and 100,000km done!

While returning from this drive, I reached the milestone of 100,000km on the odometer of the BMW.

It has been an amazing journey with this car so far. It has been absolutely trouble free and totally reliable all this time, even when driven hard and driven to remote locations and far away places! The car has been a wonderful partner for me in so many drives and has created so many memories!

Congratulations! I have an identical Red 3 series that is also closing in on 100000.

I fully agree with your opinion of the car and I have also driven it everywhere including a lot in bangalore traffic a lot and have always enjoyed it

[majumon]

Wow fantastic pics, was yearning for more from sucha beautiful place, wife is asking to note the place to go there soon. Thanks for this picturusque writeup.wishing you more happy miles.

[redCherry]

Don't know why they spelt this place as Kadamane.
I suppose it should have been K-A-D-U-M-A-N-E (Kannada meaning 'A house in the forest').

Nice place, though!

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

[h3]Drive to Kadamane Tea Estate, and 100,000km done!
Just came back from a 3 day trip to Sinnadorai Bungalow at Kadamane Tea Estate (https://maps.app.goo.gl/xKczaNH3V9nGdjhE9). [/b]

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by neeravnaik

Congratulations! I have an identical Red 3 series that is also closing in on 100000.

I fully agree with your opinion of the car and I have also driven it everywhere including a lot in bangalore traffic a lot and have always enjoyed it

Thanks, and great to see your car identical to my car. Good to know you are also closing in on 100,000km and you are driven it everywhere! The 320d is actually meant to be a driven a lot and driven everywhere, and that is the use case where the car is at its best! It is a great "touring sedan", to borrow the term from @androdev!

Originally Posted by majumon

Wow fantastic pics, was yearning for more from sucha beautiful place, wife is asking to note the place to go there soon. Thanks for this picturusque writeup.wishing you more happy miles.

Thank you very much!

[neeravnaik]

Yes hopefully we will drive many more miles in this beauty. It is a hit with all small kids especially and always makes them smile.

I get 18kmpl with lot of city use (though less if traffic filled road with lot of nice road use) so it is practical too.

Would be interesting to see how long it serves well. With prices going up it makes sense to hold on to good vehicles for long time.