Yesterday I traveled from Bangalore to Manipal without paying toll at any place. That's a rare thing. My route was Bangalore-Mandya-Srirangapattana-Elivala-Hunsur-Piriapattana-Kushalnagar-Kudigee-Somvarpet-Shantalli-Kundalli-Handalli Koodige-Bisle Ghat-Subramanya-Gundya-Dharmastala-Ujire-Beltangady-Naravi-Bajagoli-Karkala-Manipal.
These are the good stretch, I didn't bother getting down to take bad roads shots this time. I have covered it last year.
Phew! It took 12 hours due to numerous photography breaks. The 30Kms between Somvarpet and Handalli Koodige took 1hour, and the next 30kms to Subramanya took 1.5 hours. I was following a bus in Bisle ghat, it was amazing to the speed the bus could maintain in that totally destroyed road. I have finally seen a bus doing offroading. I also forded a waterfall in Bisle and a flooded bridge near Dharmastala. Driving in monsoon is really fun if you have a SUV.
Now for the bad news. Like most BHPians, I am very sensitive to even a slight unfamiliar noise coming from the car. While driving on the Bisle Ghat cow trail, I felt a dull unfamiliar noise sometimes on bad terrain, but very silent on good roads. As many of you are aware, I drive very regularly drive between Bangalore-Manipal over really bad roads. And I don't pussy-foot around the potholes, I smother them in decent speed. Some might think it is abuse, but SUVs are supposed to take that in their stride. So far GV has withstood all that over 25K of mostly bad road driving. Not a single mechanical part has been changed until now.
Yesterday evening I dropped the GV at Abharan Motors, Udupi. My regular SA who used to handle the GV has been transferred to the newly opened Karkala branch. Now I had to deal with a different SA. We went for a trial and I couldn't demonstrate the dull sound no matter how much I tried, I didn't miss a single pothole, but no luck. Sometimes, this self healing property of GV drives me nuts. Anyway, at the end of the trial I asked them just examine everything in the suspension system just to be safe.
Today morning I got call with the following info:
1) Tie rods on both sides have too much play, needs to be replaced (roughly 2.5K each)
2) The bushes on the lower arms on both sides are gone. Both the lower arms need to be replaced (6K each).
3) Stabilizer link bushing is also gone, the link needs to be replaced (1.9K).
Looks like if the bushing is gone, the whole assembly needs to be replaced, not just the bush.
Then I asked them to show the parts to their DGM Nagaraj Kamath, whose advice I can really trust. He was the one who built the skid plates for the GV in 2008. He used to be part of Rally support teams in the 90s and understands vehicles that undergo extreme stress. When I called him later, he advised me to go with items 1 and 3, but he felt the lower arms can wait, it still has lot more life. It can be looked into if the sound gets bad.
Therefore I will be replacing some mechanical parts for the first time on the GV. They don't have any of the parts, everything has to be ordered from the factory stock. It might take 3-4 days before I can get the vehicle back.