[architect]

Got back to Delhi late today. Rain all the way and snow at Lansdowne, too, which I missed by a whisker since I had started back. Was able to follow up about the car only on phone.

The leak was closed by replacing the clip where the hose takes the coolant to the engine.

The wheel bearings for the right front wheel were changed. They were making excessive noise at high speeds.

The 'Check Engine' light has not made an appearance again.

Will take delivery tomorrow and will watch the situation for a while. The upside is that because I took a cab to Lansdowne I could catch up only sleep on the way.

[architect]

Just a small update. Got the car yesterday and drove around nearly 100 km since. Everything seems fine and the noise levels have reduced. The car has come with some stains on the three-day-old seat covers, but then can't expect a spic and span interior with a beige colour. Anyway, last dry cleaning was done at 65,000 km, so will get the interior dry cleaning done at the 80,000 service. Also checked for coolant leakage overnight, and everything's fine.

Bring on the 80,000 km mark by the end of Year 4/

[phamilyman]

Why not dry clean the car yourself? Isnt it quicker/cheaper to DIY than go/wait for it at service center by the grease monkeys?

[architect]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Why not dry clean the car yourself? Isnt it quicker/cheaper to DIY than go/wait for it at service center by the grease monkeys?

You forget my car remains at office, not at home. The office, not being on ground floor, does not offer great support for carrying out these activities. Of course, if one wants to do something, one would find a way, but I am too lazy.

That said, I have the option of an ex-Elegant ASC cleaner who comes to wax, polish and dry clean the car at home / office. He charged Rs 900 for two cars around two years ago.

[phamilyman]

Got your point. I forgot the office bit.

Originally Posted by architect

That said, I have the option of an ex-Elegant ASC cleaner who comes to wax, polish and dry clean the car at home / office. He charged Rs 900 for two cars around two years ago.

oh that is alot of work for 900 on home service. Does he come to the millenium village too?

[G Iyer]

Guys,

Finished a 2300 Km zip of Mumbai-Pushkar-Mumbai on my trusted gleaming red 1.3 MJD of November 2008 make..

Here are the details:

1. Left Mumbai (Andheri) january 3, 2011, about 7:00 p.m. Got stuck in the traffic till about Dahisar.. Dahisar crossed at about 8:30.

2. Drove right through, great roads NH8.. Reached baroda about 1:30 a.m. Halt overnight.

3. Left Baroda at about 11:00 a.m. Wednesday 4th.

Missed the Ahmedabad by-pass and ran through the city, crossed the railway phatak, single-lane NH8..

Then again hit the divider road (NH 76/79) and Not NH8...

And drove right through to Udaipur.. reached Udaipur at about 2:30 p.m. ate a hearty daal-bati churma. Saw the Udaipur palace and left for Ajmer.

4. Asking around for directions to Ajmer, we were directed over to HN8 from Udaipur onwards (going underneath the NH79 bridge) - into the hills and the "marble transport' section.. totally screwed up our trip for the next 6-odd hours... single lane highway (I can't imagine such roads are called "National Highways"!), blaring heavy vehicle headlights/horns, massive blocks of granite/marble perched precariously on multi-axles.. the last 40-odd kms of completely screwed-up, unders-construction roads.

Totally Avoid anyone who wants to take NH8...

5. Reached Ajmer about 11:30 p.m., ate some dinner at a dhaba near the station (ghanta-ghar).. Drove straight to Pushkar - neat 20 minute drive... Total KMS done - 1030.

6. At Pushkar, we strayed into the RTD Village resort opposite the Mela Ground near the "exit" side of the city.. lovely resort with about 20 individual cottages.. there was only two of us and 6 attendants (talk of 7-Star!) at the facility.. neat..

7. Stayed at the RTDC for two nights.. did the regular stuff at pushkar (:-)).. left Pushkar on Friday noon about 4 p.m... did about 150 odd kms of local running, upto Merta City and back .. decent roads, excellent weather.

8. At about 5 pm we stopped for late lunch at Ajmer.. parked the MJD at a "no-parking" and it got towed away, courtesy an over-zealous shop-keeper who phoned and called the cops... we rushed to the police station and the car came after we reached... noticed that the number-plate had been removed and the lower bumper was a little depressed. was worried if the carburettor may have been hurt..

9. Anyway, haggled with the cops, screamed at them (we were two seasoned lawyers who had gone...!), took the car and hit the road at about 7:30 p.m.

10. Then noticed that the temperature guage was starting to move up beyond the "half-way" mark... i was worried because almost 1000 KMs were still to go and I didn't fancy getting stuck on a cold dark highway.. so took it to an electrical guy in a fancy large garage.. he checked everything (am amazed at the number of fuses and circuitry they have stashed into the bonnet and hood area ofthe MJD!) and said nothing wrong, go ahead. The temp guage spiking was a just an aberration which may be ignored... we did and it lived happily ever after!

11. Ok, so from there (Ajmer outskirts) left at about 9:00 pm and drove straight to Ahmedabad - throught NH 79/76 of course), averaged about 100 KMPH and reached Ahbad Friday morning by about 2 a.m. (about 500 KMs)... stayed at a small lodge opposite the Ahmedabad HC..

12. Left Ahmedabad at about 12:00 noon Saturday and drove straight through (40 minute lunch break near a toll booth).. and reached Mumbai/Andheri by 8 p.m. 500+ KMs more.. the roads are all excellent except for the vasai bridge area which sucks.. and the Mumbai-headed traffic which again never appears to cease..

I had changed the tyres just 10-odd days ago - in place of the stock Goodyears, installed a full-set (5 Tyres) Yokohamas 185/70-13 upon the advice of a local tyre guy - set the air pressure at 31.

Unbelievable difference .. the stock tyres were relatively older (3+ years and had done almost 60K kms) and therefore hard..

The Yokos are like cream and butter, at the same time, Very stable and reassuring (additional width helping).. Zero punctures (touchwood).. I suspect (a) I may have slipped one or two kms per litre on the FE but am happy to pay that price, for the added glide and (b) there is a little bit of a drag and I miss the burst at the initial speeds under the stock thinner width tyres.

I got an overall average of 21 KMPL while going (no AC) and 19.5 KMPL (partially with AC) while returning..

I have driven the MJD to Goa, Karnataka (Mysore/Bandipur) and many many times to Pune.

Cheers to the MJD.. she's a total darling. Amazing, amazing road manners and once she's done about 150/200 Kms in one go, then she just purrrssss and says Gimme More!!

Agreed there are the knick-knack issues of spares and the Fiat servicing morons, but then when you have a baby like this, one can bear some pain...

My first real post here.. thanks for reading!

Cheers

Iyer

[architect]

Thanks for your post, Iyer! Made great reading and along with some pictures, would be good stuff for the travelogues section here.

Originally Posted by G Iyer

noticed that the number-plate had been removed and the lower bumper was a little depressed. was worried if the carburettor may have been hurt.

I hope you meant radiator and not carburettor. There is no carburettor in the MJD, being a diesel and none on petrols nowadays, either.
That said, the Palio MJD has decent amount of space between bumper and radiator. Agreed that internal space suffers a bit as a result but quite useful and practical than the way it is on the Figo, where everything is packed tightly and no protrusions exist on the bumper.

Originally Posted by G Iyer

10. Then noticed that the temperature guage was starting to move up beyond the "half-way" mark... i was worried because almost 1000 KMs were still to go and I didn't fancy getting stuck on a cold dark highway.. so took it to an electrical guy in a fancy large garage.. he checked everything (am amazed at the number of fuses and circuitry they have stashed into the bonnet and hood area ofthe MJD!) and said nothing wrong, go ahead. The temp guage spiking was a just an aberration which may be ignored... we did and it lived happily ever after!

Many a times when you are doing long distances in the heat or climbing hills or crawling in traffic jams without the AC being on, the car heats up close to half mark. The solution is to switch on the AC for 5 minutes. The AC fans cools the car back to normal temperature which is just above the quarter mark. When I was climbing Bir to Billing (800 m or so climb in 15 kms) the temperature needle went close to half mark, because I was continuously running high RPM in low gear. I was puzzled, because the ambient temperature was barely 10 deg Celsius. Sometimes in winter this happens in traffic jams. The AC button is all you need in this case, even with the temperature set at warm.

Originally Posted by G Iyer

I had changed the tyres just 10-odd days ago - in place of the stock Goodyears, installed a full-set (5 Tyres) Yokohamas 185/70-13 upon the advice of a local tyre guy - set the air pressure at 31.

Unbelievable difference .. the stock tyres were relatively older (3+ years and had done almost 60K kms) and therefore hard..

The Yokos are like cream and butter, at the same time, Very stable and reassuring (additional width helping).. Zero punctures (touchwood)..

Watch out for stones getting stuck on the centre grooves of the Yoko A-drives. That's why I had to give up on them and shift to Michelin XM1+ (too many punctures).

Originally Posted by G Iyer

I got an overall average of 21 KMPL while going (no AC) and 19.5 KMPL (partially with AC) while returning.

Pretty good. You know what, all the heavy marble traffic must have helped as you would have stuck to lower speeds!

Originally Posted by G Iyer

Cheers to the MJD.. she's a total darling. Amazing, amazing road manners and once she's done about 150/200 Kms in one go, then she just purrrssss and says Gimme More!!

I am yet to meet a dis-satisfied owner of this car. Despite its shortcomings, I think the overall reliability and quality of the Palio MJD / Stile petrols is better than the new generation Fiats- Lineas and GP. That's a personal opinion.

Congratulations on your great first post. If you read the thread of this car in the Initial Ownership section, I had started my journey at Team BHP with the review of this car (not this thread).

It has been a great journey at TBHP over the last (nearly) four years.

[G Iyer]

Hey Architect,

Yup, that was was radiator, oops.. about the tyres, let me see how this goes for a few more thousand Ks, then can shift over..

Btw, I separately drive a Logan 1.6 Petrol, a Golden Accord Auto-shift (the old 'flat' one).. and have a 150 Pulsar and a CBZ Xtreme for good measure, for my wind in the head (no hair, you see..) jhatkas.

In the past I've owned the old trusted Maruti 800 (red), two Zens (both white), a looovely maroon Uno Fire (which beats all the mentioned cars here, in many ways), a silver Santro and a golden Honda City 1.5..

Its amazing how each vehicle has its own little idiosyncracy, its own attitude and the need for care in an oh-so-different and cute way. Girl-friends, anyone?

When I saw "Transformers" I was totally tuned to the concept of 'humanizing' the so-called machines.. to be fair, I have been following Team BHP posts for many years now and believe that most of us are Already the True Believers.

The wives and girl-friends must generally think we are Totally nuts...

I frequently hear the refrain that "If you were to pay a little bit of That measure of attention to me, we would be happier.."..

Well, they shall never know.. Motoring makes us grow like nothing else does... Pun intended!

Cheers and happy motoring...

Iyer

[architect]

Thanks to Bubby's car undergoing an engine re-build for no apparently significant reason, I have been a little edgy. Mr O. P. Sharma of Him Motors advised me "not to skip any services and stick to 7,500 km service intervals regardless of what oil you use since the Punto uses Selenia but different filters".

Last proper service was at 69,890 km so I got the service done today at 78,640 km. There were some long-standing issues like ICE/dashboard rattles (never really addressed fully due to multiple blame passing between ICE installer and ASC and my laziness), loud "tuck" sounds from hinges on opening rear doors, belts screeching on cold start crank and slipping till the engine warmed up and a "chik chik" sound from the front right wheel at speed which had developed after the bearing change.

Car was serviced and Selenia Oil was used as I did not want to shift back to mineral from semi-synthetic. The 'chik chik' was resolved by replacing the disc brake pad clamp. The door hinges and all other hinges were lubricated. AC+condenser belt and power steering belt were replaced (as per manual they should have been replaced at 50,000 km)! Diesel filter was replaced after 19,000 km instead of 15,000 km. The dashboard rattle was removed but the vexing problem of the ICE making noises is still unsolved even after multiple removals and efforts by multiple 'expert' installers all claiming to have fixed it till the first pothole. .

Ended up with a large-ish bill of Rs 9,580 primarily due to semi-synthetic oil, new belts and fuel filter.

The 45,000 km to 79,000 km has been a somewhat demanding phase in terms of replacement (mostly routine replacements or expected replacements). I hope this phase has now abated although the timing chain and timing chain adjuster are due for change at 1,20,000 km (might get them done at 1,00,000 km itself!).

Watch out for the air filter cover. I lost a fixing screw and got a local jugaad screw fixed. The jugaad had come loose which means I did get a certain amount of dust into my engine as I have been driving with a somewhat loose air-filter cover. I just hope I don't end up with a damaged set of cylinders.

The power steering fluid has never been changed (should have been done at around 60,000 km). Mr Sharma said that there have been many cases of power steering seals leaking after replacement of PS oil! The only solution by the ASC way is to replace the entire assembly for Rs 15,000! He's advised me not to change it. I am not sure of this, so I've let it stay until I am able to reach a decision.

Oh yes, I have come back with grease marks on beige seat covers but the dry-clean cum polish guy is coming on Wednesday to do both cars at home, so that will fix it.

I hope I have no more updates till the four-year review in mid-April.

[vikasb]

@architect
Good to see that your MJD is going strong

I sold mine at 77K Kms and now on a swift diesel
It was becoming a bit of pain to maintain it.
The last issue TASS took 4 days to fix and guess what it was only a cable cut.

[architect]

Originally Posted by vikasb

@architect
Good to see that your MJD is going strong

I sold mine at 77K Kms and now on a swift diesel
It was becoming a bit of pain to maintain it.
The last issue TASS took 4 days to fix and guess what it was only a cable cut.

Sad to see your MJD go. I figured you were having issues with parts. The Service Support is not exceptionally great even with Sharmaji who is the best here, so I can imagine what you went through.

That said, I don't know what to make of the maintenance I have gone through. On one hand, it's not too bad (only two suspension components in 80,000 km), but yes, quality could have been better.

[tortoiseNhare]

Originally Posted by architect

Watch out for the air filter cover. I lost a fixing screw and got a local jugaad screw fixed. The jugaad had come loose which means I did get a certain amount of dust into my engine as I have been driving with a somewhat loose air-filter cover. I just hope I don't end up with a damaged set of cylinders.

There is a plastic hose pipe for air intake that is hooked to the air filter cover. In my car the tiny hook on the pipe got broken and no jugaad devised by myself to keep it in place have been good for more than two days. That means, I have been mostly driving with the air supplied directly in, rather than through that intake pipe.

[architect]

Originally Posted by tortoiseNhare

There is a plastic hose pipe for air intake that is hooked to the air filter cover. In my car the tiny hook on the pipe got broken and no jugaad devised by myself to keep it in place been good for more than two days. That means, I have been mostly driving with the air supplied directly in, rather than through that intake pipe.

That hook went off in mine within 2 years of ownership. The pipe would be loose but not falling out of the outlet through the filter. Just fixed a normal metal screw as a permanent fix instead of a stupid plastic locking.

[pareshraheja]

Originally Posted by architect

The power steering fluid has never been changed (should have been done at around 60,000 km). Mr Sharma said that there have been many cases of power steering seals leaking after replacement of PS oil! The only solution by the ASC way is to replace the entire assembly for Rs 15,000! He's advised me not to change it. I am not sure of this, so I've let it stay until I am able to reach a decision.

Don't bother changing the assembly. Just change the steering fluid. Don't wait. I had the same dilemma and first changed the fluid to check the improvement. It did help. Was chatting with the local mechanic and when this subject came up, he took a test drive to get a feel of the improvement. Coincidentally there was another 1.3 in his garage for which, he had changed steering column due to an accident. Guess what- the difference was marginal.

So, I suppose INR 400 is far better than INR 15,000 coz the difference in feel in negligible.

Cheers

[architect]

Originally Posted by pareshraheja

Don't bother changing the assembly. Just change the steering fluid. Don't wait.

That's the whole point Mr Sharma was making. When you change the P S fluid after so long, the seals give way and leak. Then the entire assembly has to be replaced.

If I'd known, I would have kept on changing the P S fluid every 20,000 km.