It's been some months, and H-4® has hardly been getting to metaphorically stretch its legs. At the beginning of April, it was at
104,000 km. And then some plans started to evolve.
We were having guests visit us, and the plan was to load up the car with 7 persons and take a short trip somewhere not too far from Delhi. And then there was the plan to drive to Kolkata again soon. To this end, I decided to get H-4® some fresh footwear. I had lost 2 tyres last year...
Quote:
Originally Posted by SS-Traveller I lost 2 tyres (both OE) during this trip. |
...and was running 3 of the old OE tyres, plus a fresh Bridgestone on a rear wheel, while the Ceat Czar was parked unused as the spare. At 4.5 years, in the peak of summer, with a fully loaded car at highway speeds, I didn't want to push my luck with the old tyres. So I made a quick trip to
Tyre Emporium for one Ceat Czar (Rs.6200) and one BS Dueler (Rs.7300). A pair of Ceats up front, a pair of BS Duelers at the rear, and one OE tyre in decent condition as the spare - and we were good to go.
A pic of 2 of the old tyres, and the new Ceat...
Over the long weekend break during Good Friday and Easter, we drove down in a fully loaded car to Sariska, Agra and back to Delhi along the Yamuna Expressway (triplog to follow). And we had issues with the CEL.
I had been getting occasional CEL-on status for 3-4 times over the last couple of months, but the light would disappear on its own after a few km. When the light came on, instead of the car going into limp mode, it got an extra burst of power! A generic OBD-II scanner (courtesy BHPian v&v) did not throw up any DTCs. On the YEW, the light finally came on - and stayed on. The legendary self-healing powers of the Scorpio were finally exhausted.
Back in Delhi, I took the car in for a service and check to Koncept Mahindra's service station (my usual ASS) at C-Block Okhla. The DTC read P163B. This had
happened before and meant a change of the vacuum modulator governing the VGT actuator.
In the process, I was asked to also change the vacuum modulator controlling the EGR valve. Fine I said, and asked them to clean up the EGR valve too. Not too much soot or stickiness there, but anyway, a cleaning after 100+k km is not a bad thing. But after all this, the car now lost power on a test drive. The HFM sensor coupler was detached, and that made things a little better, but not good enough. Swapping out with the HFM sensor of another car made things perfect, so we decided to get a new HFM sensor at (a rather steep) Rs.95xx + taxes.
Checking the HFM sensor with a multimeter showed an open circuit.
Net outgo: Almost Rs.16k, including a discount extended by the Service Manager, Mr. Anurodh, for old times' sake!
But in the bargain I now have a completely overhauled air intake system, and the car runs a lot smoother. Accelerator response is more progressive, and power on tap has improved (but not to the level where I got a 'boost' when the CEL came on along the YEW!).
The odo crossed
106,000 km today.
End of May, we travel the NH2 again.