Ok, time for the bi-annual thread updation !
Sorry guys, I am too caught up in work and other priorities, to update the thread. But today finally I decided to put in some updates. The car has touched 5000 kms. Not much of running per se, but the car does see some alternate day office commuting. In the coming few months, priorities may change and it will most probably be clocking more kms every year, with a few out station trips thrown in.
The car continues to perform brilliantly. Not a single issue; touch wood. The next annual service is due for 26th July, so it will be some time before the car visits the service station for the regular servicing. The A/C works fantastic and with the rising summer temperatures, is getting put to full use. The engine is as responsive as before and even with the A/C on, the engine is peppy with a negligible drop in power.
However the disadvantages of a 3-pot motor become evident, when you floor the accelerator. Revv hard beyond a certain limit in a certain gear, and the engine starts sounding harsh and audible. This becomes all the more evident, especially after driving our old City (type 2, pre dolphin); which is used to getting red-lined in every gear. In fact, this is one car which loves to be red-lined in every gear.
The gears are smooth, no clunkiness anywhere, no false neutrals or incorrect slotting. This car is just like an automatic, in the sense that; during city driving, lug it into the 3rd gear and keep driving around town. Speed can range from 25kmph to 60kmph in the 3rd gear, there is no knocking felt even at low speeds in the 3rd gear. No need to downshift or upshift, unless you come to a standstill. The feather light EPS is a boon in the city, and small turning radius, turns heads when you take a u-turn. The same cannot be said on the highway however. I think they should have given a hydraulic power steering, which does not feel overly assisted (again evident after driving the City on the highway).
There are no rattles or loose parts anywhere inside. The fitting of panels however leaves something to be desired with a few misaligned lines and edges. But see the irony ... Even the misaligned edges don't rattle, no matter what. Except they are an eyesore. Quality of plastics is very nice, and even though they are not soft-touch plastics, they are still very good to touch and feel. There are some ergonomic failures as well. In the next post, I will put up the pics of these and explain in detail.
Kitna deti hai?
I have stopped thinking about this. The way, the government is increasing the petrol prices, I don't think there is much of a point in keeping track of petrol expenses. In any case, now that I have got a petrol car which is not going to go for the next 7-8 years at-least, I am going to fill in petrol, even if it costs 100/- per litre. But for the records, the car gives steady
15kmpl on-road mileage with A/C running continuously. Push hard, and it drops to
14.5kmpl, but never has it gone down below
14kmpl in any case.
Miscellaneous points: [1] Got hold of Collinite 845 wax and today gave it a nice wash and polish. The results are very good indeed, and next week again planning to do the same. The application is a decent work-out for the hands however.
[2] Got the car washed from 3M car care Baner. Service is pretty good. However after washing the car, there was a strange incident.
[3] After getting the car home from the 3M wash center, it was parked for 4-5 hours, when all of a sudden the burglar alarm started for no reason. Every time I would switch it off with the remote, it would start whining after a minute or so. There were no dogs or anything around, and nothing had fallen on it from above (the car was parked in a covered shade).
We got irritated by it and disconnected the siren only. The lights however continued to blink. I called up Nissan road-side assistance, and explained the situation. No stupid questions asked, they only asked where my location is and whether the car is in a drive able condition or not. Pretty soon within 45 minutes a person turns up with a crane. By the time the person came, the lights had stopped blinking and the car was behaving just normally. As if nothing had happened. (Computer engineer syndrome, when you try to show a problem to a hardware engineer, the computer behaves normally
)
The person connected the scanner to the car and checked everything. Nothing wrong, no error codes nothing. He then checked the electric circuits and wiring but no problem. So he reconnected the alarm and checked everything again. But no. The car behaved normally. So he went away (No $$$ charged) and asked me to get it checked at the service centre if the problem occurred again. Till date nothing of this sort has happened again. (touch wood)
My suspicion is that during the 3M washing, they most probably washed the engine bay with high pressure water, which resulted in some stray water entering and finding contact with the connecting plugs of the burglar alarm system. This in turn caused the circuit to be completed and the burglar alarm to sound every time. By the time the service person appeared, the water had most probably evaporated from all the engine bay which resulted in the car behaving normally. Barring this, no other incident has happened.
[4] Due to renovation work in our house, the car is unfortunately parked on the road outside for the whole day. It is pretty much exposed to the elements which results in lot of dust and leaves blowing on the car. Let's see how easy it is to clean the car after the application of Collinite 845.
[5] A crazy moron driving a Tata Ace and talking on the mobile phone simultaneously managed to scratch the rear right corner of the bumper hard.
The bumper was not misaligned (good build quality) but he left the beige paint of the Ace on the bumper. A D-I-Y in the making, now I am waiting to get hold of a red colour Micra paint can and paint the bumper myself.
In the next post, I will put in the pictures of the car as it is looking now and some more points. Which will be next week most probably. Till then bye and drive safe.
EDIT: Forgot three points:
[1] The beige seat covers get soiled pretty quickly after a month of usage and look really really bad. Planning to change to black or grey covers
[2] The wheel caps are much scratched and scarred. I will get Nissan wheel caps during the next service. Alloys and new tyres are still a long way off.
[3] Sun-films planned, but as of now I don't have time or the $$$ to spare for the films due to renovation & interior work going on in the house.