[hemanth.anand]

This is how we started the new year-By crossing landmarks!


72999


63 months, 73K Kms

[Rover2000]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

This is how we started the new year-By crossing landmarks!

Attachment 1455394
72999

Attachment 1455395
63 months, 73K Kms

Even the timing seems to be almost perfect to your milestone 7:33 --> 73K. Happy Motoring in 2016!
I am very tempted to post something similar! six months with the EVO Sports and it was pure coincidence that I looked into the speedo and I had to click it.

10K at 10:00

[hemanth.anand]

I was thinking of changing my car since around 6 months. Abarth punto was a perfect fit to my requirement.
financially too, I was prepared for the cost. After test drive, I even got my car valued.

One last thing was remaining...my better half's approval.
I got a conditional approval from her on our 6th wedding anniversary and when my Punto completed 5 years.
She told me that we can buy the Abarth Punto only after she perfects driving in our current car.
On that day, I couldn't say no. But in fact, it was a calculated risk that we took.

She joined a driving class. On the last day of her class, I went and picked her up. She now wanted to drive the car.
I gave my car to her for the first time. I was guiding her slowly sitting in the passenger seat.

She was driving allright till we reached our apartment. The path to our parking slot is a bit tricky and at one point it goes zig zag through some pillars.
At one point she panicked and didn't press the brakes even as I was shouting "brake brake"and hit straight into a pillar

Below is the link to the dashcam video of the incident

http://youtu.be/RP8GC4orqNo

Immediately she started crying and said sorry to me many times. I stopped her from crying and then took it out.

The humorous thing was that, at the nth moment, When I was sure of the impact, I pulled the handbrake.
But I was using my left hand (I forgot I was in the passenger seat)

I got down to access the damage. The car had hit exactly at the pint where we screw in the tow hook.
The bumper cracked, the headlight broke. the bonnet had a dent.
The pillar's plastering had chipped out in that small area.

Luckily for us, she had hit the pillar. There were many other vehicles around.
Also, fortunately, she didn't press the accelerator. She had just left all the pedals.

Since it was around 20kmph, the damage was not very big. It wasn't minor either.


The damage

I assessed it would be around 10K. I decided that if it crosses 15K, I'll claim insurance.
For lesser amounts it would not be worth for two reasons:
1. Most of the damage was for plastic parts. I'd only get 50%
2. NCB would be lost (it is 50% now). Considering that I was planning for a new car, this NCB is a considerable amount.

I took it to Trend on Hosur road the same day. He told that the bumper can be repaired and locally painted.
It was revealed that apart from the visible dimensions, the cross beam between the bumper and the radiator was dented.
This is the part on which the toe hook thread is present. The Toe hook thread boss had pierced the cap on the bumper


The crossbeam that was bent


Toe cap on the bumper pierced by the toe hook thread boss

Headlight and the cross beam had to be replaced and others were minor repair work. He gave me an estimate of 8K (plus the two parts of course)

I contacted Vecto motors for the parts. They told me that it was ordered and will take 3 days to arrive.
Over that, the cars already in their service centre would be finished first and then if the part is still remaining, I'll be given that part.
I immediately contacted KHT motors and it was available. Immediately I purchased the part for around 2.5K

The headlight on my car was smoked. So I didn't purchase the normal headlight.
I ordered it form Kava automobiles in Mumbai for another 2.5K . It took 3 days to come.
I gave these two parts to to trend who started work immediately. The 2-day work took 4 days because of Sankranti festival and a Sunday.

Finally last week, I brought back my car home. the quality of work is very good.
Any person who doesn't know of this accident, will not be able to make out anything. The total damage to my pocket was 14k.


Back to being new

The difficult task now is to get my wife back to driving.


The current key had a lot of scratches. I had ordered a Key shell to replace it.
It arrived a day before I brought back my car. So I took that key shell and got it also painted to my car's colour.
After that, when I tried replacing it, its not a simple job.
Toughest part was to remove the transponder form the existing key. I didn't want to damage the original key shell.
I took 2 days to carefully remove the transponder from the key shell without damaging both.

After this, I realised that the mechanical key is not an exact fit. there was a small design change.
I had to get it duplicated. I got it made near my house for 300/-
So key shell and mechanical key was new one. The transponder and the PCB was carried over from the original.
The Abarth logo for the key which completed the look.

I'm now thinking of putting red stripes on the key as well to match it with the car itself


Bosso Novo White Key


Its Different

[hemanth.anand]

A small update. After the incident reported in the previous post, I had got a new headlamp on the driver side. The passenger side headlamp assembly was looking really dull. When I got my January Salary, I ordered a new headlamp for the other side too and got it fixed. now its symmetric

The red stripes on the door had come off in some places on the vehicle.
On a lazy saturday, I took out the car to the same shop in JC road area and got new stripes on the door. its as good as new.

From him, I got some red stickers which he would anyway throw away. With that I made this update to the key



My phone is also white and I told my wife that I was thinking of putting the same stripes on that too.
My Wife replied that I could also put it on my forehead and roam around.
So the phone has been spared for now!

[shk 8896]

Great going Hemanth brother!
Your car is one of the best looking Puntos in India. And after the misery of the 1.2 Fire, you deserve Abarth! :P
One suggestion to you - when you change the car please switch the wheels on this car to abarth. Looks a lot better than the Indianised 16 inches
Cheers
Sreehari

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by shk 8896

Great going Hemanth brother!
Your car is one of the best looking Puntos in India.

Thanks shk 8896

And after the misery of the 1.2 Fire, you deserve Abarth! :P

more than myself, everyone I meet or everyone I talk to about cars, have already decided that my next car is an Abarth Punto!
Although I am interested in it, or may even buy it when I change this one, but nothing has been finalised as yet

One suggestion to you - when you change the car please switch the wheels on this car to abarth. Looks a lot better than the Indianised 16 inches
Cheers
Sreehari

If I finally buy the Abarth, that's what will most probably happen. Along with that, logos on the doors and the passenger side dashboard present in mine will also change places.
Selling those 16 inchers will not be a problem too.

[hemanth.anand]

Last month, I was out of the country for 2 weeks on official work.

Took this time to detail my car. I had given it to a friend of mine who does freelance detailing. Since he is a freelancer, we agreed that he
He came home and collected the vehicle from my home.

On the way, the car reached another milestone. It was in our deal that he had to send these photos to me


73999


74000
you may ignore the FE shown here, but that is about the average FE I've got in city conditions all these years!

It was more than 2 years since my car had undergone any detailing. It was a paint sealant treatment in 3M at that time.
After that, with frequent wiping, there were lot of swirl marks. And thanks to the ultra-wide tyres, tar marks were plenty and not to mention, there were infinite number of micro-scratches all over the body.
So, this time, I opted for the costlier and better quartz treatment.

After a week, I returned back and collected the vehicle.
The work done was immaculate and my car was at its glossy best!
The change was so huge that my wife couldn't believe that it was our car.
I've not been able to do a proper photo shoot but below are some snaps that he had captured on his phone and sent to me via Whatsapp.


Bonnet Before and After


Roof Before and After


Rear Door


Front left fender


Front right fender


ORVM


Bonnet


Mirror Daytime 1


Mirror Daytime 2


Mirror Night time 1


Mirror Night time 2


Shining!


Glossy


Front view


Rear View

[hemanth.anand]

The car has not been munching miles like it use to when it was young.
Last month however it saw crossed two 1000Km milestones, thanks to a 900+Kms trip. I'll just put up a mini travelogue of that.

It was a quick trip to Sirsi to attend a wedding of my colleague 2 weeks ago
The colleague who got married is a popular guy and hence 20 people in 5 cars were driving from Bangalore were driving to attend his wedding.

The wedding was on Sunday. Added to it, the summer was is at its hottest and harshest in the state.
So my plan was simple. Drive north to Sirsi on Saturday, attend the wedding and drive back on Sunday.
Totally 8 people were with this plan, so 2 cars-My Punto 1.2 and a Celerio AMT drove to this plan
And not to forget, the bachelor party on Saturday night!

Some of my other adventurous colleagues drove on Friday night and stayed at Dharwad.
They planned to finish Rafting in Dandeli on Saturday Morning and join us for the party.
This included an Accent and a Punto 1.3

One i20 elite drove to Dharwad to a colleague's home and joined us for the party

On Saturday morning I got up leisurly at 8AM, got ready, finished breakfast and left home by 9:30.
Enroute filled up petrol at shell and swept the city's ORR picking up four colleagues and reached nelamangla by 11:00 AM
The Celerio started from Electronic city by 10:00 and reached Nelamangala 5 minutes later.
We had decided to meet up at Nelamangala and drive together with maximum 4 people in a car.
But the 5 people in my car were not very uncomfortable and they told me to drive on till the Celerio actually catches up.
It finally caught us up at noon at Tumkur where we had a small tea break on the highway.

At Nelamangala, my car celebrated its Diamond Jubilee-the 75K Kms


Diamond Jubilee

From here on it was a straight 3+ hour dash on NH48(new) till Ranebennur Kamath restaurant. The empty and hot roads made sure that we didn't stop anywhere in between.
After lunch, we drove on this NH48 till Haveri, where we exit the highway and join a state highway. A small cool-drink break and fuel-top-up for the car and we continued our journey towards Sirsi
This state highway was also very good except that it didn't have any medians and it had marked speed-breakers once in a while

After a place called Dasanakoppa, the width of the road reduced further but still was very good. The road passed through a forest area making the drive beautiful

By 5:30PM, we reached the place where our stay was arranged by the groom.
It was a rustic looking and neatly maintained basic home-stay called Ajji mane


The stay


The view from the portico


Parking


Ajji Mane translates to Granny's home


Light and Dark!


Prayers


Another view of the house


Lonely Jack


Almost ripe


Bikeboy

We relaxed till sunset. The caretaker of this home-stay told us about a sunset point nearby.
Not everyone was interested to go. I took my car with 3 others and we went to take some photographs


End of the day


On the hands


Sunflower!


Sun and the Scorpion


Orange to red


Hindsight


Soft off-roading

After the Sun had set, our party began and it went on till 2AM the next day. We had to finish by 2 since we had to attend the wedding
I couldn't sleep for long and was up by 6:30AM. We were all ready by 9:00AM.

5 people in one car went to the Marikamba temple before me.
I waited till others got ready and all of us finished Breakfast and by 9 we too went to the Sirsi Marikamba temple.


Growl!


Some art on the temple wall


Orange


Famous temple of the town

Later we headed to the wedding place which is a small village called Kotemane ~30kms away from Sirsi.
We took 40 minutes to reach this place.


Some help with directions

The wedding was a typical Havyaka style wedding in a centuries old house. a rustic and traditional setting. Simple yet beautiful.
The food was again delicious and traditional. The groom's family made sure that we eat till our throats


Temple bells


Tunnel house


Other end of the tunnel


The traditional plantain tree Mantap


Mehendi


Together for life

After a photo with the couple which was accompanied with all noise (After all we were the biggest group and we had to show it), it was time to leave.

It was 2PM and we all started together. The temperatures ensures we stopped soon. we stopped at Yekkambi for a tender coconut and continued our drive.

While returning all of them exchanged cars and drove all of the cars turn by turn. this ensured that the drive was slow.
but never did we stop for too long. By the time we reached Kamath Upachar at Dabaspete, it was 8PM.

After an hour for dinner, we sat in cars based on the drop locations.
By 10 PM, we had reached Nelamangala and I had to drop colleagues around Bangalore and I reached home by 11:15PM and the ODO stood at 25940Kms
for the next 3 days the car didn't move an inch. On 21st took the car to office and while returning home, It crossed the 76K mark


76K

[hemanth.anand]

Last weekend I had been to Mysore to attend a function and on Saturday we went on a quick drive to BRHills
Accompanying my car were 4 other Puntos of my colleagues
The entire trip from Bangalore to Bangalore was around 570Kms
During the return leg of the journey late on Saturday, the car crossed 77000Kms.


Whitewash!


76999


77000

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Accompanying my car were 4 other Puntos of my colleagues

Four other Puntos of colleagues? And that too, looks like they are aspiring to have the same Abarth style as your car as well. Initially thought it's Photoshop, but then realized that all three cars are different. Lol

Congrats on crossing the 75k mark. Hope you cover more miles now, since the upgrade plans have been put on hold.

[nkrishnap]

Sujai, its 77000 mark not 75000. Man you need some rest, continuous work is taking toll on you.

As soon as he shared in the Whatsapp group, it was clear that it was different cars.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Four other Puntos of colleagues? And that too, looks like they are aspiring to have the same Abarth style as your car as well. Initially thought it's Photoshop, but then realized that all three cars are different. Lol

In fact there are 9 fiats in my department (including the department head)
Actually the doors are not open; or else you would've have seen stripes on all three. although no two stripes are same.

from 1.2,1.3 & 1.4 in Punto to 1.3 & 1.4 in Linea, we have almost all
However, I have suggested/influenced and referred a sale for only one of those.
And co incidentally all are Grande Puntos and Lineas. there are no Evos

Congrats on crossing the 75k mark. Hope you cover more miles now, since the upgrade plans have been put on hold.

Thank you. Slowly but surely, the ODO is moving up.

[Vik0728]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

In fact there are 9 fiats in my department (including the department head)

from 1.2,1.3 & 1.4 in Punto to 1.3 & 1.4 in Linea, we have almost all

Awesome update Hemanth and as I have always maintained, one of the best looking Punto in town.

What makes this even more unique and an almost collector's item is the fact that this is probably the only 1.2L Petrol engine that is running on 17's !!

So now that your HM has approved and that you have almost all variations of Fiat in and around your circle, its time to get the most potent of the portfolio bro:

Evo Abarth

[hemanth.anand]

The car crossed 78000 beginning of this month





My brother in law was using my car for around 20 days for his daily office trips-each day 50Kms.
Because of this the monthly usage was 1750kms for the month of May 2016

Today, I have ordered hard wiring kit to hard wirew the Dash cam (inspired from DBHPian a4anurag's DYI)
Probably I will hard wire the GPS too
Thats the plan for the American Indipendence day weekend by which all parts should be with me

[hemanth.anand]

On 23rd July My car slowly crossed 79K Kms.


79K in almost 70 months

And during the Long Independence day weekend, I had a family trip totalling to 800Kms, during which, My car crossed the 80000 mark too.


The fat lady is singing!

One problem I've been facing is that the clutch has become pretty hard now.
The 6th service is coming up next month end during which I'll get this issue sorted out.
Some are suggesting that I can go to Salem FASS as they do a very good job compared to the FASS in Bangalore.
Its 250Kms away but roads being good, I'm itching to go there. But nothing has been decided as yet

I'll probably write a small travelogue in the coming days regarding the trip of the Independence day weekend.

A small teaser of a picture is below


Italians