[shrk_18]

Great thread and drool worthy pictures Dr.AD. I keep following your travelogues and also of your friends, amazing drives you guys do and capture great pictures you capture !!!

I keep telling @abirnale, I hope to join you guys someday for a drive, not sure if I can keep up with you guys

[pranavGTI]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Solo Drive and Explorations with Dusty

Hello Dr.AD!

Wow, I absolutely loved reading and was captivated by these beautiful pictures of empty forest roads! . And that your Dusty is just as impressive! A perfect companion for such drive and beautifully complements the already amazing landscapes.

I'm in awe of your solo journeys and you’ve inspired me again. I did my first long solo drive two months ago. I drove 1100 kms from Pune to my hometown with a night halt at Kolhapur and I completely enjoyed my own company and moments with my car.

Thank you for sharing these moments and keep those incredible pictures coming!

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Some views from the side of the road while driving to Yercaud (I think that is Mettur Dam backwaters, but I am not 100% sure):

This is definitely some other lake. Mettur dam (Stanley reservoir) is large, and the wall is more than a kilometer long. It would still look big when viewed from this distance.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by shrk_18

Great thread and drool worthy pictures Dr.AD. I keep following your travelogues and also of your friends, amazing drives you guys do and capture great pictures you capture !!!

Thank you very much, shrk_18!

Originally Posted by pranavGTI

Wow, I absolutely loved reading and was captivated by these beautiful pictures of empty forest roads! . And that your Dusty is just as impressive! A perfect companion for such drive and beautifully complements the already amazing landscapes.

Thank you very much!

I'm in awe of your solo journeys and you’ve inspired me again. I did my first long solo drive two months ago. I drove 1100 kms from Pune to my hometown with a night halt at Kolhapur and I completely enjoyed my own company and moments with my car.

Nice! Glad you did your own solo drive and enjoyed it. Solo drives are incredible fun, and once one gets to appreciate the beauty of solo drives, that can quickly become a nice hobby. Wish you many more nice drives with your car!

This is definitely some other lake. Mettur dam (Stanley reservoir) is large, and the wall is more than a kilometer long. It would still look big when viewed from this distance.

I think you maybe right. This must be some other lake. Searching in the maps, I felt this could be the tail end of the Mettur dam water reservoir (the other end of the water body from where the actual dam/wall is not visible), but it could also be something totally different.

[naj]

Good Day,
Reference city mileage, please could you share your fugues. There are many figures doing rounds from 6 to 9 km/lit. With 100% AC, please guide what could be expected city consumption in slow moving and bumper to bumper traffic conditions.
Many thanks in advance -
Naj

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by naj

Reference city mileage, please could you share your fugues. There are many figures doing rounds from 6 to 9 km/lit. With 100% AC, please guide what could be expected city consumption in slow moving and bumper to bumper traffic conditions.

I plan to write a detailed post on my observations about FE later, but for now, let me answer your question in short.

I get about 5km/l to 6km/l in the conditions you mentioned (100% AC, slow moving and bumper to bumper traffic).

I have not done too many tankfuls only in city to precisely answer this. But on my very first full tank, after taking the new Thar, that was the only time when the entire tank of fuel was used only in the bumper to bumper traffic in the city. That time I got only 4.9km/l, measured by tankful to tankful method.

Later, I never did entire tank in the city. But a couple of city+highway drives returned 6.9km/l and 6.7 km/l. Pure highway drives return about 9km/l. This indicates that pure city mileage is just about 5km/l (which brings the average of mixed city+highway driving conditions to about 7km/l).

The MID is useless since it shows wrong numbers (overestimates the FE). Above observations are with tankful to tankful measurements and I always drive with AC on.

Hope this answers your query.

[Dr.AD]

Drive to Pune, with a detour around Satara

I had to visit Pune last week for some work, and decided to drive Thar instead of taking a flight. This would be my first long highway drive in the Thar, and I wanted to check out how the Thar feels on the long highways. This was also a solo drive.

On those smooth and fast six-lane highways, the Thar does feel out of place. I kept on missing my BMW on those highways. However, once I got used to this slow driving on those highways where I have been regularly driving for last 15 years, in relatively faster cars, it was all fine then. Once I purposefully forgot my previous speeds and times on that highway, and mentally accepted the speed of the Thar, then it was actually fun. I drove at slow speeds and just enjoyed the landscapes and scenery, and the lovely monsoon weather. I also used cruise control quite a lot on this highway, and it was quite useful in many sections.

Further, once the six-lane portion was over, and I was tackling the road work sections and the diversions from Belgaum till Satara, the Thar was quiet at home there. I had driven on this highway just 2 months ago, and that time there were only two diversions in this section. But now, just in last 2 months, the road widening work has started on a massive scale, and there are continuous diversions and some bad road sections between Belgaum and Satara. I felt it was more painful in the return direction from Satara till Belgaum. In those sections, one can not drive fast anyways, and the Thar was quite useful there in tackling the speed breakers and occasional bad patches on the diversions.

It was raining on and off throughout this drive, and the rain intensity at time was very heavy. I got to experience all weather conditions, from torrential rains to mild drizzles, and from dark clouds to sunny patches, all in this one drive both ways.

Somewhere on the way near Dharwad, when I stopped for a quick lunch break:


Instead of driving straight to Pune (which would have been quite boring in the Thar), I decided to take a break in Satara, and drove on the roads leading toward Kaas Plateau, and explored some view points along that road.

Although that road is again butter smooth and deserves a better (faster with good handling) car, there are plenty of hill view points on both sides of the road, and the Thar was perfect there. With Thar, I could go a bit off the road and explore these view points and locations along the road. Most of these view points overlook water bodies (backwaters of dams) and offer amazing views!

Somewhere near Satara, overlooking the water of Kanger Dam:



View from the windshield:



And from the side window:



Another view of Thar which was totally at home at that location:



It was sunset time, and a few rays of the sun managed break out of the dark clouds:



Another view of the Thar:



The Thar was nicely covered in the mud and dust now, true to her name, "Dusty":



At another location now, this time overlooking Urmodi Dam:



Dusty covered in mud:



The spare wheel and the entire back was covered in fine mud (it was pain to open the tailgate; my hand got dirty whenever I touched the tailgate door handle):



At yet another location:



These plateaus had a lot of mud and wet grass, but it was no problem at all for Dusty:



The 4x4 badge, covered in mud, but having 4x4 was very useful on such muddy terrain:



A parting shot at those lovely hills before I headed back to Satara:


Once I reached Pune, it was fun to have the Thar with me in Pune. The driving conditions in Pune were not the best (expected given the monsoon conditions), with a lot of potholes, muddy and wet patches, and in general bad roads in the areas where I had to drive. But thanks to Thar, driving in those conditions was actually fun!

For the first time in my driving around in the monsoon months in Pune, I was not afraid of water logging (which is always a worry while driving my BMW there). However, apart from a few small puddles here and there, I did not face any water logging anywhere.

Thar was a lot of fun in Pune in another way. My family in Pune and friends were all intrigued by this "Jeep" (as they kept on calling it) , and they all wanted to ride with me. Thar got even more attention and affection than my BMW ever got in Pune.

My father was thrilled to see the Thar, and I took him for a small trip to a hill nearby. He loved riding in the Thar. He is still quite fit for his age, and for him, getting in and out of the Thar was not a big problem. In fact, he loved it so much that he asked my mother to join for a ride too. I was worried about how both of them will fit in the Thar. But my father volunteered to sit in the back seat, and to my pleasant surprise, he was easily able to enter the back seat and was quite comfortable there. So I took my parents for a short ride, and they both loved it!

Given that my father can so easily enter the backseat and sit there comfortably now, any thoughts of removing the back seat (as I had mentioned previously) are gone now. I am now convinced that I can actually take my parents for a long drive in Thar, and given how excited they were and how they enjoyed the Thar, that plan is certainly on for sometime soon.

My friends in Pune wanted to ride with me too, and everyone was curious and intrigued about this vehicle. There was one funny story that happened. I and two of my co-founders in our company (the three of us represent the management of our company) had to attend a business dinner at JW Marriott Pune. We usually take another car there, but this time, those two decided to join in my Thar. So there we were, all three of us in formal business suits, arriving at JW Marriott in a fully dirty and muddy Thar! But they enjoyed it and the dirty Thar did look like a special vehicle to arrive in for such an occasion.

Of course, even for this dinner ride, since we were three of us, one of my colleagues had to go in the backseat, and he was able to go in and was quite comfortable there once he managed to go back. This also reinforced the thought that the backseat is actually useful for an occasional ride with more than two people.

Given the weather conditions and the dusty and muddy roads everywhere, the Thar was fully dirty throughout this trip. I did not get it washed anywhere because I knew it would get dirty again in no time, and there was no point washing it. Moreover, I must admit it that I actually started liking the looks of the dirty Thar. It gives it a nice character while driving on the road.

Dusty, fully covered in dust, while getting refueled:


Anyways, it was a fun trip. The return journey was simple and uneventful, but as expected by now, slow!

A customary shot near Suvarna Vidhan Saudha in Belgaum while on the way back:


Next on agenda now is a thorough car wash before anything else.

By the way, thanks to the relaxed cruising on those highways, I got a mileage of about 9.7km/l, measured tankful to tankful, for this entire drive! That is the highest I have achieved in Thar so far, and not bad at all. And the odometer stands at 4470km now, in two months since I got this car.

Anyways, that is all for now. Thanks for reading!

[seawolf]

Good morning Doc ,

Traveling within your own nation through the streets remains the optimal way for journeying. It is the nearby routes that ignite me profoundly. It is a lot to explore and educate oneself in our locality than anywhere in the world on this magnificent globe.

Both your cars are a stunner.

[ketan007]

Wow, that was quite an exciting drive!

Great pictures around Satara too. And yes, the Thar looks stunning when covered in mud.

[megazoid]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

[h3]

I and two of my co-founders in our company (the three of us represent the management of our company) had to attend a business dinner at JW Marriott Pune. We usually take another car there, but this time, those two decided to join in my Thar. So there we were, all three of us in formal business suits, arriving at JW Marriott in a fully dirty and muddy Thar! But they enjoyed it and the dirty Thar did look like a special vehicle to arrive in for such an occasion.

I was in splits reading this. Imagined three well dressed gentlemen getting out of a muddy jeep in formal attire and then handing over the keys to a valet to park it carefully (the valet part is just my imagination). I am sure the Marriott men must have mistaken it for a heist.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by seawolf

Both your cars are a stunner.

Thank you very much!

Originally Posted by ketan007

Great pictures around Satara too. And yes, the Thar looks stunning when covered in mud.

Thank you very much!

Originally Posted by megazoid

I was in splits reading this. Imagined three well dressed gentlemen getting out of a muddy jeep in formal attire and then handing over the keys to a valet to park it carefully (the valet part is just my imagination). I am sure the Marriott men must have mistaken it for a heist.

Hahaha. It was almost exactly as you imagined, except for the valet part. I parked the car myself and did not use their valet service. Not because I was worried the valet would mess up with the car (usually that worry is the reason I never give my BMW to a valet), but here, to be honest, I was too embarrassed to give such a dirty car to the valet at JW Mariott where I saw shiny clean BMWs and Audis in their porch! So this was a totally different reason this time than my usual reason for avoiding valet parking.

BTW, this was a proper formal dinner with a CEO of a large foreign company, and all three of us were in full business suits. The funny part was that my colleague's suit got mud on it while getting down from such a dirty car. Poor guy. It was almost impossible to get in and out of the Thar without brushing your suit against the dirty exterior of the door. I had sensed this (I had learned my lesson the hard way), and I removed my jacket and put in the tiny trunk at the back before getting in the driver's seat. But my colleague tried to get in and out of the passenger seat while still wearing his jacket, and got mud on his jacket.

How did I learn that lesson the hard way? Just before this incidence, I had noticed that just a patch on the driver side door looked cleaner than the rest of the car, as if someone had tried to wipe it clean. That was when I realized that all this time, I was accidentally brushing my clothes on that door area while getting in and out, and my clean and ironed formal clothes were cleaning that muddy Thar door all the time.

Life is fun with Thar, one way or the other! As long as we don't take it (the life as well as the Thar) too seriously!

[megazoid]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Somewhere near Satara, overlooking the water of Kanger Dam:

Kanher Dam isnt it AD? btw, That route up toward Mahabaleshwar is a very pretty and engaging drive, more a car turf than an SUV one though.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by megazoid

Kanher Dam isnt it AD?

Oh yes, that is Kanher dam. I did a typo in the name. Sorry about the typo and thanks for correcting me.

That route up toward Mahabaleshwar is a very pretty and engaging drive, more a car turf than an SUV one though.

Thanks for that suggestion. Yes, true. That road is quite nice, and in general, there are some very nice roads in that area. I have some plans of exploring the ghats of Maharashtra over next 2-3 months. Let us see if that pans out.

Yes true that it is a car turf. But the SUV offers some additional options to exit the highway a little bit, and just drive a bit away to some view points and enjoy the viewpoint and the peace, with your vehicle parked right there.

For example, SUV makes possible such experiences as the one I described in my earlier report:

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

It was really a magical experience to be there, at that unexpected and unknown location, all alone by myself and with my car, and enjoying absolutely the perfect weather and the scenery. The breeze was refreshing. The clouds were mesmerizing. The views were gorgeous. I just did not feel like moving away from there. I spent a lot of time just sitting there, lost in my thoughts, and enjoying that priceless experience!

Something that would be obvious to anyone who has driven a lot in India, but something that is striking to me again now after driving around the Thar a bit, is this: Almost all road trips in India, except for the extreme cases (extreme use case for SUVs like some Himalayan terrains, or extreme use case for a fast sedan like the Samruddhi Expressway), offer something where either a sedan or a SUV is useful, in different sections. And there are trade-offs in either case. No road is a pure sedan road and no road is a pure SUV road. If I take my Thar, then I get dead bored on the fast highways, but in return, I can enjoy the bad roads and the viewpoints like I mentioned above. And if I take my BMW, I can have a great fun on those fast highways and even enjoy the fast corners of a nice hilly road, but in return, I have to struggle on the bad roads and have to be careful not to be too adventurous.

Maybe driving a sedan and a hard-core SUV on alternate weekends will end up teaching me some life lessons and make me a philosopher.

[megazoid]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

No road is a pure sedan road and no road is a pure SUV road.

Maybe driving a quintessential sedan and a proper hard-core SUV on alternate weekends will end up teaching me some life lessons and make me a philosopher.

Maybe that is why monocoque raised UVs are so popular. Have ample GC to venture on bad roads but not necessarily engage special hardware, good highway speeds, not overly builky, lots of space, mechanically simple and good bit of gizmos thrown in. May not be a popular choice for apex hunting drivers but there is no denying that this concoction makes travel easy. No wonder they are such a popular choice.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Next on agenda now is a thorough car wash before anything else.

This car wash was desperately needed. Dusty was literally very dusty and dirty, with a layer of dried mud on top. The 1900km drive to Pune and back, all through the rainy and muddy conditions, and no opportunity to wash the car anywhere in that drive had caused this.

Thar was so dirty that someone in our apartment complex did some graffiti on it:


Embarrassed to see that graffiti on Dusty, I took time off from my working day and visited Carzspa in HSR Layout for a thorough car wash. This is one of my preferred places for a car wash.

At Carzspa, showing off the dust and waiting for her turn to get washed:



Another shot to show the new color of Thar (it was hard to believe this was indeed a Black Thar):



Finally, getting a proper wash and I could see the Black color again:



After the first round of high pressure water wash, now getting a foam wash:



All washed and cleaned, now final drying with microfiber cloth:



Nice and clean after a long time:


Carzspa did a great job (as they always do), and the car looks new again. But a Thar can not be kept clean for too long. A clean Thar only means that it needs to be driven again, and taken to another monsoon drive. But Dusty will have to wait for her turn for now. On the next drive I am going to take my BMW, as I am really missing driving the BMW after driving Thar all the way to Pune and back.

[Vicks79]

Hi Doc,
Every time my interest in the Thar starts to wane...I head back to reading your posts. Your Thar trips seem to provide an endless source of inspiration to me.

Me and my wife have already been through three TDs in various pre-worshipped Thars, as of now various reasons are keeping us from going for the final decision. For us this will be a second car, so don't want to rush in. Our "Grogu" Nov 22 XL6 Alpha AT does daily duties quite well but the constant itch for the Thar seems to be following us both keenly.

Just curious if you have had a chance to TD the Jimny AT version. A lot has been said about the superior ride quality of the Jimny vs the Thar. Since you have put in some many Kms in the Thar you should in a good place to test the same.

I think as BoF vehicles, the Thar and Jimny are special in their own ways. Since having owned the XL6, another NA engine with a four speed AT in the Jimny just doesn't inspire confidence. The XL6 ticks all Utility goals with flying colors, but the ride is sedate.

What little TDs done on the Thar, the turbo petrol does have its kicks.