Drove the Thar from Bengaluru to Igatpuri; 2,300 km drive observations

Igatpuri is a special place in the Thar story, and it was nice to drive my SUV to that place!

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Few Road Trips and Other Updates

It has been a while since I updated this thread. So thought of sharing a few updates now.

Since the last update (trip to Chikmagalur and Sakleshpur described above), I did a few drives in Thar. We did a trip to Mahabalipuram with a "family and friends group", and took Thar because we wanted to try out some new internal roads. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos in that drive to share here.

Drive to Igatpuri, MH:

However, a drive that was more interesting for Thar was a drive to Pune, and then to Igatpuri, MH. We rented a bungalow in Igatpuri, near a lake, and had a family vacation there.

Break at Apoorva Resorts, Davangere (our usual spot for breakfast breaks) on our way to Pune:

After spending a few days in Pune, and after working from my Pune office, we drove on to Igatpuri for a family reunion at a beautiful bungalow there.

Igatpuri also happens to be the birthplace of Thar. Thar is manufactured in Mahindra's plant in Igatpuri. Igatpuri was also a place where I attended the Mahindra Offroading Academy training course back in 2018. That was the first time I ever drove a Thar, although that was the older generation. Thus, Igatpuri is a special place in the Thar story, and it was nice to drive the Thar to that place!

From Pune to Igatpuri, we had to drive on Samruddhi expressway for about 50km. It was a funny experience driving Thar on the Samruddhi expressway. Thar is clearly out of place on such a fast, flat highway. But the speed limit is 120 km/h, and I put cruise control for a few clicks below that (around 117-118km/h), and cruised the entire distance on cruise control. There was absolutely no traffic on Samruddhi, and we hardly saw any other cars.

Driving the wrong car on Samruddhi?:

In Igatpuri, we had rented a bungalow through "Stay Vista", called "Stay Vista La Mer" bungalow. My family members joined there. This is a beautiful 5-bedroom bungalow and comes with complete caretaker staff that prepare and serve awesome local cuisine, and full service in general. We had a great time in this bungalow.

Dusty at "La Mer", before my other family members arrived in their cars:

There is a large lake nearby, with plenty of open spaces around the lake where I could take my Thar. My nephews wanted to experience some off-roading in Thar, so I took them to a place near the lake. They were thrilled. It was an amazing experience for the Mumbai city boys to get an off-roading ride in Thar, and they loved it to the core! We had a great time together there.

Dusty on a lake:

Although the lakeside land looked flat, we had to descend a small hill to reach there. My nephews never thought it was possible to descend that hill in a vehicle, and when we did that easily in 4H, they were thrilled!

However, as soon as reached the lakeside land, I realized it was all mud and slush and Thar started getting stuck and wheels started spinning. I had to put it in 4L, and then it slowly moved around in that mud without getting stuck. But it did make a lot of noise and threw the mud up to a level even higher than the roof of Thar, and created a lot of drama as it moved there. 4L clearly saved me there, and the whole scene was a thrilling drama for my nephews who enjoyed it.

The mud! 4L saved the day here:

Overall, it was a fun trip. When we drove back to Bangalore, the total trip was about 2300km! We loved this trip and our family time in Igatpuri. This got a lot of attention from my family members, and the small off-road excursion became a talking point in my family, especially the kids.

Niggles and Other Updates:

Coming back to the niggles and issues, let me update you on that strange beeping sound that I reported some time ago. Thankfully, it never came back again! Since then, I have driven more than 4,000km, and that strange beeping sound never came again. So hopefully it was just a random error and it is gone.

However, another niggle had surfaced since then, and thankfully, that got resolved too.

Petrol Smell in Cabin (Resolved): I was getting petrol smell in the cabin on some occasions, starting a few months ago. Initially, it was just on some random occasion, and it would go away on its own. So I did not care much.

However, recently, it started getting more frequent. I noticed that the smell was strong when I had about half or less than half tank full - that meant a lot more sloshing around of petrol in the tank, and a lot of evaporation and vapours.

So I went to check with my Service Advisor. I was worried about some fuel leak in the engine bay like my friend @abirnale discovered in his XUV7OO. The service centre inspected the engine bay thoroughly, with me standing next to it, and there was absolutely no leak anywhere there. The engine bay was clean and dry. There was no petrol stain or smell anywhere there. It all looked fine.

They also checked the fuel vapour canister and that was also all fine.

Then they checked the next suspect - the fuel filler lid/cap - and voila, the O-ring in that had gone bad and the seal was poor. Clearly, the smell was coming from the fuel cap. It was leaking vapours. That is why the smell was stronger when the fuel tank was half full or less. A lot of sloshing and vapours there in half tank, and those vapours were leaking out from the fuel cap.

I also Googled it and found that a leaking fuel cap is one of the common sources of fuel smell in the cabin.

The solution was quite simple. They ordered a new fuel lid for me (it was not in stock). And once the part arrived, they changed the lid. And now the petrol smell is completely gone!

Although they fixed this problem well and it was all OK, they made a comical error. They installed a fuel cap that says "Diesel" instead of "Petrol" on top of it. The cap is exactly the same, but it comes with two different labels, and they put one with the wrong label.

Anyways, a friendly fuel pump attendant at my usual fuel pump put a green "Petrol" sticker on top, and for now it looks fine. I am ordering the correct cap from Bodomo myself (it is available there) and will put it once I get it.

New Fuel Cap with "Petrol" Sticker attached:

Anyway, it is all good for now because the petrol smell is completely gone with this new fuel filler cap!

BTW, I also got new wipers installed when I went to the service centre for the fuel cap.

So with that, Dusty is all fine now. I have a few "monsoon drives" planned in Thar (and the new wipers will get used a lot there), and I am eagerly looking forward to those. I will update this thread again after those monsoon drives!

Till then, this is all. Thank you very much for reading!

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