Taking our new Jimny AT on its 1st trip to the hills: Drive experience

Fuel efficiency was 12.6 km/l on the MID & 11.7 km/l via the tank-to-tank method.

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Our White Zeta AT arrived at NEXA GMS Road. (Here's why we chose the AT over the MT transmission)

The delivery experience was normal. NEXA didn't insist on anything that I did not want. Insurance was as per my choice and I could avail of the 50% NCB from my old policy. The only delay in getting the car (7 days from paying the money) was the inefficient RTO at Dehradun. All in all pretty good.

After driving it around the city and a run to the airport we made a weekend trip to Kanatal which is about 70 km from Dehradun (see attached map). The road is all mountains and sometimes the surface is poor. It was raining all the time and plenty of landslides on the way. There was also a lot of fog and I sorely missed fog lamps.

3 passengers and weekend luggage. The car performed superbly. There was no issue anywhere about losing power while climbing uphill, no issues in doing hair-pin-bends, the steering returned to the centre and did not need correction, and the AT worked like a charm - the only time it hunted for gears was when I gave an extra throttle input. Drove 95% with the OverDrive button ON and I did not feel the loss of power.

While returning to Dehradun there had been major landslides and the car overcame all the bad patches effortlessly. Then there was a road block near Mussoorie and we had to take a very narrow and steep path through town to reach the main highway. This was so cool in the Jimny because of its small size and great view. Here the AT was a boon because I had to constantly stop and move as there was local traffic on the road.

Jimny near Suwakholi. Thick fog

As a habit, I turn OFF the Engine A-Stop button after starting the car because it just doesn't help most of the time.

I'm running on stock tyres at the recommended 26 PSI and it's doing fine. The only accessories are floor mats and mud flaps, although I'm planning to get fog lamps installed soon.

There was a fair bit of interest in the Jimny up in the hills where people had not seen the car - policemen on duty, hotel staff, co-travellers, chai walla, selfie groups on the Mussoorie road, etc. were all pretty excited to see the car and appreciate it. Plenty of Thars along the way, but I did not notice any undue behaviour.

Rear seat-belt fix - enough of us have cried over this and as someone mentioned 'clips' can be used to put off the alarm when no passenger is travelling. I had an old seat belt from my Qualis which I've modified such that the seat can also be folded. I have to find one more clip and do the same for the other side. Photos will explain.

The green pouch you see on the rear seat head restraint is an old part of a camera bag that fits well there and provides space for nick-nacks.

The ODO reads around 350km. FE - 12.6 as per the MID and 11.7 as per the tank full method. Of the 350 I'd guess about 100 in the city (slow heavy traffic typical of Dehradun at certain times - especially weekends) with AC; 150 in the mountains without AC (slow speeds due to fog and road conditions) and 100 mixed city and some straight roads with AC.

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