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Tuljapur - Akkalkot - Pandharapur in my 10.5 year old Fiat Linea Tjet

26th August 2024, 13:45 by Kanad Kalasur

Chose to drive Linea this time since frankly speaking it’s not much fun in Tiago at highway speeds.

BHPian abhi_tjet recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

700 kms Pandharpur trip and Linea’s 10.5 years update

We wanted to revisit Pandharpur from quite some time. I planned a quick trip to Tuljapur - Akkalkot - Pandharapur accordingly since parents too wanted to visit the same.

Chose to drive Linea this time since frankly speaking it’s not much fun in Tiago at highway speeds.

Started around 6 am on 29th June and reached Tuljapur around noon after having a nice breakfast at Vitthal Kamat, Yavat. The place and food was nice with clean washroom and enough parking space. Definitely recommended.

We had a smooth darshan and were on our way towards Akkalkot in couple of hours.

My maiden visit to Tuljabhavani temple

We had lunch here. Place was clean and decent.

Decent parking space

We reached Akkalkot around 4 pm and after wasting some in traffic deadlock, had a nice temple visit and were on our way to Pandharapur. Thanks to the traffic deadlock, it skipped my mind completely to click few pictures here.

The roads were nice throughout with nothing to complain.

We reached Pandharpur with enough daylight to finalise the hotel since both the nearby Bhaktsansthan were full. Finalised an okay’ish hotel with covered parking and close proximity to temple.

We roamed around the city for some time and called it a day.

Woke up early the next day and started for darshan. I am not sure if full darshan is available in warkari time. Accordingly, we had a quick mukh darshan, visited the Chandrabhaga river and were all set for return journey.

Temple vibe

The covered parking

We started around 8 am and were back at home by noon. I opted to use the Phaltan - Lonand - Shirwal- NH48 to return.

A niggle sorted and a new one came

My Tjet had a problem of fuel smell coming in cabin sporadically since 2022. I had shown this couple of times in workshop but it never was completely fixed.

I too used to ignore since it was rare and only comes during extreme hot weather.

However, with time and specially since past few weeks, it was becoming severe. So, I took it to Anil a day prior to my Pandharpur trip.

He quickly diagnosed this to aging gasket in fuel tank which is used to seal the opening available under rear seats. A new gasket was put and issue was gone. So, this was fixed. However, a new small issue has popped which needs to be looked after.

Linea’s rear left window had a problem in going up/down which was first found in year 2021. I got it repaired during one of the yearly service and it was fine since then. Until it failed without any warning during our return from Pandharapur to home.

Luckily, it didn’t rained much and weather was ok during our return trip on 30th June. After reaching home, I made a quick dash to nearby garage and asked them to just move the glass up and remove the connection so someone can’t use it accidentally.

I am planning to get the alternator repaired proactively and will fix this issue along with it.

It’s all good apart from these updates. This car is hoot to drive and ride-handling combination is just splendid.

Monsoon effect