Re: A Peak Summer Southern Odyssey - 5000 Kms Round Trip To Kerala
It was an unusual day in Mumbai - Pune Expressway with a very long queue of vehicles in all the three lines and climbing through the ghat road. Incline of the road is felt this time. There were heavy trucks and other cars parked on the shoulder road too which formed a 4th line.
We saw many cars stopped midway due to over heating. Surprised to see Innovas broke down in the middle of a road. There was a Pajero also with bonnet open. When these cars are stopped infront of us, then it took a hell of an effort to change the line because of bumper to bumper movement in all the lines. Had to change line 5 times due to this.
Temp guage dial has crossed the half mark and I was worried. Switched off AC and continued in 1st gear as advised by my collegue who was the co - driver. I don't know the logic but it worked - 1st gear pull was generating less heat than when we were in 2nd gear.
{It may not be correct but it seemed that FIAT multijet engine was not affected by over heating that day - could not see any Punto, Linea, Swift, Vista, Manza broke down on that stretch. But there were Innovas, i20s, Scorpios, Beat, Alto, Wangon R, Figo, Honda and some other makes too. This is just a quick observation without any basis.}