Quick Update on my recent trip to hometown
Hello Everyone,
For Gauri Ganpati Festival, I had a trip planned to my hometown which is 500 KMS from Pune (Akola in MH state). This time I was very excited as this will be another long drive for me with my Rapid. Also, I was a little nervous as we had our grandma as a company who is 94 years old.
So we had 3 generations in my car that day. First- my 4 years old daughter. Second - Me and my wife and third – Grandma.
Now this was real test of my driving and rear seat comfort.
Preparations for the Trip – Few days back, the front left rim had a bend as I had a very hard hit in one big pot hole when I was returning back from Airport after dropping my friend at 4.30 AM. Though, when it happened I did not realized the extent because of good suspension but when I looked at the rim in day light, I said to myself “Man how can you drive like this” and cursed myself for this mistake. Then did some analysis on how it happened and realized that real culprit was the headlight not me. So immediate action points were
- Get the WA and WB done ASAP with removal of rim bend
- Change / Upgrade the lights
Firstly, I got the WA and WB done at Darshan Tyres Kothrud. Total cost for WA + WB + 90 GMS of Weight + Tyre Rotation + Rim Bend Removal was 400 INR. Very reasonable.
Then started my hunt for Change or Upgrade of the lights. Firstly I thought of upgrading the light to 90/100 bulbs with cutout. Though this is best option for night vision, ruled this out for warranty purpose. So changing the lights was only option. Checked in different forums and zeroed down on Philips Xtreme vision+ 55/60. The cost for a set of 2 is 1200 INR and this has resulted in good though not great night vision. I can say the improvement in night vision is around 20% for me.
Day before the drive, checked the air pressure in all 4 tyres and kept 33 PSI for front and 32 PSI for rear as we had lot of luggage.
Now it was all set for the long drive for me.
We started early in the morning at 5:30 AM sharp to avoid any traffic in Pune. With constant speed of 80-100, we reached Aurangabad at 9 AM sharp. We took a break in Aurangabad as I wanted to visit my friend’s home. We started from Aurangabad at 10.15 AM and reached home at 2.30 PM.
After reaching home, my rapid passed the test for rear seat comfort as it was certified as very good car by grandma. For me it was ultimate test as for her age the rear seats has to be very comfortable. After reaching home, I kissed my Car and thanked Skoda for making a very good product.
Some stats – Total distance covered 502 KMS.
- Total journey time – 9 Hours
- Driving Time excluding breaks – 8 Hours Approx
- Average KM per Hour – 62.75
- Overall FE with 100% AC - 17.8 KMPL
The FE was little less but I would blame bad roads after Aurangabad for this and surprisingly we had to pay toll for those bad road.
One interesting observation I had during this travel. Till Aurangabad with good roads (4 lane with road divider almost all thru the road) I paid toll of around 100 Rs for 250 KMS and for next 250 KMS (2 lane with very bad roads in many patches and mostly not good road) I paid 120 Rs of toll. Was really frustrated with system apathy here. Not sure if all those tolls are authorized or not.
After coming back to Pune, I observed that very quickly the odo has crossed 9000 KM mark. By the time I am writing this review, the odo has reached 9800 KMS. So eagerly waiting for first milestone of 10K KMS for my Rapid.
