Replaced tubeless tires for the car – a year ago

Published August 1, 2013 10:45 am

Around one year back, I need to replace the tires of my santro vehicles. I had to make couple of choices at that time. Specifically – 1) Workshop 2) tires

I narrowed on bridge-stone tires – and did not evaluate other brands for this. I looked through the bridge-stone workshops through their website, and got quote from 3-4 workshops. Hyundai workshops charge comparatively higher with no discounts for such things and bridge-tone select workshops are better for such work. Different bridge-stone workshops gave different level of discount on the MRP of the tires. Fixing etc is free of cost – as far as I can remember(afair).

I found that banjara hills rd. no 12 workshop gave reasonable quote with 10-15% discount for all four tires. so, I decided to go there on a Sunday morning to get the work done.

I also went through the choice of tube and tubeless tires. Tubeless tires were favored by workshops; Now-a-days, most new cars come with tubeless tires e.g. i10; I came to know that tubeless tires do not deflate immediately after puncture and give some time to reach home or workshop; cost wise both came for almost the same cost. I decided to use tubeless tires.

Workshop did the work in about 45 minutes. I had a choice to load the tires with N2(nitrogen) or air. Workshop manager supported saying N2 saying reduced maintenance – with N2, air pressure need to be checked only once in a month. It can give better mileage. but I was not sure how many petrol pumps give N2 in my locality. I know most of the bunks give air. Hence, I opted to stay with air. That is it. I was up and running with the four new tires for the car.

Since then – it is over a year. During the year – one day boy filling air – at petrol bunk near cyber gate – convinced me to fill N2 at cost of INR 40/- and suggested to check pressure every month with INR 20/-. Seeing that it will reduce weekly maintenance of checking air pressure – I decided to deflate and fill it with N2 that day. It has been over 6 months. – monthly once check – has sufficed. Only hitch here is that I could find only the bunk near cyber gateway, keeping the N2 machine in working condition. Other bunks do not have N2 or there N2 machine is not working often. That may be case in other localities. Having a bunk with N2 in locality is key. Otherwise – N2 has been good for tires and me – it reduced the weekly one visit to monthly one visit.

I also got a tire puncture once. Tire deflated over night in my parking. I took the car to a bridge stone workshop nearby that fixed it in few minutes. Note – local road side tire fixers will likely not have a fix for this. but I have not checked also.

Recently – I faced a major issue. One tire rim seem to have bent – at least that is what each workshop person is telling as the issue. Tire deflates once in a week – It has been a nightmare. With rim having minor issues – tube tires don’t deflate but tubeless tires seems to deflate very often because of air leak. Today – I plan to get the rim replaced and keep the finger crossed to see if that fixes the problem.

In summary – the above has been biggest trouble with tubeless tire. I saw only 1 (afair) puncture during last year; that has been good experience; tube tires faced more punctures in a year. but for the recent issue – I have paid enough visits to workshop. All in all – tubeless tires seem to gone well for me as long as the vehicle rims was not impacted.

I will keep updated on how that goes. How has been your experience with tubeless tires – low on maintenance?

 

A trip to srisailam

Published July 29, 2013 1:20 pm

Today has been a long Friday; nearing an another weekend. What has been long due (a week long due) is the trip to Srisailam last weekend (sat-sun). Soon after coming back, week started and there was no space for leisure writing. Honestly – today is also not leisurely as such. Nevertheless, let’s catch up about the trip to srisailam.

Srisailam is known for its Lord Shiv template and the dam. My brother had planned the trip along with 3 of his friends. so – total 5 families (including my family) were travelling. My brother was looking into booking a small bus – 20 seater – mazda kind. He could find one @ INR 16 per km with min. 300km per day plus driver allowance of INR 350/- per day. That came to roughly INR 10k for two days trip. He booked the bus. We had the alternative to drive into 3-4 cars.

Little bit on the car vs bus for the trip. Srisailam roughly clocks 230-240km from Hyderabad. Cars would have cost in petrol little bit more if we take 4 cars. Cars would be less jerky while bus kept giving vibration massage to the body even when we were on reasonably good road. Bus was in good condition but certainly it’s not Volvo. Car drive would have been driving pleasure on ORR stretch of the journey but won’t be fun beyond that. Especially the 70-80km ghat road drive won’t be pleasure to drive for most beings. Bus gave plenty of room for kids to sleep, dance, breath. since we were only 16 members including kids – they could sleep at times taking a full birth. Bus could run at reasonably ok speed but not on par with car. so, it took 1-2 longer.

overall – for the crowd we had – bus worked out ok. If we could have worked out a bus with better suspension – it would have been ideal.

As instructed – we were ready for pickup at 6:15am. First surprise – DRIVER did not wake up on time. He woke up when my brother called him. With that, we started from our place at roughly 7:30am. We have to do one more pick up point for rest of us and were on ORR by roughly by 9am. I have done the couple of hours research for the drive. google map gives reasonably simple and good route for this. All one need to remember is to take exit 14 on ORR and get on srisailam highway. Thereafter, simply stay on srisailam highway (refered as SH in google route). That’s it.

I have taken light breakfast. but not all in the group. so, we were looking for place to breakfast. Bus need to fill the tank as well. On ORR exit 14, we took left into town – filled the tank in the nearby bunk. Petrol pump guy told us that a hut kind – dosa/idly place – on this road. This is almost close to the left turn on town road after ORR exit 14. There was good crowd of people eating idly, dosa, vadas. We also took a rough count, and took our tokens. Place was decent, and food ok. Finished our breakfast and got back on srisailam highway which is right turn after ORR exit 14. I do not exactly remember the turn. need to get on srisailam highway here.

Soon on the highway, we saw engineering college, a resort banyan retreat on the highway. At the beginning of the highway, there was works for the divider. It may get built for the future. but currently it is two lane highway with no divider. so, night driving should certainly be avoided.

There after, we took no break and straight stop at Dhindi project WP_001549on seeing a dam like wall structure on the road side. There was a stone marking its name ‘Dhindi Project’. Otherwise, it was hard to recognize what that was. Wall WP_001548has decent height but there was no water there. Nice view. There was a small shop selling chips, colas etc. We took some, and moved on.

Soon,WP_001566 forest area started; and we started seeing trees on either side of the road. We stopped on the marking of ‘Tiger Project’ at Farahabad. WP_001565We did not want to take long break here so that we can reach Srisailam in time. We inquired about the place; it runs safari rides up to 4PM; private vehicles are not allowed; the ride organizer have commander jeeps and cost for 6 person INR 800/- ; trip lasts for 1-1:30 hrs. We decided to take safari ride in the return route. more on this – little later.

Kids wanted to sit on top of the tiger statue here. we took some snaps and moved. Srisailamhighway – I found to be very straight (no curves) until we hit ghat road. For long long, we could see road straight. Traffic was also sparse. Good that not many are driving here. It saves the nature. Where ever tourism increases, nature decreases generally.

Well – since the post was going long – I have to break here. Today, I wanted to finish this and post. It’s good that I had written some while everything is fresh in memory; slowly the level of detail evaporates. I will try to capture as much I could still remember.

WP_001573We came to know that there is a good waterfall before we reach srisailam. It is called – MallelaTheertham waterfall. It is around 8-9km diversion from the highway route to srisailam and the road is also mud road. There was enough crowd we saw at the waterfall. Whether the waterfall is worth the extra time & diversion, well it depends. If you have time, it’s worth a visit. Good thing about this is it is in jungle/nature surroundings.

Few things about the place:

  1. be careful. the water is quite deep. Unless you areexpert swimmer, it is good not to swim across to go to below the waterfall.
  2. There is a pathway from the rocks to get below the waterfall. It is steep but doable. With kids, need to be extra careful. The rocks below the waterfall – are slippery and adventuring there with a kid in lap etc. may not be safe.
  3. If you ever go there – place will look for your respect for the sanctity of the place; no plastic pl.
  4. Old ladies (from local village) sell some berry kind of fruit for INR 10/-. It is not much tasty. but you may want to buy to give it a try and/or support to the local old ladies.

We had one daring swimmer in the group. He confidently swim across. He later narrated that even at  side, he has to “pull himself” up as ground was deep. My son was adamant to get below the waterfall. Hence, I discovered the rocky pathway to get below the waterfall. My daughter was also helped by one lady under the waterfall to take a shower of the waterfall. WP_001572We ended up spending hour+ here. One more thing – after parking the vehicle – there is around 250 odd steps to get to the waterfall.

We took a stroll back to the bus; crossed the mud road, and stopped immediately after getting to the highway for Lunch at nearby dhaba.

I need to break here and get back home. There is 1.5 days worth of more trip to discuss.  More as soon as I can get back.

I was sharing in the wordpress youmayneedthis blog earlier. This being the first post – on its domain – is special. Domain is new but the idea remains same – that is – about things that you may need to do some day. In the spirit of sharing – I look forward to continue sharing tit bits of things I do, and you may need to do some day.