2013 Mahindra Thar long term review fifth report

23,000km report: A 6500km round trip to the Himalayas and back, and some off-roading with the clubs of North India.

Published on Nov 13, 2013 08:48:00 PM

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2013 Mahindra Thar long term review fifth report

I took a few precautions before setting off – I got my friends at Planet Himalaya to organise my stay there (camping and tents), got a jerry can holder and a 20-litre jerry can installed in Mumbai and got an extra spare wheel bolted onto the floor at the back. The rear seats were taken out too (they are held in place by around 18 bolts and the rattling would have killed the trip). I carried a spare clutch hose – it’s in an exposed position and if cut, the clutch would have packed up. I also disconnected the already malfunctioning air-mass sensor – low-rev responses improved instantly, the downside being a bit of black smoke and a lit emissions light on the instrument cluster. Oh, I also installed a 12-volt socket for the GPS unit I was carrying – I don’t know why Mahindra skimps on this most basic of necessities.

Some of the places we were going to are desolate, I had no backup and if we broke down or even ran out of fuel, it would be disaster. The thing with driving in the Himalayas is, if you take the less travelled routes, chances are there won’t be proper fuel. There’s just that heavily adulterated black-market diesel, the other option being to beg the army for some good fuel. I wasn’t inclined to ask for either. This is where the Race Dynamics DieselTronic tuning box came in handy. It’s got four fuelling modes – economy, standard, medium and max attack – switchable on the go via a remote key fob. So, when I wasn’t sure of the fuel situation up ahead, I would switch to Economy mode and with a little light-footing, we would cross longer distances with plenty to spare at the end of it. And on the long highway stretches, the max attack mode would help it run away from startled Innovas and Scorpios.