Dry Duke

This is not about the Duster but my other vehicle. The KTM Duke 390. I don't ride it often. In more than a year and a half I have barely clocked 4K plus. I will write down a unique experience I had with it recently. I do not know the technical reason for it. Will have to find out. But here goes the story. 

The other day while going somewhere with Monisha I noticed the dash initially showed low fuel level. It has an electronic, LED back lit fancy dashboard. I was a little worried and thought to fill up the tank at the first pump. But soon the number of bars picked up and the low fuel level alarm was also off. So I thought I would fill the tank later. 

Last evening, one day after Modi banned Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, I thought I would spend a Rs 500 note at the pump to fill up my tank (in the morning I had used two Rs 500 notes to fill the Duster tank). Petrol pumps are still allowed to accept those big notes (I guess till tonight) and I have a few of them. But the bike wouldn't start. It was showing low fuel level once again. I tried my luck a few times but it just did not start. The ignition was working but clearly there was no petrol. 

The only good thing about this was I took the bicycle out and went for a 10 km evening ride to and from Buro's shop in Jadavpur. Here is the activity

Later I read somewhere that the trick to start the bike is you open the lid of the tank and keep it open for some time, like half a minute. Then lock it back and start. It should work. This morning I did that and lo and behold - it started !!!

Apparently when fuel level is low air gets locked somewhere and the sensor is fooled to think there is no fuel. By letting fresh air in this problem is solved. Incidentally at the pump, I told them give me petrol for Rs 500 but please ensure the tank does not overflow. From Rs 460 I started getting tense. I could see the tank filling up fast. But the last drop went in exactly at Rs 500. I think around 7 litres of fuel. The Duke tank, incidentally, is ridiculously small.

But this means, when the dash was showing low or zero fuel there was actually about 5 litres of fuel in the tank !!!

Wiper Blade Change

OE Wiper Blades. Syndicate. Note type of clips are different from Bosch's

It's time to change my wiper blades. I should probably have changed them more than a year ago. But better late than never. The rubber is coming off at the corner. The driver side arm leaves a streak of uncleaned patch in the middle. It's a total mess, particularly after the long Rajasthan road trip.

I did a lot of online research and finally decided on a pair of 20" Bosch Clear Advantage Wiper Blades from ebay. It would cost me Rs 760. While it's on its way, I thought why not try and see how easy or difficult it is to take off the old wiper. After consulting 101 youtube videos and a few more failed attempts than that, I managed to take the passenger side out successfully. You just need to strike the damn thing down a little as you keep the clip pressed and it comes off. But then everything looks simple after you have worked out how to do it.

Putting it back in is quite a tedious task it seemed. After several failed attempts, I finally somehow managed to do it. Soumya of Bangalore told me putting it back on is easier. I found the alignment part a little puzzling. Probably I was depending too much on youtube videos and not using my good old common sense. In the process I managed to unhook the inner clip that sits inside the wiper. But then I got it back on as well. I hope I got it correct. 

I feel ridiculous now. Such an easy thing to do. Even uneducated Biharis can do it in the auto garages or Maulali. 

But I surely learnt a lot about wipers and how to change them or even how they . I don't know for how long I shall be able to retain the knowledge. But no knowledge goes a waste.

Shall I tell a truth? I am not too confident I can do it again. Probably I will try to do it again tonight :-) I have got to learn this basic DIY for my car.

PS Added Next Morning: Took out the driver side wiper blade just now and pushed it back in. I even heard the famous "click" that they talk about on youtube videos. I think now I can safely say that I can do it confidently. At least for the hook type. I even discovered I had fixed the passenger side one the wrong way last night. Changed it back to the correct position.

Now I will just wait for the new blades to arrive. The installation of the new ones looks like a cake walk on the Bosch video

Update on 24th October 2016

The Bosch video above is useless in the Indian context. The wipers did not come with the kind of clips shown in the video. These are (what I got) are clearly older and cruder but perhaps more advanced than the OE fitment Syndicate.

The diagram on the packaging did not make any sense initially. But after some time it did and the fitment seemed fairly easy. I hope I did it right. I used the washer wiper of the car after fitting the wipers. They worked perfectly fine, cleaning the water without any "untouched" point. Monsoon is unfortunately gone. So their real test will come after a few months :-)

A word on the ebay seller. The packaging was pathetic. Just put the original Bosch packet in courier after sealing off the corners with tapes. Lucky that nothing broke.

Here are the pics for whatever they are worth.

Bosch Clear Advantage wiper. 20 inch pair. OE Size

Bosch Clear Advantage wiper. 20 inch pair. OE Size

The clip of the Bosch Clear Advantage

Ranthambore Road Trip

Just came back from an 11-day, 3390 km road trip to Jaipur and Ranthambore. The car performed flawlessly. Since absolutely nothing happened, and thank God for it, I have nothing to mention. On day 1 we drove for 19 hours to reach Benares from Calcutta. The next really big drive was from Ranthambore to Benares, 909 km, in 15 hours. The Benares Calcutta return journey took us 14 hours.

Our total drive of 3390 km consumed 216.27 lit of fuel purchased from eight pumps. Three out of these were Reliance pumps. If we assume there was no cheating with measurement, then my fuel efficiency was 15.67 km/lit. I would have preferred for it to be 16+.

Wheel Alignment & Balancing

After some 30 months of ownership and 21,000 km + I got my wheels balanced, aligned and rotated today at Minku's. Total damage came to Rs 1000. Perhaps because they didn't require too much of weights. I also got the 5th wheel checked for air pressure for the first time (it was found to have 22 psi pressure). The wheels were made to rotate in a straight forward front to back fashion. No cross over. 

The car's driveability improved right away, as it always does after wheel rotation and alignment.

I also learnt exactly how to align the wheel while replacing it on the body of the vehicle. 

Checked the exact difference between the lug nuts for the steel wheel and the alloy wheel. The one for steel wheel is marginally smaller by a few threads perhaps. Also these lug nuts come with a conical washer kind of thing fitted near the neck. On the nuts for the steel wheel, that washer is fixed. It can be moved on the nuts for the alloy wheels. Will one work for the other? I don't really know. I would rather not try to find out. 

Wheeling Dealing

For thirtly long months I had no clue about how to take out the spare wheel of the vehicle from under the body of the car. In the mean time I had gone to Delhi and Bharatpur in the north and Jagdalpur in Central India, not to speak of the umpteen number of sorties to Katwa. While taking delivery I had taken a basic look at how it is done but after that I had quite forgotten everything about it.

This morning I tried to give it a shot. There is a bolt on the floor of the boot which you turn anti-clock wise with the other end of the OE spanner. I did. I had expected the cradle would come down slowly. Well nothing happened. The cradle was exactly where it was. I tightened the bolt back and came home. After seeking some online help I called Abdul - the Renault workshop driver who takes my car for service. He said just turning the bolt is not enough. After that you have to hold the wheel and jerk it up a little to unhook it from the J type hanging latch and then lower the wheel on the floor. 

This worked perfectly. I took the wheel out completely. It has gathered a lot of dust obviously. I wonder how much air pressure it has. Anyway, I now tried to push it back up. This is where the challenge is. Putting it back up is quite a task. You have to find out the J type latch blindly (that is, without being able to see it) and engage the iron hoop of the cradle there. After some struggle Monisha and I managed to do it. 

I felt quite a sense of accomplishment. So the steps are as follows

1. Take out the OE spanner. Locate the bolt on the floor of the boot. 

2. Unscrew it by turning anti-clockwise. Nothing noticeable will happen as you unscrew. It will just stop turning at one point. 

3. Hold the spare wheel with two hands and jerk it up a little. It will get unhooked from the J type latch hanging behind the bumper.

4. Lower the wheel gently to rest on the floor and then slide it out. 

5. Put the wheel back on the cradle and push it up. This part will take some getting used to, as you will be doing it blind. You cannot see the J type latch. But you have to engage the loop over it.

6. Screw the bolt back tight.

The cradle is made of GI wires. Quite fat and adequate for the job. However, there is a plastic tray where the wheel sits. The hoop is flexible and can fold ninety degrees. The photograph is taken from the website of motoroids. Even that website has a small error that will cause problems to people trying to do it on their own. It says as you unscrew the bolt the cradle will come down. It doesn't happen like that. You have to jerk it up a little to unhook. 

Going Nuts

The other day I had posted a question on the HVK forum about my Duster's spare wheel. My question was - does the same bolt work for the steel wheel as well as the alloy wheel when you put it in the cradle? Someone said yes but it requires a different set of lug nuts.

I got one of the biggest jolts of my Duster ownership life. Now where the hell are those different nuts for the steel wheels? I was never explained this during delivery, some 30 months ago. I cannot remember this at all. I have to buy these before leaving the city. Not only that I have to use them at least once to see if they fit. So many thoughts were racing through my mind. Like where do I buy them from? Chandni or Maheshtala workshop?

Somehow, I thought let me give the boot a try !! I mean I literally gave it a boot !! And sure enough I found a small plastic blister pack with five lug nuts neatly tucked in a corner of the boot for the last 30 months. Made in Italy !! And I never knew anything about it. Come to think of it.

In this period I have done umpteen Katwa-Kolkata trips. One trip to Delhi and Bharatpur and another to Jagdalpur!!! I had no idea that the spare wheel uses a different set of lug nuts. I just cannot imagine this.

These lug nuts are a little different from the type I had for my Esteem. They were just four fat nuts. Perhaps a little cylindrical. These are like hex nuts on top of a fat screw. More like a bolt. I don't know what they are or should be called. Perhaps lug bolt.

I have to change the wheel at least once before I start off on the journey to Ranthambore on 6th October. I guess I will do it tomorrow (Mahalaya holiday) at the Deshapriya Park petrol pump, after filling in air in the spare wheel.

I intend to replicate an exact puncture situation without the puncture. That is take out the spare wheel. Take off the alloy wheel after jacking the car up. Put the spare on. Put the alloy on the cradle and drive off.

This will answer a lot of unanswered questions like is the jack strong enough? Is the spanner good enough? Or do I get some after market solution from Chandni?

As of now, I have another unanswered question. Is there any notch where you place the jack? My Peugeot had them. Does the Duster have them too? Have to find it out.

Setting The Clock

One of the problems of using any gadget these days is the lack of finer details in the user manual. They expect you to work it out from youtube. Indeed there is a how to video on virtually any and every gadget. I think the manufacturers know about it and don't invest in the manuals. 

The problem with a car like Duster is that there aren't too many youtube videos on it. So I was really at a loss to find out how to adjust the time in the dash board clock. I had actually sent the car for a brake overhaul (they changed the front brake pads at 21,000 km). It came back with the time quite off on the clock. The intuitive thing to do is push the trip meter reset lever. And indeed that's the only thing to do. But when you do that the minute side starts flashing. So how to adjust the hour side?

I just couldn't work that out. The manual as usual was of no use. Nor did youtube have any entry on the subject. So I asked team-bhp after trying in vain for two days. The answer is you keep the lever pressed hard. First the minute flashes, then the minute side changes one by one like 12,13,14. Keep it pressed. It changes by 10s. Like 23, 33, 43 .... Then the hour side starts changing. The entire movement is one way. You cannot make it 3,2,1. If you want to change it from 3 to 2 you have to run through the entire 24 hour. It takes a few seconds really.

Once you do it, it obviously looks very simple !!!.If you don't you might need to spend the entire life time. 

Mahindra XUV 500 has a series of official videos on youtube where they explain various small things for self driven owners. Renault doesn't seem to care, it seems.