While I normally prefer to drive with minimal stops, I couldn’t help but stop at multiple places to take in the beauty of Himachal.
BHPian turboNath recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Quick question: What’s better than one Thar going on a Winter Spiti Expedition? Well, 36 Thars going on a Winter Spiti Expedition!
Here’s a sneak peek
Prelude
It was back in July 2022 when I first drove down to Bangalore from Kolkata. My office was finally opening up after the pandemic and we were asked to visit the workplace at least one/two days a week. I was looking for excuses to drive our newly acquired ‘Fern’ (Thar P/MT/HT) and this seemed like a perfect opportunity to explore its on-road manners. My father and I cramped all our luggage in the back of the Thar and we just started our journey from Kolkata (both nervous and excited at the same time).
After landing in Garden City, I got in touch with a few bhpians and Robi connected me with Vasthav from the Thar Bengaluru Group. The group comprises some amazing people who can cook up brilliant offroading plans at the drop of a hat. And just like that, I saw a message to put down our names on a list for Winter Spiti Expedition. The dates were not finalized back then and yet people were just going on adding names at a rapid pace. Within the next couple of hours or so, the list exploded with over 60 entries and I was really surprised to see this kind of enthusiasm for a trip which seemed as distant as the Himalayan range itself.
Time flies by in this city and soon we were in October (and things were starting to heat up). By then, I had clocked around 7k kms and I was starting to get used to this car that drove and handled like a boat and still managed to put a big smile on my face every damn time. When the dates were finally announced, I still couldn’t believe that we were just two months away from this trip of a lifetime! And with the dates came the extensive planning (and shopping part).
A quick weather check on Google revealed that we were going to face temperatures in the mid-20s in Kaza (prefixed with a ‘-‘ sign) and this meant frequent trips (both online and offline) to Decathlon & Columbia stores were on the horizon. The expedition partner ‘Blue Mountain Expeditions’ came on board during this time and it finally felt like we were about to step into the execution phase of this monumental plan! While most of the members from the group were going to drive down to Chandigarh from Bangalore (via Gwalior-Nagpur route), I thought of starting early and taking a ‘strategic’ pit stop in Kolkata before driving down to Chandigarh.
The drive from Bangalore to Kolkata was mostly mile munching and Fern chugged along happily, gulping down poor million-year-old fossils like a thirsty traveler in the Sahara (or should I say Thar) desert! I took 6 fuel stops to cover this 1893km long journey and Vaidya (Indian Oil’s mascot Rhino) was winking at me from every single IOCL billboard!
Back in Kolkata, I got the 10k servicing done from Royal Motors (at the 9k kms mark) and we were finally ready to hit the road.
Our plan was something like this:
- Day 1 (23rd Dec 2022) : Kolkata to Chandigarh
- Day 2 : Vehicle check up & coolant replacement at Chandigarh
- Day 3 : Chandigarh to Theog
- Day 4 : Theog to Kalpa
- Day 5 : Kalpa to Kaza
- Day 6 : Kaza
- Day 7 : Kaza to Tabo
- Day 8 : Tabo to Chitkul/Rakcham
- Day 9 : Rakcham to Theog
- Day 10 : Theog to Pench National Park
- Day 11 : Pench to Bangalore
The calm before the storm
We started our drive from Kolkata at 5pm on 23rd December and Fern seemed to be brimming with excitement on her maiden trip to the Himalayas.
For those who enjoy their music during long drives, having a perfectly curated playlist is very important. And when I am travelling with my father riding shotgun, I have a playlist that covers an insanely wide spectrum of songs from our favorite artists. The silent mStallion was revving along smoothly and we had just crossed the now-infamous Dankuni toll plaza (traffic was lighter than usual). While we were busy singing ‘Turn the Page’ along with Bob Seger (completely out of tune but never mind that), IT cropped up.
The dashboard blinked for a moment and a message flashed across the MID – ‘Check Engine System’ and that cute little ‘Engine!’ icon lit up. Kudos to whoever designed that icon because that person was straight to the point. No drama, no greek icons, just pure ‘Engine!’ complete with an exclamation mark to further enhance the criticality!
The storm
I was half expecting the car to go into a limp mode but nothing of that sort happened. I pulled over to the shoulder and dropped a note in our WhatsApp Group about the observation. Immediately I got a call back from Mr.Prahlad Kulkarni (Head of Customer Care M&M Karnataka). He asked me turn off and turn the vehicle on again and also suggested getting it checked at the nearest service station. After turning it back on the light vanished and we continued our journey with a tiny dark cloud over our heads
The engine temperature gauge was at its usual level and there was absolutely no performance degradation. Fern seemed as eager as before and this seemed to allay our fears a bit. But as soon as we crossed Asansol that light came back on. I immediately contacted Prahlad and he reassured us that he will get the vehicle diagnosed asap.
By this time it was already around 8:30pm and all the service centres were closed. We received a call back from Prahlad and he informed us that he was co-ordinating with Mr.Anshuman (CCM) to set up a team at the nearest Dhanbad dealership to get the vehicle checked on priority. We reached the M&M dealership (Model Fuels) in Dhanbad at 8:00pm and Prahlad’s team was ready to receive our vehicle. We couldn’t believe that someone would actually go this far to set up a team at such short notice (and that too outside regular workshop hours) to solve the issue. The technicians at Model fuels hooked up their laptops
and the error code received was – ‘Engine Oil Pressure Negative Deviation Error’.
After multiple diagnoses and trial runs the possible solution came up to be the replacement of the oil pressure sensor and (or) the oil pump, both of which were not in stock at the dealership.
The team at Model Fuels led by Mr. Ajay Singh was super hospitable and they even arranged for our dinner while this troubleshooting was in progress. At this point the technical team gave us two options – i) Stay the night at Dhanbad and they will get the parts replaced by the following day and ii) Continue to Chandigarh with a reduced speed (< 100kmph) taking breaks of 15-30 minutes after every 300kms and then get those parts replaced during the scheduled coolant change at Chandigarh. Meanwhile, they would also keep the RSA teams along the route updated in case the vehicle needed to get towed.
We decided to opt for the second option and hit the road again at 11:30pm. While the issue was not resolved, our faith in Mahindra’s customer support got multiplied tenfold.
Chandigarh was still some 1550kms away and we were constantly driving at 80-90kmph. With this drastically reduced pace, the journey seemed never ending but we soldiered on. Throughout the drive, the light would go off whenever we shut down the engine and then come back again after 20-30kms of running. Prahlad and his team were constantly checking in on us throughout the drive and that was a huge mental support for Fern and her occupants. Also a huge shoutout to Kolkata bhpians Samba, ABHI_1512, dip27in, mountain_deep for calling up at regular intervals (in the middle of the night) and encouraging us to fight it out!
We finally reached Chandigarh at 10pm on the following day. Total time taken to cover those 1800 odd kms : 29 hours (driving time was ~ 24 hours).
The storm continues
Mahindra had allocated two service centres on Sunday to get our vehicles checked up and change the coolant to a different grade for handling extremely low temperatures. We dropped off Fern at Harbir Service Centre in Chandigarh and proceeded towards Sukhna lake for birding. The afternoon was spent in the company of our favourite winged friends which included Brahminy Ducks, Grey Herons, Egyptian Vulture and a few hyperactive warblers. It was almost 5pm by the time we reached the service centre.
Much to our surprise, the service centre folks had only changed the coolant till then and the critical check engine issue was still not resolved. After a few follow-ups, they changed the oil pressure sensor and the vehicle went for a test drive. By this time it was well past 6:30 pm and most of the mechanics were signing out for the day. The car came back and the check engine light was still on. The next action item on their checklist was to replace the oil pump which is a pretty time-consuming process. Prahlad worked his magic yet again, this time with the CCM Mr.Shankar Mishra and assembled a team of ‘avengers’ to save the day. Four technicians worked at a lightning pace and got the job done within 1.5 hours. By this time it was almost 10pm and there was pin-drop silence all around.
As Fern roared back to life, the chief mechanic suspected that the engine was sounding different. No one had heard the mStallion engine’s idling noise at such a silent setting before and that added to the already sky-high levels of anxiety. There weren’t any petrol Thars in the service centre to cross-check and I called up Vasthav for help. He immediately agreed to send over his vehicle with Anil & John (Senior Mahindra Technicians) and thus began yet another wait for the second mstallion’s voice.
As Anil was pulling up to the main entrance, the mechanics shouted out in delight since the sound was perfectly matching with Fern’s four-cylinder symphony. They immediately went for a long test drive and 30 anxious minutes later came back with the news that we have been waiting for the last 24 hours. Fern was fine at last. The clock was nearing 11:30 pm and we were 9 hours away from the flag-off! We thanked the team profusely and proceeded towards Pal Dhaba to celebrate the occasion over a round of hot chicken tandoori.
Spiti now seemed closer than ever before!
The expedition begins
The convoy finally started for Theog around 10am from our hotel (Golden Palms) in Zirakpur and the very first stop was at a petrol bunk in Solan. Traffic was moderate to heavy but the road condition was splendid barring a few under-construction stretches. Fearing a traffic jam in Shimla, we took the Chail road and finally merged with NH-5 at Kufri. While the road was a bit narrow, Fern seemed to enjoy the corners as she powered on through the winding tarmac, floating like a boat and yet still managing to stick to the line. We reached our hotel (De Exotica Crest) at around 1:30pm and were instantly blown away by the sight of it.
It seemed like a lite version of the Overlook hotel which ‘starred’ in one of my favourite movies – ‘The Shining’. The entire hotel is located at the top of a hill overlooking the Taj. It offers amazing views of the surrounding valley covered with a thick green forest and if you’re lucky you might also get to witness a stunning sunset sequence.
Being the very first day of our expedition, we didn’t have too many plans for 26th December. The team from Blue Mountain Expeditions (Dheeraj, DJ & Rajiv) joined us post lunch and we had a quick briefing session before dinner. Some of the key points discussed revolved around maintaining the convoy, planning for fuel stops and basic dos and don’ts for a snow drive.
The very next morning as I came out of our room, I was awestruck by the sheer presence of so many Thars which had gobbled up the entire parking space of the hotel!
Keyword: Winter Spiti expedition: 36 Mahindra Thars on a trip of a lifetime