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She's currently at 9k on the odometer and 9 months old, everything has been touchwood so far with the exception of 2 failures;
1. Air Conditioner Vent on drivers side failed, its Open/Close linkage broke and the vent would remain closed due to air flow, I juggad fixed it by inserting a flat-head and snapping the flap off, beats spending 1.5k for the spare, only downside is that at full blast the flap rattles a bit before settling down.
2. Rear Passenger side tyre blasted while driving at around 60kmph, this happened yesterday and I'd immediately taken her to the showroom to claim warranty, not sure how it would turn out but fingers crossed.
Here's the Dashcam footage of when the blast happened, as you can see the car wasnt upset at all so I'd kept driving for a bit before parking.
As for modifications, I've done the following;
1. Hardwired a Dashcamera, lesson learnt was to never trust the auto cut-off even if the camera is from a reputed brand such as 70mai, 11.4V is just not enough, my Bolero even though started with a Key has the one-touch-start setup and it would not start if the battery volts are too low, so as a fix both leads of the hardwire kit are tapped into fuses that power-down with the ignition key.
2. Have Disabled the Micro-Hybrid auto-start/stop feature as it was getting on my nerves, the process is simple, using a jumper wire I'd shorted the leads that initiates switch action which triggers the ECU to disable the feature as a fail safe.
I do not like giving my car to the ASC for service and hence everything is DIY, the service record so far is;
1. 5000 km's, changed the Engine Oil, since the Bolero has been available for over 2 decades there are several engine iterations, mine is a mHawk D75 3 Cylinder and before this came the mHawk D70 4 Cylinder, so the reason for mentioning the same is that I got the oil capacity confused and filled in 6 Liters instead of 5 Liters, haven't bothered to drain the extra oil but this is something to keep in mind, the mHawk D75 requires only 5 Liters of Oil. Also to note the Oil Filter that comes from factory is smaller in size, I had it replaced with the larger commercial one which has a replacement interval of 20k km's. Also the Oil Filer is hard to access considering that the mHawk D75's engine bay is cramped, so a Cup Wrench is a must, the conventional strap/chain type tools wont work, I've tried.
The car has been driven on several terrains including off-road sections, if you're from the South of KL then know that she has been up Rosemala as well, though who are we kidding it is a soft-roader at best since a 2WD with an open differential is in effect a 1WD. :D
Now coming to the FE, her MID has once shown 28kmpl but from my tracking on Fuelio the average is around 14 kmpl and the best is around 17kmpl.
Would I recommend the Bolero to anyone? Not really, but if you're like me and prefers to keep a car for really long then there aren't much options and the Bolero is a strong contender considering its runtime, however please do opt for the base model, mine is the top spec one and the only reason I was strong armed into this is cause my marriage was around the corner and short notice delivery was a concern, plus the stigma of driving a "Base Model" for marriage. Having said that I do enjoy the cornering lights at times when driving through rural sections at night.
So that's about it folks, stay tuned for more! :)
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