My KA-MH-GJ-RJ-UP-DL Trip.


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Fiat Ranjangaon Plant Visit

3 December 2010, Friday. This was a red-lettered day in my life. This was the day I enjoyed the maximum during my 18-day, 6148-km long mega trip spanning across 7 states of India. Yes. I am referring to the Fiat Ranjangaon factory visit, in which about 120 Fiat owners with their friends and families in their 60+ Fiat cars, participated.

We met at VITS, a business hotel in Pune. All our Fiat cars were pasted with nice Fiat stickers on both the front doors. Rajeev Kapoor, CEO, FIAL, flagged off the 60+ Fiat cars after breakfast. We drove to Fiat plant at Ranjangaon, located about 72 km from Pune on the toll-free 4-laned SH 60 to Ahmednagar.
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After welcome drink/biscuits, we were taken around the engine and power transmission division, where 1.3 MJD and 1.2/1.4 FIRE engines and gear boxes are manufactured, assembled and tested. 1.4 T-Jet engines are fully imported. The Fiat engineers claimed that the Fiat Ranjangaon plant is a state-of-the-art car plant in India and the best Fiat plant in the world. The plant was clean and tidy. Robotics were used for many operations, which warranted accuracy.

Later, we were taken in a bus to car assembly plant in the same campus. Because of low volume of Fiat cars, they do not have in-house body-press shop, which needed heavy investment. FIAL supply the high tensile, low carbon steel sheets [raw material] to their vendors, who press them into different panels like doors and supply them to FIAL. However, the skin was fitted to the door panels by robots. We saw the assembly line, which was shared by three products, viz., Fiat Linea, Punto and Tata Manza. It was amazing to see the robots reconfigure themselves for different products! First, we saw robotic welding of panels with the chassis of Linea, followed by two Puntos, and then, three Manzas in the same assembly line! Fiat engineers informed us that the product details [model, variant, colour, etc.] are fed into the system before the commencement of each shift depending upon the order book.

After the plant visit, we were hosted with a delicious and sumptuous vegetarian lunch, followed by an interactive session with the top officials of FIAL including Rajeev Kapoor and Ravi Bhatia, Vice-President, FIAL. We were presented with Fiat 500 optical car mouse as memorabilia. Rajeev Kapoor shook hands with each and every one of us present. Last, but not the least, all our Fiat cars' fuel tanks were topped up with fuel!
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We were not allowed in the paint-shop as it was a dust-free zone. Neither we were permitted to take photographs inside the plant.

More details are in the pipeline.
 
Thread Starter #32
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Welcome back sir. BTW i am eager to see the pics of your car. Somehow i find them the best part of travelogues.
Thanks, Akash. My Fair Linea [light blue FTA Linea] appears many times in this travelogue. Mine was the only FTA Fiat car out of 60+ that visited Fiat Ranjangaon plant![:)]
 
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Thanks, Ilango. Yes. We enjoyed each and every minute and metre of this mega trip thoroughly. The only light blue FTA Linea appearing in photographs of this travelogue is My Fair Linea only!
 
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Thanks, Akash. My Fair Linea [light blue FTA Linea] appears many times in this travelogue. Mine was the only FTA Fiat car out of 60+ that visited Fiat Ranjangaon plant![:)]
Thats great. Waiting for some more pics of your fair beauty.
 
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Thats amazing Ravi, you were presented with optical mouse of F500.
Thats a new innovation.

Ah those pics reminds my trip to Shirdi.
I think the Kamat Upachar near Sira is on the right hand side of the road.
How did you manage to get to opposite side of road.
As i missed it.
 
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Thats great. Waiting for some more pics of your fair beauty.
Thanks, Akash, once again. As soon as I complete editing of photographs, which I have in plenty, I shall post more photographs.[:)]
Thats amazing Ravi, you were presented with optical mouse of F500. Thats a new innovation. Ah those pics reminds my trip to Shirdi.
I think the Kamat Upachar near Sira is on the right hand side of the road.
How did you manage to get to opposite side of road. As i missed it.
While coming from Pune to Bangalore, you will find BP COCO pump - 1 at Yemmerhalli after Sira on LHS. Here, one Kamat Upachar is located. There is one more Kamat Upachar located on the other side of NH 4, IIRC.
ravi congrats and mouse is nice .
looking forward to see more pic :)
Thanks, mastersquall. Plenty of pictures and details are in the pipeline.
 
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Welcome back, Ravi! Was eagerly waiting for this. This is the most systematic plan I have ever seen.. kudos to you [clap] Waiting for the complete review and pictures!

OT : Now that Ravi is back, I guess we can now arrange for a bangalore meet and also an opportunity for us to know more about your travel, in person.
 
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Welcome back Sir , that surely must have been a wonderful trip. Are those stickers still there in your car? The Fiat 500 mouse is looking nice and its nice to hear that they topped-up fuel for all the 60 cars! Visiting the factory must surely be a wonderful experience. Waiting for more pictures!
 
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The flash-back continues!

Thanks, cooldhaya. Yes, I have decided to retain the FIAT stickers as they are cool!

Now, the flash-back continues.

DAY 1 - 18 NOV 2010 - THURSDAY

We started from our home, sweet home, by 3:55 pm.

Some of the highlights of Bangalore - Mumbai trip:

* The Nelamangala Toll Plaza didn't collect the toll. They just noted down my Linea's registration number and let me go freely.

* During my Pune - Bangalore trip during March 2010, I had to go through Ranibennur, Harihar and Chitradurga towns. But, this time, it was cool drive on the bypass of these towns.

* During my last trip, My Fair Linea bottom-scraped 4 times, two each near Davangere and Tumkur bypass. But, this time, the number of bottom-scraping was just two, that too, near Davangere bypass diversions. No bottom-scraping on Tumkur bypass! One hump near Brahmasagara was really big and unmarked. [During the return journey Pune - Bangalore, there was absolutely no bottom-scraping at all!]

* While I escaped one of the two railway level-crossings between Ranibennur and Haveri, I was made to wait for about 10 minutes in the other. I think, it will take another year or two for completion of these two railway overbridges seeing the slow pace of construction work.

* While the food quality at Kamat Upachar at Reliance petrol pump on Ranibennur bypass was good, less said the better about the toilets. But, we didn't have other alternative. Last time, we tried the nearby Bharat Petroleum COCO pump Ghar Dhaba. There also, the toilets were not maintained properly.

* The petrol costs Rs 59.53 per litre at Reliance, Ranibennur as against Rs 59.65 at Bangalore. I found a novel method of card payment there. After filling the petrol, the attendent asked me whether it was cash or card. When I gave him my card, he swiped it at the hand-held unit. But he didn't enter the amount and retruned the card. After dispensing the fuel, he selected petrol and cancelled other purchases like lubricants in the hand-held unit and entered. Presto! The amount was automatically taken by the system and the printed charge-slip popped out. No manual entering of the amount, and hence, no room for mischief/mistake.

* The attendent at Reliance enlightened me by saying that the nozzle of the petrol dispenser was smaller in diameter than the one for diesel to ensure diesel is not dispensed in a petrol vehicle by mistake. I don't know, how far it is true.

Here are some photographs clicked by me a few minutes before our departure from my home.
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I constantly maintained 100 - 130 kmph speed. The average speed and FE that My Fair Linea calculated was 74 kmph with 13.6 kmpl.
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The trip data showed the journey time as 13.5 hours without the breaks. The actual time was 14.5 hours with two breaks, one food and fuel break at Ranibennur and another fuel break in between Kolhapur and Satara.
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The distance from my Bangalore home to Oritel Mumbai was shown as 999.9 km. What a figure!
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More to come.
 
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Thanks, cooldhaya. Yes, I have decided to retain the FIAT stickers as they are cool!
I guess they can be removed whenever you wish to. Those must be vinyls right?

The Nelamangala Toll Plaza didn't collect the toll. They just noted down my Linea's registration number and let me go freely.

* While the food quality at Kamat Upachar at Reliance petrol pump on Ranibennur bypass was good, less said the better about the toilets. But, we didn't have other alternative. Last time, we tried the nearby Bharat Petroleum COCO pump Ghar Dhaba. There also, the toilets were not maintained properly.
Did they mistook your ride to be a demo car? Because while testing the cars, even i was never stopped at Tolls.
 
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The lingering nostalgia!

@cooldhaya: I think, one more stretch towards Bangalore end is still under construction. Hence, they don't collect the toll. However, traffic is allowed FOC until that incomplete stretch.

I guess they can be removed whenever you wish to. Those must be vinyls right? Did they mistook your ride to be a demo car? Because while testing the cars, even i was never stopped at Tolls.
Thanks, Akash. I think, the stickers are removeable vinyl ones. But, I am retaining them. At Nelamangala toll plaza, they allow free ride for all the cars.[:)]

The nostalgia continues.

DAY 2 - 19 NOV 2010 - FRIDAY

We breakfasted, rested, lunched, and again, rested at Oritel Serviced Apartment. We went for a drive in the night.

We liked the paintings at Oritel Serviced Apartment.
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We drove on Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link [Bandra-Worli Sea Link]. During our last visit to Mumbai, only 4-lanes for both the directions were operative. Now, all the 8-lanes, 4 for each direction, were operative. When I drove within the speed limit at 50 kmph on the second lane from the left, many big brothers [read BMWs, Endeavours, Fortuners, et al.] honked their horns and flew past me! I was the odd man out there driving at 50 kmph!
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I parked My Fair Linea at Marine Drive and had a walk. My son clicked a few photographs using his Canon 550D.
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We walked around Taj Mahal Hotel, Gateway of India and the Bombay Stock Exchange. We enjoyed the street food for our dinner, drove back to our abode and called it a day.

More to come.
 
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