When petrol crossed Rs 100 per litre, a 40-litre tank fill suddenly cost Rs 4,000. For someone driving 1,500 km per month in a car getting 15 kmpl, that is Rs 10,000 per month – Rs 1,20,000 per year. A 20% improvement in fuel efficiency saves Rs 24,000 annually: the cost of a decent holiday … Read more
The Indian monsoon is genuinely beautiful from a window. From inside a car with a leaking windscreen, corroded electrical contacts, and brake pads not checked since last October – it is an expensive nightmare. I have seen three cars rendered total write-offs by a single Mumbai flooding event whose owners thought the water was shallow … Read more
At 28, I owned a Honda Shine and commuted 18 km each way to work in Pune traffic. At 31, I bought a Maruti Swift and made the same commute. I can tell you definitively which was faster, which was cheaper, which was safer, and which made me happier on a Tuesday morning in July … Read more
I have owned a Classic 350 for four years. Last month, I spent three days riding the new Guerrilla 450 back to back on the same routes – city commuting in Pune, a highway stretch to Mahabaleshwar, and some ghat section riding. I came back with an opinion I did not expect to have. Here … Read more
Two weeks ago, a close friend stood in a Tata Motors showroom in Nagpur for 45 minutes, switching between the Punch EV and the Tiago EV brochures, unable to decide. He called me. I told him to close the brochures and answer three specific questions first. He drove home in the right car. This comparison … Read more
I have ridden over 45,000 km on Indian highways across 19 states over eight years. I have had breakdowns in the middle of Rajasthan at 2 AM, been caught in a flash flood in Meghalaya, navigated the Atal Tunnel in a blizzard, and ridden through Chennai in 44-degree heat. Every experience taught me something about … Read more
A neighbour bought a three-year-old Honda City last year from an online listing. Looked perfect in photos, drove smoothly on the test drive, priced Rs 80,000 below market. What the photos did not show: it had been in a significant front-end collision, the airbags had deployed and been non-professionally repacked, and the chassis had a … Read more
I have spent money on at least 40 different bike accessories over six years of riding. About half are still on my bike or in regular use. The other half are in a drawer. This guide is the result of that expensive education – 10 accessories that have genuinely earned their place on every ride, … Read more
My brother-in-law walked away from a 60 kmph collision on the Bhopal-Indore highway last year. Not a scratch on his head. The helmet – a mid-range full face he had almost not bought because it was Rs 1,200 more than the open face he originally wanted – absorbed an impact that would have been fatal. … Read more
It was 11:47 PM on NH-48, 90 km from the nearest city, when my front tyre blew. No spare (tubeless repair kit was at home). No cell service for 15 minutes. When I finally got a bar of signal, I called three different numbers from the car’s service manual before someone answered. The tow truck … Read more