BHPian ironbond recently shared this with other enthusiasts: Our first family trip, as well as long distance trip in my beloved Virtus GT Line MT. Started the trip off with a tank full (till auto cut-off) of XP95 and a tyre pressure of 38 PSI (due to VW recommending 41 PSI when carrying 4 adults + luggage, which is exactly what we were carrying, but 41 felt a bit excessive). Car showed a range of 720 km on a full tank, which was believable because I do get phenomenal range with my Virtus on most days. The Journey was to the Hill station of Hatgad, Maharashtra. A 408km trip one-way (as per trip odo) from my house in Ahmedabad. The trip was uneventful, and my love for the machine only grew along with the pride I had… It was driven on everything from empty Expressway quality highways (the brand new Mumbai-Delhi expressway, which is still being built in patches), crowded expressways (the Ahmedabad-Vadodara highway with it’s streak of trucks and traffic), Terribly annoying and overcrowded highways (Old Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway) as well as hilly forrest roads, Winding and beautiful mountain roads, and terribly slippery, steep hotel driveways(more on that later). It didn’t fail me anywhere! (almost). On this trip, almost every feature of the car was put to use; it was raining quite heavily (especially on our return journey) and we drove it on broken roads, gravel, non-existent roads, and it handled everything with ease! The overall mileage was around 16-17kmpl (The car showed a range of 320kms after reaching Hatgad, which is 408kms away from home, and had used only half a tank, that too after a mild hill climb all the way to Saputara/Hatgad). We only refuelled once, while coming back, at Bharuch, since it showed a range of 100 and we were still some 200 kms from home (and since I couldn’t find XP95/Premium, had to fill with regular, which further hurt efficiency). Since I always talk about the pros and cannot stop appreciating my car, I will present some cons/oddities I discovered during this trip:The auto wipers do take a little bit of help in heavy rain/changing rain patterns.The car cannot take steep slopes when wet if Traction control is not turned off.(got stuck on slopes twice and couldn’t understand what was going on since I have never driven a Manual with traction control, it would just slowly come to a stop without any wheel spins or RPM spikes and genuinely made me feel the car was underpowered or broken… after a few words with ChatGPT, and a trial with Traction control turned off, it was business as usual)Interior plastics get dirty really quick. Also headliner could have been of better quality since I found a weird stain on it and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it came or how do I remove it.TPMS is something I cannot figure out still. I do “set” it in the menu after every refill, yet when I go back to fill the pressure, it is always 3-5 PSI less than when I had filled it, and the system does not show any warning. How does this really work? Does it only detect sudden/huge PSI drops and not mild, low drops?After a few hours of driving in heavy rain at high speeds, I did somehow find a few tiny drops of water from the driver’s side rubber beading above the window, inside the closed car… which never returned even though we continued driving in the same rain for more kms. Not sure what caused that.Outside noise, in some cases, could have been better insulated. I am all for road feel, engine noise but the non stop rain felt quite loud and annoying after an hour.Somehow, the car scraped on a few bumps (minor) as well as near my house, which was actually wild and very new. How is 179mm GC not enough?And that’s it, I cannot think of anything more, since I love this car so much. AC worked fabulously, not once did it overheat or throw a tantrum, and I am so glad we took this car for the trip instead of our other cars (namely MG Hector Plus CVT or Ford Figo 1.2 MT). Now some pictures… Almost halfway through the return journey, somewhere near the MH-GJ border (since no/almost no good food options available between Bharuch and Hatgad/Saputara) On a Leisure drive, somewhere between Hatgad and Nashik. MH rural roads leave a lot to be desired compared to GJ rural roads. Hanging out with its Maharashtrian Cousin (an MH 15 reg Virtus Topline was already at the resort when we arrived, so I made sure to park them together) On the way to Hatgad, right before the Ghat section started. One of the many scenic areas of the ghats. A scenic stop in the middle of the ghats since the family did get a little nauseous. Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
