BHPian K a s h recently shared this with other enthusiasts: We had decided to visit Somnath + Dwarka during Pooja holidays. Booked flight tickets to Rajkot + Club Mahindra Gir + Dwarka resorts 4 months ago. When I started asking around for self-driving cars, I realized they don’t have a luggage rack on top. Since we were 4 adults + 1 teen + 1 kid, it would be difficult to manage all our luggage in a rented Innova. So I decided to drive down in my Monty, and my family will fly down. My wife did not want me to drive alone, so she proposed that my teenage son also join me. So I cancelled the flight tickets for both of us and started the prep for the drive. First I had to fix a slow leak in the rear left tyre and also do the wheel balancing + alignment. Found a tiny nail inside the tyre. The tyre had swallowed it 🙂 This was the first puncture on this set of tyres. Next was the oil change. Did not want to stretch it since the oil in the car was was already 4k kms old and the trip will be another 4k kms. I don’t remember changing the coolant, so that was also replaced. I saw a Montero in the owner’s WhatsApp group with the stock grill, and that looked much better than the metal mesh in my car. So ordered that from Partsouq along with the coolant tank cap that was cracked. My friend had carried along a few parts from Canada. One of them was the new lens for the headlamps. I was looking forward to replacing the old lens since it had a lot of minor cracks on the inside due to age. As other Mitsus, the headlamps are made by Koito. Got the lens separated with a heat gun. Opened up the projectors and surprise surprise… the reflectors were badly damaged. No wonder the low beams were weak. This one had a hole burnt into it. Must be due to the LED bulb that was used on one of the headlight. ( I got the car with LED bulb on the passenger side and an HID bulb on the driver side inside the projectors) Now I had to go for bi-LED projectors. Asked around the Montero owners group and found someone had retrofitted AES UX-2 Bi-LED projectors in the Montero. So I ordered UX-3, which had the same dimensions. Delivery was promised in 5 days. Since i was there, I decided to investigate why the auto leveling was not working. Found one of the units with a few cracked clips that hold the motor in place. Used some superglue to fix that clips and assembled it. The other unit was intact. The Monty went for an interior deep clean at the neighborhood Turtle Wax center. The package finally arrived one day before my trip. All set for the trip. I just had to assemble the Top box and fuel up! Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
