55,800km report It took two old favourites to make the most of a driving holiday. An Esteem with many miles and the beautiful northern-most state of Jammu & Kashmir.

They should call it the Paradise Grand Prix. Held everyday (except Friday) in Sonamarg, Kashmir. The lights turn green at 1.30pm. There are no qualifying laps and your position at the start line is determined on a first-come- first-start basis. Such is the scene at Sonamarg every afternoon — cars line up at the army checkpost from where they are let loose towards the mighty Zoji La. Since the 11,500-foot high pass is narrow, traffic is strictly allowed only in one direction, according to pre-set timetables. Every driver knows that he has only 10 kilometres of smooth tarmac to do all his overtaking because after that the road turns to complete dry dirt, which results in the cars behind literally eating the dust of those ahead.
This is when I revelled in the performance of our long-term Esteem. Fully loaded with four adults and way too much luggage, the car zipped up the slopes of the pretty Kashmir Himalayas with zest. While the passengers were reeling from the scenic overdose that Sonamarg doles out, I was heady from the sheer pleasure induced by the joyful 1.3-litre MPFI engine. We’d started off at position number 32, behind a couple of Cielos, an Opel Astra and numerous Sumos and Qualis’ and by the time we hit the dirt 10km on, we were 2km in the lead. The Esteem overhauled all the other vehicles effortlessly, the Goodyear tubeless radials providing fantastic grip and allowing me to overtake three or four vehicles in a row at the hint of a gap. Keep in mind that this road is very narrow and full of steep hairpins and such cheeky overtaking moves can only be undertaken with the absolute knowledge that there is no oncoming traffic and with a car that inspires confidence for thrills like these.
We’d started out from Delhi on a holiday to Kashmir and Ladakh and since it was planned at the last minute the only car available was Autocar India’s long-term Esteem that resides in the capital. This car has always been there, parked in the Delhi office, and mostly used for errands around the city. Most of Autocar’s forays into the Himalayas have been in a Gypsy or in bigger cars like our long-term Octavia.
NH 1 is always a blast and even more so with a driver’s car. Traffic being light on a Sunday, the 500-odd kilometres from Delhi to Amritsar were covered within eight hours. In the hills beyond Jammu, the car needed to be kept in its power band for any spirited driving, but it was quite happy cruising along in fourth gear too, over gentle inclines that make up the road from Jammu to Anantnag, which was where we branched off for Pahalgam.
It was on the broken roads from Pahalgam to Chandanwari (the start point of the Amarnath trek) that the clutch started to feel a little sad and had to be replaced at Vehicleades, the Maruti dealer in Srinagar.
I had been dreading the torturous roads in Ladakh and as a precaution had got a sump and fuel tank guard fitted and this proved to be an absolute boon. There were times when the car would bottom out with a bone-jarring thud in craters big enough to swallow a truck.
These roads also made the passengers quite uncomfortable, because the Esteem is quite cramped at the rear. The rear suspension was quite tired after 52,000km and made the car bounce like a pogo stick over any series of potholes. And, the hammering over potholes had the boot lid lose alignment — it kept popping open and had to be slammed hard to shut again.
This time around we did away with CDs and the music was provided by an Apple iPod (supplied by Megahertz, Mumbai). This little gadget stored enough songs to play music continously for three weeks and it wasn’t even half-full. With the iTrip attached, it transmitted music to the car’s FM receiver, allowing the rear passengers complete wireless control of the choice of music.
After an exciting and high-altitude holiday, my co-travellers took the flight from Leh to Delhi and I found myself driving back solo. I’d chalked out two days to cover the 480km from Leh to Manali because it has always taken me that long, if not more, on my last four drives on this road. However, what I hadn’t accounted for was the brilliant condition of the roads this year. The Leh-Manali road has never been better than I found it this July and, of course, the performance of the Esteem counted. A 6.15am start from saw me at Tanglang La, about 111km away, by 8.30am. The vastly improved road meant it was pedal to metal across the More Plains, which helped to get me to Sarchu by 1.45pm. This was supposed to be my night halt but with five hours of daylight left, I decided to carry on till Jispa. Two kilometres out of Sarchu, I met three jolly sardarjis in an 800 — they warned me that the next 10km were horrible, with streams running down the road and horrible potholes too. They’d taken 90 minutes to negotiate those 10km. This is where the newly-fitted sump guard really helped. I could boldly bang the car over the little rocks and zip through streams, reassured by the fact that I wouldn’t leave bits and pieces of the Esteem strewn across the road. Those 10km took me 20 minutes and because of the speeds I could maintain I was at the summit of the Rohtang Pass when the last vestiges of daylight faded. Fog was rampant all the way from Rohtang right down to Marhi and the 50km from the pass to Manali took three hours, but yet I managed to get into Manali market by 9pm. This humble ‘city car’ had taken me 480km across rivers, rocks and ice, traversing three of the five highest passes in the world in less than 15 hours. Also learnt was a lesson in tubeless practicality. I noticed the air pressure in the front right tyre was down by 8 pounds before starting off from Leh. In Manali it was again down by 10 pounds. Finally, two days later when the tyre was checked in Chandigarh, a huge three-inch nail was found to be the culprit. The car nevertheless could have carried on till Delhi with the nail still embedded in the tyre. Now that is tubeless practicality for you.
For all the torture that it went through and considering the fact that HR 26K 3543 is over 50k old, it still felt reasonably together and on the drive back along NH 1 again, there weren’t that many rattles or groans singing a song about the car’s Himalayan adventure. l
Rishad Saam Mehta

Log book
Distance covered 55,825km
Fuel consumption
Total fuel consumed 4,691 litres
Average fuel consumption 11.9kpl
No. of fillings (brimmed) 156
worst 8.9kpl
Best 15.1kpl
Total maintenance cost
Rs 35,629.61
Running costs Rs 3.73 per km
Faults Clutch replaced at 54,000km, loose bootlid, sagging suspension
Likes Performance, gearshift
Dislikes Short fuel range, uncomfortable on long trips

Captions:
Fully loaded Esteem zipped up Zojila with aplomb.

Bridge at Aru, Pahalgam looks weak but can take the weight
of a fully-loaded army truck.

iPod, with over 500 CDs worth of music,enlivened the journey.

The sump guard saved underbody on roads like these; 52k-old clutch had to be replaced in Srinagar.