Mahindra Scorpio 2.6 Crde Turbo -18 months - 22000 km

[shankar.balan]

My Scorpio- Crde Turbo 2.6 LX - 17000km - One Year plus 20 odd days.

Experience: My Scorpio and family have completed a year of great enjoyment. So far so good as possibly one can see from the pictures attached! Lots of long trips, Ooty, Chennai, Coorg, Mysore etc and a whole lot of internal city usage because this is my preferred daily drive vehicle. Enjoyed several golfing trips with friends here and there - carrying a full load of 4 passengers plus 4 golf sets plus some luggage - amazing storage space provided one packs things carefully in the rear.

Positives: First class quality. Comfy. Enjoyable to drive (especially the Turbo Whine and responsiveness of the engine). Decent brakes. Low maintenance generally.

While I may have hit only 17000km I ve finished the 20000 km free service plus one more just to iron out a few niggles.

Negatives: Bad roads in Coorg led to one of my Aura Alloys getting bent slightly. Being slightly obsessive about my vehicle, while I could have continued using it as a spare, I elected to buy a new one. Unfortunately the wheel One Year warranty could not cover the "bad roads" aspect - and I DID hit a bump pretty badly on my last trip - no grumbles - my fault. The window washer tube pops out once in a while but this is probably because it has expanded a bit owing the engine heat. The matter is easily resolved by changing it.


General: Otherwise my experience has been uniformly good - the vehicle has proven itself to me as Mahindra usually does, yet again in terms of its "indestructible reliability and solidity". Even today I am in receipt of several extremely reasonable offers from the "pre-owned" marketplace - which goes to show the enormous respect that a well-kept Scorpio can earn for itself! No unhappy rattles and other irritating niggles which normally begin to beset a One Year old vehicle.

Tyres: Tyres etc in perfect condition as I habitually rotate them every 5000Km and check their pressure every time I fill Diesel. I use only Air - never Nitrogen.

FE: Normal Diesel is being used - I hardly ever use TURBO JET or its equivalent. Fuel Efficiency overall has been around 10 ish in the city and 12 ish on highways.
Both my wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed taking the vehicle on our long distance weekend trips.

Seats etc: No problem with comfort in general - as always better to be strapped in otherwise it can chuck you around a bit while at speed in the hills and twisty roads. I find however as the primary driver that I benefit a lot from an extra back cushion which helps my lower back on long drives.

Servicing:The only irritation if at all has been since Vijai Auto shut down and has luckily now been taken over by SKS Auto of Salem, for a while the servicing has been done by Sireesh Auto - twice to be exact. I find Sireesh Auto to be of poor quality and that service centre has a certain lack of knowledge and committment to its consumers.

Luckily SKS has re-started Vijai's service operations in Bilekahalli Bangalore and I was able to get everything sorted on my Scorpio's shortcomings after Sireesh's bad service. I did incur some costs though which is a bit irritating - around 2500 Rs odd - but weighing this up in the balance, I am happy I spent the money as my vehicle is back to its first class form.

Engine Oil/Gear Oil etc: Always stick to the recommended types and change as per regulation. Gears are smooth and so is the engine.

Clutch: I was a little worried about the clutch around a month back after it came back from Sireesh Auto. They really are useless. However I sent it to SKS and they adjusted the play a little. It is absolutely smooth and peaceful now. Indeed the driver who brought it back to me commented on the clutch and when I test drove it he realized why - I NEVER ride the clutch, even in Bangalore Traffic. Best is to use the torquey engine in first/ second gear when in traffic- with one's foot completely off the clutch. Atleast one is reasonably sure it wont burn out easily.

Power Steering: No troubles at all so far. Fluid top up also has not been needed till now.

Battery: No troubles so far. It is checked and topped up average once a month - owing to my slightly car-mad, obsessive nature.

Suspension/Body: No troubles at all with the suspension, ride quality, shocks etc. No Body troubles so far too.

Overall:All in all, I am proudly stating here that I am glad I chose the Scorpio over all the other Jeep-ish SUV-ish options available to me at the budget I had a year back.

I am extremely pleased and a happy customer of Mahindra - continued association over the last 30 odd years - and if things go on like this, I am happy to continue for a longer time as their customer.

Am very glad I bought this vehicle and so is my wife and so is my Dad, who like me is a bit of a hard-core Mahindra jeep person.

It is apparent that even my pet dogs love the jeep because each time I open the rear doors they try to barge in, but I dont mind at all - however, we do have a special sheet on which they curl up on their routine visits to the vet so that their fur doesnt fall all over the vehicle!

Good show Scorpio! Bring on the next gen Hybrid, I am a ready consumer for that!

[anekho]

great report - you really covered every aspect!
Your scorpio also looks really good, this colour suits it well.
please post some interior pics too!

heres wishing you thousands of more happy km's!

cheers

[shankar.balan]

thanks dude
yes I will - just that Im lazy and somehow never seem to get around photographing the interiors! (They are clean by the way, despite my 2 Alsatians and 1 labrador who seem to believe the vehicle is "theirs" )
and Yes - I do believe this is a "long term horse", in terms of hanging on to a vehicle, which one enjoys.
cheerio

Originally Posted by anekho

great report - you really covered every aspect!
Your scorpio also looks really good, this colour suits it well.
please post some interior pics too!

heres wishing you thousands of more happy km's!

cheers

[phamilyman]

Nice review. Have you maintained a service/mileage excel so far?

What about the 2500 that got spent?

[nvldvr]

A comprehensive ownership review. Manages to show the scorpio in good light as it rightly deserves . The lack of niggling issues, good build quality and excellent performance are reasons for the scorps great popularity and your experience reaffirms the same. Cheers.
About the alloys - Hope the damage was not attributable to the quality of the alloys. As far as i know, aura alloys are pretty good. The ones on your ride really nice and enhance the scorps road presence.
And what are the general service charges like?

sorry for the back to back posts, but forgot one issue and cant seem to edit the original post. How do you manage to keep the interiors fur free? My car is just brimming with my labs hair. Its almost impossible to get rid of them. Even cleaning with pressurised air doent seem to help much.

[shankar.balan]

that was around 1100 for removing, cleaning and remounting the brakes, having a few small things done on the clutch including changing the bushes, full cleaning inside and outside and having the engine scanned, tuned etc. Not too much money, considering.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Nice review. Have you maintained a service/mileage excel so far?

What about the 2500 that got spent?

yes aura are good. however I hit a really bad pothole en route coorg while I was travelling at about 80kmph. It was a double bump and the vehicle shuddered - made a double thump noise too.
when we removed the wheel we realized there were 2 dents on the left rear alloy - this meant that while it could be used as a spare at a pinch, it could never be aligned or balanced again as one side of the rim was bent. no problem with the tyre though.
therefore I had it inspected by the aura team etc but it could not be covered under warranty. I bought a new one since I want the vehicle to be in top condition always.
Ref the dogs fur we spread a big sheet at the back covering the seat and the back rest so they can curl up and lie in the back. Even with the rear seat down, we cover the surface with a big sheet.
This prevents their fur from getting into our seat fabric etc.
Apart from that, we have the vehicle vaccuumed properly with the home vac after taking the dogs out. So far so good. I used to do the same thing in my old Bolero - no problem at all.

Originally Posted by nvldvr

A comprehensive ownership review. Manages to show the scorpio in good light as it rightly deserves . The lack of niggling issues, good build quality and excellent performance are reasons for the scorps great popularity and your experience reaffirms the same. Cheers.
About the alloys - Hope the damage was not attributable to the quality of the alloys. As far as i know, aura alloys are pretty good. The ones on your ride really nice and enhance the scorps road presence.
And what are the general service charges like?

Costs: also - i forgot - the total expenditure on this vehicle in the last one year has been in the region of Rs 12000 total including changing a brake light when some idiot cycle chap broke it and changing the antenna because it snapped on account of high wind, when the car cover was being removed for cleaning. (these things cost Rs 1000 plus Rs 900). A motorcyclist crashed into my headlamp and I spent Rs 5000 to change it when the car was hardly one week old. This is not counted. Nor is the new Alloy wheel which was bent owing to my fault.
Normal maintenance including all cleaning, rubbing polishing which I ve done twice, labour, oil changes and routine stuff has cost me 12000 odd - this includes the regular tyre rotation, wheel balancing and alignment.
I have all the bills but havent bothered keeping an excel sheet.
all in all, for an average of about Rs 1000 per month on maintenance, the vehicle has served very well.

Note from the Team-BHP Support Team : Please use the "edit" button if posting within 15 minutes of the first post, instead of creating another back-to-back post

Also use "Multi Quote" option for quoting Multiple posts.

[krish3]

Good report Shankar. More pics would have made the LTO report even better.

A scorpio without cladding looks a bit wierd, but I think it might be because I'm not used to seeing LX.

The LX seems a good VFM proposition except for the lack of ABS and elec mirrors.

Is there any feature that you miss in the LX; but available in higher models; that you wish were there? The LX being almost 1 lakh cheaper than SLE will certainly be lighter on my pocket and will certainly lessen the strain on finances.

[shankar.balan]

somehow I always preferred the scorp without cladding which is on reason why I bought the LX last year. I also dont really like the bonnet scoop which in my vehicle's case is purely cosmetic.Nor do i like the tall rear lamps/ brake lights/ reflectors and the Ski Rack. Frankly I preferred the way the old Scorpio DX used to look - simple, plain and nice. But I like the new Crde engine for its pep and the 16 inch wheels, multilink suspension etc etc which are all improvements over the old scorp.

the new LX is a good buy - more or less the same price as what I paid for my old one but the new one comes with the 2.2 MHawk engine.

there are several things I would like to have but when I bought this scorpio I did so with my eyes open - not wishing to spend the extra money at the time, I consciously stayed away from the "bells and whistles" that the other variants had.

What I would like to have in the Scorpio/ and / or in the next vehicle i buy if it is destined to be another Scorpio are:
1. ABS/EBD
2. Driver/Front Passenger Airbags
3. Electric ORVMs & Reverse Sensor
4. Rear Wiper/Washer/De-mister Heating element
5. Hybrid Technology Engine

This probably means I shall need to wait for the Scorpio Hybrid and then see what variants they come up with.
So lets see.
Meantime I guess I will enjoy what I have bought to the best extent possible
cheers

Originally Posted by krish3

Good report Shankar. More pics would have made the LTO report even better.

A scorpio without cladding looks a bit wierd, but I think it might be because I'm not used to seeing LX.

The LX seems a good VFM proposition except for the lack of ABS and elec mirrors.

Is there any feature that you miss in the LX; but available in higher models; that you wish were there? The LX being almost 1 lakh cheaper than SLE will certainly be lighter on my pocket and will certainly lessen the strain on finances.

[anupmathur]

Nice and comprehensive review, Shankar!

Though I am surprised at the clutch bush/spring issue. Seems most Scorpios from year 2007 onwards have it! Have they gone backwards?

I have no such issues with my Aug 2006 model!

[shankar.balan]

as we were discussing - Im seriously thinking of changing to the MHawk heavy duty higher tech clutch assembly - lets see - maybe another couple of TD's and I will be clearer in my mind.
also I ll anyway need to wait for a year to atleast do 30-35000 klicks before putting the 10grand down

Originally Posted by anupmathur

Nice and comprehensive review, Shankar!

Though I am surprised at the clutch bush/spring issue. Seems most Scorpios from year 2007 onwards have it! Have they gone backwards?

I have no such issues with my Aug 2006 model!

[raj_5004]

great review shankar!!! it has covered all the aspects of the vehicle really well. such detailed reports few here & it gives all the details regarding the vehicle to the forum members, good or bad!

[prince_pervez]

I thought Alloys were tough and would not bend! Those wheels look wicked. Nice review.

[shankar.balan]

ha! so did I. But hitting that wicked pothole at 80kmph was what did that wheel in. No sense in braking hard because that would have just caused chaos - there was a bus coming in the opposite direction so I simply had to go half off the road surface - straight into the pothole - bad luck - but one lives and learns I guess.

Originally Posted by prince_pervez

I thought Alloys were tough and would not bend! Those wheels look wicked. Nice review.

[4x4addict]

Hi Shankar,

How much do these Aura alloys cost now? From the many designs that I have seen, these are the nicest looking in my opinion. Classy but not overtly gaudy/agressive..

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by prince_pervez

I thought Alloys were tough and would not bend!

I also was a trifle confused that an alloy wheel can 'bend' rather than 'crack'.
Aren't these alloy wheels cast? And wouldn't a casting crack and not bend?