Scorpio Reliability

[SRShrikanth]

Kumar Sir,

The Daewoo Manager turned you down 'cause you probably scared the day-lights out of him. You knew his product better than he could imagine knowing it.

My experience with most Manager's these days is that, well structured & multiple layered excel sheets scares them to death. Cant figure why though.?

Awesome work Sir and look forward to your updated version as well.

Truly belongs to the 'D' - camp.

Regards,

Originally Posted by hvkumar

Well, if any prospective buyer sees this detailed log, he may hesitate to buy it too - get scared by all the work that has been done! I recall I had the same type of log for my old Matiz, and I gave it to Service manager of Daewoo with an application for extended warranty - they turned me down!

[m_upreti]

Dear Mr. Kumar,

Your log is excellent, I would like to retain a copy with your permission off course to use it to track my VLx which I will take delivery tomorrow.

I never kept a log for my Wagon R but it never had any additional expenses except yearly servicing & one rear broken window.

[hvkumar]

m_Upreti, thanks and my pleasure.

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by hvkumar

Thanks, all. Incidentally, since it is a Excel Table Wizard file, you can query detail - such as when you last topped up oil, changed brake pads, and so on. Very useful when you are planning your next service. An improved version is almost ready (this one is a bit rustic) and I will upload that after it is complete. Does not take long to maintain this file, I retain all bills also.

Hai HVK,

Great spreadsheet, as usual, your excel sheets are a storehouse of useful information. This one bets them all, 27 sheets!!!!!!!!

Waiting for your latest one.......... way to go.

--Ramky
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[ramkya1]

One more item of interest from my drive yesterday from Cochin to Palakkad on Alto.......

I was climbing up Kuthiran Ghats from Trichur side, was overtaking a stationary lorry 100 mtrs into the climb, on a S bend, a black DX scorp was coming downhill against me, I had right of way, flashed my lights, scorp flashed back, he steered to his left to give me way, the shoulders of the roads on he left were pretty deep, if he would have gone off the road, he would have turned turtle, he braked hard on the edge of the road, just in time to avoid another lancer clipping behind me (crazy bum), came to a tyre-screeching dead stop.... pretty dramatic and reassuring for scorp owners.

I smiled and said to myself, here's one reliable beast; even with the weight, gravity against him and speed a little over comfort levels, the beast did stop in time to save!!!

--Ramky
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[raj_5004]

glad to hear that! even though i have not had an oppurtunity for such an emergency braking in my VLX, such incidents do assure me that it will stop when it matters the most!

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by ramkya1

I smiled and said to myself, here's one reliable beast; even with the weight, gravity against him and speed a little over comfort levels, the beast did stop in time to save!!!

Ramky, while the example you have given is nice to read, there is room for different experiences here.
If the road surface is well paved, yes the braking can be satisfactory. What happens on unpaved or gravel roads? With gravity against you, the heavy behemoth just keeps sliding down with even steerage lost!
I have encountered this, by way of 'testing' to establish the limits of my vehicle.
Even at SLOW speeds, the behaviour can be unnerving and only underscores that you better rely on gears and not the brakes to shed momentum. Specifically on downhill, untarred sections, which is where I find myself all too often!

[raj_5004]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

Ramky, while the example you have given is nice to read, there is room for different experiences here.
If the road surface is well paved, yes the braking can be satisfactory. What happens on unpaved or gravel roads? With gravity against you, the heavy behemoth just keeps sliding down with even steerage lost!
I have encountered this, by way of 'testing' to establish the limits of my vehicle.
Even at SLOW speeds, the behaviour can be unnerving and only underscores that you better rely on gears and not the brakes to shed momentum. Specifically on downhill, untarred sections, which is where I find myself all too often!

very well said anup saab! even on normal well paved roads, i rely more on the engine braking rather than the discs.

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

Ramky, while the example you have given is nice to read, there is room for different experiences here.
If the road surface is well paved, yes the braking can be satisfactory. What happens on unpaved or gravel roads? With gravity against you, the heavy behemoth just keeps sliding down with even steerage lost!
I have encountered this, by way of 'testing' to establish the limits of my vehicle.
Even at SLOW speeds, the behaviour can be unnerving and only underscores that you better rely on gears and not the brakes to shed momentum. Specifically on downhill, untarred sections, which is where I find myself all too often!

Anupji,

I agree, on a fast downhill, with unpaved roads and gravity against you, the truck can be dangerous and difficult to stop without a drift, using the gear could be a life saver. I've never been in such a situation on the truckand hope I would not get into one With your kind of hill drive, I'm sure you'd have come to some safety equation with the beast.

The point I wanted to highlight was, the Scorp did stop on hard braking, doesn't topple when someone sneezes hard nearby !!!!!!!!!!!

I was going uphill, into the S bend, eyes on the rear-view mirror, concerned at the white lancer tail-gating me for some time, must have had about 5-8 secs in all to see this, before I went out of view of that Scorp and allowed the Lancer to overtake me, some crazey idiot with dark glasses on, on very clouded sunless day!!!!!!!!

It must have been heart-stopping for the driver of that scorp and the passengers, his jusgement in braking was good for he avoided sure disaster if he had done off the road, there were no road shoulders left, but I sensed he was little too fast on a downhill and probably on the wrong gear ( pure guess). However, his cofidance in the beast would have come up a notch for sure.

--Ramky

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[anupmathur]

Ramky, I'm sorry, I did not mean to undermine what you had said.

My own little quirk, I like to make it amply clear to prospective users that this car behaves rather 'differently' under certain conditions. I keep worrying that a new comer should not realize this at a crucial juncture. Forewarned, as it were ....
This holds particularly true for people who have recently switched from a sedan to something as heavy as this one!

[MonkSansFerrari]

Scorpio Brakes?
In the last 5 years, I have had to change the brake-booster twice - the first time within 6 months of purchase (was replaced free by the company under warranty) and the second time a few months ago. Fortunately both the times it happened in Delhi while I was driving at a slow pace in average traffic (and not on hills or highway at highspeed - that would have been a nightmare).
Except for this I have had no problems with this vehicle which has now ticked 100,000 Km.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by MonkSansFerrari

In the last 5 years, I have had to change the brake-booster twice -

I would imagine this resulted in absence of power assist on brakes.
Was it limited to this or did you experience a complete failure?

[MonkSansFerrari]

Dear Anup,

It was a horrible experience. The brake just would not work and I had to literally crawl back home at a speed of 10-20 using both foot & hand-brakes in anticipation of a stop.

It absolutely shook my confidence in the vehicle and despite that I have been traveling to hills & highways in it.

[gd1418]

Did the pedal simply sink when pressed or was it very hard to depress, like the kind you experience when the main belt snaps? Even if the boosters failed, the hydraulics should have complimented it.

Originally Posted by MonkSansFerrari

It was a horrible experience. The brake just would not work and I had to literally crawl back home at a speed of 10-20 using both foot & hand-brakes in anticipation of a stop.

[MonkSansFerrari]

Dear GD1418,

The brake paddle became very hard. And both the times the vacuum reservoir needed to be changed. The belt of the vacuum pump did not break - and I'm told that when that happens then it is actually catastrophic.

These incidents were the reasons that motivated me to switch to Honda & Toyota and reiterated in my mind that India is still far from home ...

E-mails sent to Mahindra were never blessed with a reply.