A journey spanning 3 years and 77,777 km Here are the common gremlins that populate a Scorpio:
The Scorpio is not without its share of faults and niggles, though IMO it scores a 8.5/10 in the reliability department. The gremlin of a faulty clutch slave cylinder buried deep inside the bell housing, and which can start leaking without notice, resulting in complete clutch disengagement failure, has been described by more than one owner, including me. One hopes that the later designs of the CSC are more robust, but we are yet to find out. I'll live with that worry till M&M proves that they can design a CSC that'll last the life of the clutch. Another irritant is a little rubber button on the brake pedal, that engages the brake light switch. The rubber self-destructs in a few thousand km, leaving the brake lights glowing and the cruise control out of action. That's easy to fix - with a bit of hard plastic and a couple of drops of Fevi Kwik. The last time I did that was over 20,000 km ago, and I haven't had the brake lights come on unnecessarily till the time of writing this. When cruise control fails to engage, the first thing to investigate is that little rubber button. Wheel alignment is not easy, and all the parameters have to be carefully checked and verified, and I am generally happy to leave it to the ASC to perform, with some supervision from my side . But then, once set, the alignment is generally stable for 15-20 thousand km, and doesn't chew up tyres - that would be obvious when you learn that my vehicle is still running its original Bridgestones (sure, I am a careful driver, but then, even I did not expect them to last this long and beyond!).
The suspension looks robust, but the rubber bushes holding up the whole setup are not as tough as one would expect them to be. I've had mine changed (Panhard rods, link rods, anti-roll bars, damper mounts, you name it) at least twice, and some thrice, in the last 3 years. Not that I go off-road frequently, or don't slow down for bumps and potholes, but I am somehow reminded of the old Amby suspension which needed frequent change of bushes to keep it in top shape. And yes, the positive side of frequent bush changes is also a much-better-controlled body roll. Not a very expensive proposition to change bushes, mind you, but I wish they didn't need attention every 20-25k km. The last time I needed to scratch my head a bit, was when the lower end bushes of the front dampers wore out - and the M&M ASC told me that I would have to replace perfectly good dampers because those bushes are not available as spares! My FNG came up with the perfect replacement - Premier Padmini bushing kit, which has a set of similar bushes that are an ideal fit. Obviously just one person at M&M has experience with Premiers - and he quit the company sometime ago!
It has been a common refrain that the Scorpio VLX has too many niggly electronic add-ons, which compromise its reliability. The list of features is pretty extensive, and not seen in many other cars costing twice as much. Take for example, cruise control. This is such a boon during long drives, when your right foot and knee start aching, bt the rest of you doesn't want to slow down or pull over. I've often heard, "Where in India can you engage cruise control?", and it makes me smile every time.
The biggest boon (and this was a complete deal clincher for me when choosing to buy this vehicle) is the tyre pressure management system (TPMS), called Tyretronics by M&M. Folks say it beeps unnecessarily at times. IMO, however, this piece of electronic wizardry has taken the chore of tyre checks out of my life. Seat-of-the-pants/palms-on-the-steering feedback is the one thing I learnt to depend on, to diagnose low tyre pressure in a running vehicle - and there have been loads of false positive as well as false negative feedback! TPMS infrequently throws up a false positive alarm (this happens frequently when negotiating water crossings in the mountains, and I am now used to it - if the alarm doesn't disappear in 1-2 km of driving on dry land, I get out to check), but never yet has it returned a false negative alarm (i.e. not alerted me in the event of loss of air pressure).
Some number crunching coming up...
Last edited by SS-Traveller : 11th October 2012 at 20:05.
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