hello friends, scorpio has just come out of its first service (5,500km - odo reading) and here is the report of my brief ownership. its exactly took 60days for odo to reach that mark.i took her only once out for a long outing on a chennai-mysore-coorg-mangalore-chennai route during the second week of jan (did 2350km in that trip), apart from that its all city driving.
basic information:
diet - always HSD from a regular bunk in chennai, but had to feed her with extramile during the mangalore trip.
how thirsty - gulps down a litre for every 9.5 to 10km, no matter whether is high way or city. best around 10.5 kmpl, worst 9.3 kmpl.(was expecting more, lets see how it performs after the service)
driving style-
within the city - driving with a light right foot
up country - was doing average of 100 to 110kmph. top speed was 140kmph on a very brief stretch.
complaints during the first service:
bonnet not properly seated in its position (had this problem from day one, but dint want to visit the service station just for this) - visible vibrations in the bonnet, was more pronounced at higher speeds. -
fixed during first service
driver seat belt locking mechanism not proper - constant annoying sound - they said it has been fixed,
but we are not fully satisfied.
seat reclining lever in the middle row got unbolted from its place and was found on the floor-
now back in its position.
excessive black smoke/soot (just to show the service guy, i accelerated at idle and was really shocked to see the kind of soot it spewed,it was thick jet black smoke, asked the service, whether it is to do with EGR (thanks to TBHP

), he also suspected that, (i could make it from his face that he thought of me as an expert (thanks to TBHP again

..but it took 2 minutes for the mechanic to identify the problem with a faulty oil separator- it was changed free of cost-
the problem is now fixed.
bill was
Rs.1792 for oil changes and other consumables.
service experience - till date i have visited the service station thrice (VST auto agencies- service centre for INDIA GARAGE) and am very satisfied with their approach. Infact there is a person by name Mr.Muthu - guess he is the supervisor or the floor manager, he is very polite and seems to know what he is doing.
over all experience:
build quality is very good and there is not even a squeak or rattle from the car.. ( in fact during our trip to mangalore, i had drive thru some of the worst roads of my life, (mysore-hunsur-coorg route was pathetic,not even a single km of good road, its all poth holes all the way, similarly road from mysore -sharavabelagola and to melkote was very bad).
engine is fantastic and is revv happy. gearing is good and am able to pull even in 5th gear.
seating position for the driver is very good (drove all 2350 km in 5 days during out drive to mangalore, on the last leg of the tour did 750km from mangalore to mysore in 14hrs at a stretch, wasnt tired at all after that drive).
had a chance to test the braking ability when driving between kasergod to managlore, was cruising at 80kmph, there were three trucks coming the opposite direction one behind the other, so the view to the other side was completely blocked, moment the thrid truck crossed our car, a grand old man in his alto just drove straight across into our lane and stopped the car, ( god knows the reason, may be on a mission to meet him), i slammed on the brakes immediately and cut down from 5th to third and then 2nd. car came to a screeching halt but had atleast 10 feet between us and the alto. just got down to see for any tyre marks, but there was not any. it did step out of the line, but not too much.
having driven her extensively in the ghat section, its obvious that she is not very happy to change directions at higher speed (anything above 60kmph). she loses her poise easily, and say when you take a curve turning left at more than 60km, you right side rear view mirror is filled with your rear end. but if you drive within the limitations its a nice car to drive.
overall, i am very happy and satisfied customer till date and if given a second chance, i would still like to be stinged by the power of scorpio.
regards
krishna.