Team-BHP - Highway experiences with my Scorpio mHawk vlx

Hi,

We bought a Scorpio mHawk 2.2 vlx last december. Although my dad keeps it, I have driven 7000Kms of the 10,000 it has covered.
Now most of this driving is on highways on the Delhi-Baghpat-Saharanpur-Dehradun route or the Delhi-Punjab route.

I am completely in love with the beast and I really dont care about people telling me I could have bought a Civic at the same price. It is such a mile cruncher! You just keep on driving!
I have driving often for 8-9 hours with just a break or two and not been tired at all!

I have a couple of experiences to share from the big roads...

I was driving on the GT Road (CHD-Delhi) at around 8 at night. We were doing a 125-130 kmph and following a BMW 3s. They guy was going quite fast and I was just trying to catch up whenever he slowed down.
Now the highway narrowed down to a 4 lane. And there was a truck in front of the BMW on the right lane. As he was not ready to give side, the BMW guy cut across from the left to overtake the truck. I also started peeking towards the left. An esteem also followed me.
To my horror, right in front of me was a broken down truck parked in the middle of the road. It was marked by big white boulders around it.
I felt certain that I was going to bang into the boulder.
I instinctively slammed the brakes praing the ABS comes into play and tried to steer the SUV through the boulders and stop before the truck. The Esteem fellow also slammed his brakes and they locked... Now I had me barreling into a stationary truck and a Esteem barreling towards a to-be-stationary me.

Thankfully it all played out okay, and I stopped just short of the truck. Same for the Esteem guy. It had felt normal till then, but all that changed and I felt week-kneed :P. I couldn't drive for 5 minutes.
Stupid truck driver parking his vehicle on road and placing killer boulders too!:deadhorse

It was trully the scariest experience of my life!
Thank god for the ABS!

PS: I also have a query...While doing a Delhi-Punjab trip a small pebble flew in from the opposite lane across the divider and struck my windshield leaving a small spidery crack. Although the crack is very small, I am scared it will increase in time. What should I do?

Quote:

Originally Posted by EssYouWe (Post 1384623)

PS: I also have a query...While doing a Delhi-Punjab trip a small pebble flew in from the opposite lane across the divider and struck my windshield leaving a small spidery crack. Although the crack is very small, I am scared it will increase in time. What should I do?

There are proffessionals who repair and seal such small damages to windshields before they expand and engulf the entire glass. I know of one such firm whose services I have satisfactorily availed of at Bangalore.

Windshield Repair Experts and Laminated Windshield Replacement - Windshield Experts

Try their number and go to their nearest centre. They will repair your windshield.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EssYouWe (Post 1384623)

PS: I also have a query...While doing a Delhi-Punjab trip a small pebble flew in from the opposite lane across the divider and struck my windshield leaving a small spidery crack. Although the crack is very small, I am scared it will increase in time. What should I do?

Even if this crack does not increase with the passage of time, it is advisable to get it repaired. Prolonged usage of wipers in rains will cause the water to seep inside the laminated layers, causing great difficulty in night driving in the rains.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EssYouWe (Post 1384623)

Hi,
To my horror, right in front of me was a broken down truck parked in the middle of the road. It was marked by big white boulders around it.
Stupid truck driver parking his vehicle on road and placing killer boulders too!

1) The trucks are known to have broken propeller shaft too. If that is the case then its impossible for anybody to move that truck except a high capacity truck. We cannot blame the driver here.

2) It all depends upon what is the breakdown for. If its a puncture, then also they are generally not in a position to move those trucks because the trucks are overloaded.

3) The condition of these trucks are so bad, I end up wondering how the untrained ( mostly ) drivers are able to handle them. Also they are not trained like " Park like this
, dont do this, etc. The driver learn all these things with experience which, sometimes, comes at the cost of others.

4) A few discussions on highway driving :
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ety-india.html

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifti...accidents.html

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifti...accidents.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by n.devdath (Post 1384859)

They have a center very close to my house, so will be taking it to them. The Mahindra service center guys told me to break it and claim insurance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aaggoswami (Post 1386232)

1) The trucks are known to have broken propeller shaft too. If that is the case then its impossible for anybody to move that truck except a high capacity truck. We cannot blame the driver here

I do not know what the problem with the truck was, but there was a lot of kerb space and whatever might have happened to his vehicle, he could have pulled it down. Also the bigger danger were the huge boulders the guy placed.

I might not be the most experienced highway driver here... but from the 10k-15k kilometers I have driven, I have learned one thing:
Never get into a rhythm of following a fast car on the highway.
AFAIK Mr. Rajesh Pilot's accident had the same cause. :(

@Phamilyman

Thanks, will go and ask around.

@Raj

Have loads of them!

We had gone to Punjab recently and were visiting someone. We were just an hour away from where we were staying. We got the news that riots had sparked off in the whole area soon after we had got there. Now we had to go back home, but the police had blocked the highway and the rioters had blocked the roads. We had only one route we could take to go back. It took us through the villages and fields. So we decided to do it. With our fuel tank not very far from empty(there were not many trusted petrol pumps on the route) we started. We went jumping around on broken brick lined roads which could barely accommodate the Scorpio let alone a tractor and a Scorpio. Anyways after an hour and a half of driving and looking out from smoke we made it!

We even had to cross a drain which had just a few bricks covering it, only just enough to let us pass. I got down and placed a few more bricks there and managed to pass from there.

It was a fun experience, but could have turned nasty had we encountered the protesters. stupid:

Here are some pics of the Scorpio in a field the next day...