[recker_us]

Originally Posted by prakashutosh

COngrats recker on you new aquisition..just out of curiousity, ids there any reason you didn't consider the scorpio?

Few reasons for the same, one big and and few smaller ones:

1. The Big Reason: Wifey didnt like the looks of Scorpio. That's a Veto. No other reasoning works in such a case.

2. The Smaller reasons:
- Now that mHawk version of Scorpio comes with same engine as Safari but with lower power of 120bhp, I had no reason to argue that Scorpio has a better heart than Safari.

- Entry level Safari had almost all features than Scorpio at a lower price. When I bought it in March, LX version of Safari was around 30k cheaper than Scorpio. On top of that, I got a very good discount from the dealer which brought the On road price of Safari slightly less than 9L in bangalore.

- I wanted to go on long drives in bad roads and in countryside. Safari Suspensions looked better to me compared to Scorpio. Also wanted the rear to have enough space to allow me to sleep in case there is no proper accomodation available in the countryside. Recently I drove 550kms to Gokarna in a single stretch. Neither me nor my parents(both 75+) felt tired due to great suspension.
We had only one hotel room available in Murudeshwar due to holiday crowd, so my parents and kids could sleep in room, while me and wifey could sleep comfortably in Safari.

- Scorpio is just so commonly seen in Bangalore just like the omnipresent Innova. I wanted some exclusivity which Safari Provided.

Having said that, I would say you should still consider scorpio as one of the options as
- the recent increase in price of Safari has made is more expensive than Scorpio-lx.
- Scorpio-lx comes with tubeless radials and a immobilizer.
- The turning radius is scorpio is lower and believe me, it makes a huge difference to comfort when you are taking a U-turn in busy junctions and moving through the curved multi-level parking in shopping malls.

[abishek2222]

Fantastic the safari!! Always wanted one Hope your time with the car is a good one. As time progresses i guess you would get to know almost all the mechanical components of the car. Amazing isn't it the way people run for their lives when they see you coming.have a great time with the king of the road

Sent from my iPhone

[recker_us]

No updates to this thread for a long time now.
Everything is going fine with the blacky, so no update as such.

I did the first 1000+ kms trip over the weekend to Top Slip and Palakkad. On the wide highways, Safari cruised like a dream. One of my friend who drives an i10 and sitting in a Safari for the first time said that "I feel I am floating in the air" given the smoothness and height of Safari.

I was sticking to 120+ most of the times on Toll Roads with brief spells at 140 and momentarily once to 150. With Safari, you really feel like a king on highways.

BTW, i found a spirited innova being driven continuously at 140. We kept meeting/crossing each other for almost an hour before I stopped for breakfast after Salem. So, for anyone who is ill-fed with info like Innova doesn't pull well beyond 110 or ejects dirty black smokes at high speed, that's a myth.

Finally, any guesses on the mileage for this trip?
It came to 13.1kmpl. Yeah, surprisingly high considering that we spent an hour crossing the bad traffic in Tirupur and the bad stretches+ painful traffic between Palakkad - Avinashi.

Safari is now due for 2nd service next week. I am still scratching my head and trying find some issues to report during servicing.

Surprising, havent found anything till now other than these extremely trivial issues:
- The screw which was fitted on the tail gate to fit the parking sensors post-delivery have become loose.
- A slight rubber sound when i pull down the window on the driver seat.
That's it to report. nothing else.

Very surprised.. Donno whether I should feel happy or sad about not being able to report any real issue during the second service. This is a pretty strange and unprecedented feeling. Help me please.. .

[jkrishnakj]

Originally Posted by recker_us

Safari is now due for 2nd service next week. I am still scratching my head and trying find some issues to report during servicing.

Very surprised.. Donno whether I should feel happy or sad about not being able to report any real issue during the second service. This is a pretty strange and unprecedented feeling. Help me please.. .

Recker - Enjoy your rides. Certainly, you should feel happy. Infact, after you finish your second service, i would assume that you would have even lesser things to worry about, atleast, that's my experience. I had enough issues ( more in my ownership thread) between the 0-1000 KM's and from 1000-9890 KM's ( today ), i have been pretty glad.

Originally Posted by recker_us

I was sticking to 120+ most of the times on Toll Roads with brief spells at 140 and momentarily once to 150. With Safari, you really feel like a king on highways.

BTW, i found a spirited innova being driven continuously at 140. We kept meeting/crossing each other for almost an hour before I stopped for breakfast after Salem. So, for anyone who is ill-fed with info like Innova doesn't pull well beyond 110 or ejects dirty black smokes at high speed, that's a myth.

I am told the top speed of the Safari is 180 and a friend of a friend claims he has taken it to 160 on Outer Ring Road, Bangalore. What's your opinion, recker_us ? Do you think the car can hold speeds of 160 ?

I have myself ridden on an Innova at 120 - 130, and you can't feel it in the passenger's seat. Pretty smooth that way.

[kaviprem]

^^ Just after my Safari's run-in period [around May 2010], anytime I go out of town, I will touch 140, sometimes, 150 KMPH very quickly in highway [Bangalore-Chennai]. 160 should also be possible since I am very sure the pedal was not floored for 150.

However, in the recent couple of travels, I am stopping @ 120-130 KMPH where me and the car feel very stable and hardly 5-10 mins difference is what it takes in over-all driving time to my destination. So, its not worth raising till 150 or 160 KMPH.

Btw, 160 in Bangalore ORR is way too much and I honestly feel its not possible atleast with the current situation [too much of construction].

Prem.

[mayankjha1806]

150 in outer ring road would be either a suicide or probably it was done at midnight (even then i find it unsafe).

Your safari post second service will get smoother, quieter, and quicker. I have noticed it in my friends safari when he bought it last year and have seen it go through multiple service.

[jkrishnakj]

Sarcar - I doubt if the Safari can do 180. Like Prem said, it goes to 150 quickly and touches 160 with a bit of a strain. I have very rarely touched 150. This car performs best between the 90-110 range. Its super smooth and comfortably cruises in this range. This is what i like best about the Safari.

[recker_us]

Originally Posted by sarcar

I am told the top speed of the Safari is 180 and a friend of a friend claims he has taken it to 160 on Outer Ring Road, Bangalore. What's your opinion, recker_us ? Do you think the car can hold speeds of 160 ?

Not sure if Safari can touch 180. There was enough room to speed higher even at 150. I would personally never go beyond 150.

Originally Posted by kaviprem

^^ Just after my Safari's run-in period [around May 2010], anytime I go out of town, I will touch 140, sometimes, 150 KMPH very quickly in highway [Bangalore-Chennai]. 160 should also be possible since I am very sure the pedal was not floored for 150.

However, in the recent couple of travels, I am stopping @ 120-130 KMPH where me and the car feel very stable and hardly 5-10 mins difference is what it takes in over-all driving time to my destination. So, its not worth raising till 150 or 160 KMPH.

Btw, 160 in Bangalore ORR is way too much and I honestly feel its not possible atleast with the current situation [too much of construction].

Prem.

Very true.. Will the plethora of speed breakers, we would hit atleast 2 speedbreakers before we hit 160.

Originally Posted by mayankjha1806

150 in outer ring road would be either a suicide or probably it was done at midnight (even then i find it unsafe).

Your safari post second service will get smoother, quieter, and quicker. I have noticed it in my friends safari when he bought it last year and have seen it go through multiple service.

Thanks, nice to know that the beast would get even more smoother post service.

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

Sarcar - I doubt if the Safari can do 180. Like Prem said, it goes to 150 quickly and touches 160 with a bit of a strain. I have very rarely touched 150. This car performs best between the 90-110 range. Its super smooth and comfortably cruises in this range. This is what i like best about the Safari.

90 - 110 is kinda effortless. Its smooth.. Negliglble NVH at this range. Nice feel of the vehicle and almost feel like floating. I am afraid I would go to sleep if I stick to this speed continuously.

[dadu]

Just to end the speed debate, Safari has a top speed of 160 kmph, restrained by the ECU. Once you touch 160+, you will feel as if someting is pulling it back (the ECU).

But a more comfortable speed is between 100-120 (with ease). After 140 is a strain on the engine and requires a long stretch to touch 160, which is too much for Indian roads(dont do it).

[sheelz]

Just to add,
On my drive from delhi to Gwalior, I had touched 160 kmph and maintained it for quite some time. But I think I could go further but didn't. Its a eureka for me to know that Safari speed is restricted to 160 kmph. Thanks Dadu

Cheers

[recker_us]

No updates to the thread for a long time. Actually nothing new to add. Usage offlate has been low. The beast has done 8.5k till now.
Luckily, no issues till now. It has been working like a charm.

I am just filling diesel and driving it with no extra penny spent till now on anything.

Last week, i felt the engine noise is slightly more. Called up KHT motors. A free pickup and drop from them along with checkup and not to mention, full body wash and cleaning of the beast. Engine belt has been tightened a bit and some cleanup done. All all this done at absolutely Zero cost. The Gold AMC is helping.

Noise looks better now. As per the service superviser, some extra intercooler fittings in BS4 creates more noise than BS3. Is it true?
He also showed me another BS4 and that probabaly more noisy than mine.

There was some intermittent rattle from the tail gate which they found during the drive and fixed by adding a rubber pad at the rear.

Overall, it has been a very satisfying experience with Safari till now. I feel extremely lucky with my niggle-free experience especially when i read about other oweners on tbhp.

[recker_us]

I have seen so many threads on the niggles and problems in Safari that when I ended up buying it, I knew that it was purely from Heart and not from Mind.

I had heard scarying tales of Safari refusing to budge suddenly in the nowhere leaving people practically stranded. In one of the cases, a gentleman was travelling with his family and suddenly on the ghat section near Mumbai, one of the fuse went off triggering the Inbuilt-Ignition lock and left them stranded in the middle of the nowhere.

Finally, when I bought Safari an year back, It was a conscious decision to buy a LX variant as it has less electronics compared to other variant. No dreaded auto ignition lock comes in this variant. Also, if any electronic failure happens in a remote area, chances of fixing it using any "indian jugaad" would be practically NIL. Such incidence gets reduced with limited electronics in LX.

Now after an year of hassle-free, niggle-free and extremely satisfying ownership of this black bull, I have started thinking whether the problems in LX are less compared to other Safari variants. This get reinforced when I see the other happy LX owners on tbhp like adc, anujmishra, V&V who had an issueless ownership till now. Few questions to Safari owners:

- How many problems are related to mechanical vs electrical failures?
- Is it that many of LX owner would have graduated from a low end entry level small car(like a Maruti Alto in my case), so they hardly find any problems since the reference standards are with respect to the earlier owned car?
- No doubts that 2.2 DICOR is an extremely powerful and well proven engine. So, as long as ratio of mechanical/electrical features is high, i guess the niggles are less.. Just wanted to reconfirm this observations with other fellow bhpians.

Thanks,
JP

[jkdas]

I too own a lemon like you but a EX one; been enjoying her for last 4 years. About blown fuses! well they are there to do that work :P Just open the fuse box, find the faulty one and replace it and drive on.

[anujmishra]

Agree with you. Yes, I have issue less ownership till today and never had any problem.

For the one point where you said that we have graduated from small cars so we could not find any issue. I could not agree with this. Issue is issue and no matter which car people graduated, this should not affect. Consider busted clutch plate and noise in bearing. This has nothing to do with small cars.

Off late Tata has improved a lot in vehicle and it is showing its sign.

In my case I was stranded in Maruti 800 with 22000 on ODO with busted clutch plate. But at present in my Safari, it is more than 20K on ODO and clutch is butter smooth and many of the petrol car owners also envy out of it.

Also, most important things is many of the owners do not able to differentiate between regular maintenance things and issues. They report every thing as an issue.

Originally Posted by jkdas

I too own a lemon like you but a EX one;

recker_us do not own lemon and he is extremely satisfied with his LX.