The new Scorpio CRDE. Review on Mahindra Scorpio CRDE

PROS

The new CRDE scorpio model seems to be have the driver seat at a better height than previous model, I am not sure about the stability, but it gives you a very high and clear view of the road ahead. The high seating also makes it perfect for long drive and you feel good, comfortable and secured from Buses/Trucks. The titable stearing and titable head lamps works out to be great use & comfort in long drives. The Nippon system can play songs from USB pen drives and SD cards which is great use for my aging/obsolete 512MB pen drives. The hand rest in front is very very comfortable. The illumination inside is awesome too. The light around the keyhole is a very innovative. There are extra switches for extra fittings. The fog lamps switch is attacthed to the one controlling the head lights. The movable middle row makes flight-business class like space for your legs. Due to width of the car 3 people sitting in middle will not have to sit in one in others lap like a car. The steering wheel is big and comfortable to catch. Airconditioning is good but not excellent when compared to twin AC in Dicor. The voice assist system is a real cool stuff to impress others - the door open is very usefull I am not sure of other warnings. I have seen people complaining its braking but I have felt it OK. But when you are driving rash it a biiiiiiit slow. There is less bouncing at the back due to the new coil spring suspension at the back but it is still there. The new tubeless tyres with alloy wheel works well in adding comfort. Engine is the most powerful in its segment. If I compare with Hyundai-Accent that is 105bhp engine the power from Scorpio still just thrills you. The reason is since you are sitting higher than a normal car you really feel the rush. The noise is fine after you roll up all the windows and put music system on however there are vibrations (not sound) you can feel bu I believe that is normal with diseal engines. I was also happy with the customer service and sales. I found them much better that TATAs, Chevy but not as good as Honda, Tayota. I also did some offroading in Waynad in Dec-06 and found my 2-wheel drive quite powerfull though the traction was slipping many a times, esp on U-turn on a narrow mountain turn with no roads and big pieces of protruding rocks, Scorpio was climbing like beast.

MAJOR CONS

Due to high CG you some or how don't feel comfortable taking liberty in taking 90deg turns at high speed: two things happen - people sitting inside get completely squashed to one side and there is a gerat tendency to flip over on the side. The high CG also makes scorpio heave from side to side and pitch up-down with a small turn in stearing and riding uneven road. The last mile road to my house in Bangalore, though tarred properly but is very very uneven. I use to drive my Hundai-Accent at 60km/hr without slowing down and the car absorbed all shocks perfectly including a small speed breaker giving me a smooth ride...scorpio on other hand on same road, I am never able to go beyond 20km/hr, if I do more than this, it heaves, jumps and even throws you around, to the extend you grapple to hold on to your steering some or how - what I feel is, the shockers are very very hard and it is not able absorb the continuous small sized uneven shocks and passes it on directly to chassis of the car and to occupants. Now I understand why I was always able to overtake a scorpio or any other Indian SUV on an uneven road in Hyundai-Accent. The seats are designed such that though they are big and spacious but not properly shaped. In the long drive I was never able to rest my shoulder and head on seat - it does not fit the shape of your body. I ended up buying a head support and keeping a cushion at the back : I am comparing this will Accent where I fit perfectly in dirivers seat and whole my back including my head is comfortable. Mahendra engineers need to look into this seat:shape as top priority. There is still vibrations of the engine inside at low speed and at 60km/hr it is very very bad - Scorpio rattles like a truck. But as soon as you go above 80km/hr it is very smooth and vibrations vanish:noise level goes down:engine is smoother. I drove my Scorpio at 145km/hr on perpheral road in Bangalore for 20min straight and believe me, the car was extreamly quite from inside, no vibrations and stable on a straight streatch of smooth road. Noone could make out it was going at 145km/hr till you see the speedometer. Lately after first servise on Feb-07 there have been oil leakage from gear box. I have given it 3 times to Vijay Auto but it has not been fixed. I do not know the impact of it but I have heard from others also that Scorpio has problems with disel lekages and oil leakages. This may be tricky soemtimes if you go on a long drive. Also ulike various claims within Bangalore I do not get fuel average of more than ~9Km per liter of diesel which not very good with CRDi version.

MINOR CONS

The range of the remote control is very poor. If you want to unlock from a distance becouse your kids ran towards the car, or you want your wife to take out something from the car, remote will not work, you have walk almost to be within 10meter before it works. The middle seat if pushed fully back, the last seat cannot be folded and secured properly - so if you want to keep the last seat folded you have to keep your middle seat pushed towards front making legspace very narrow. The head rest on front seat are not aligned with head (as in other cars), you need to buy a seperate rest and put it on head reat of front seat so that you can rest your head. U cant rotate the AC ducts knobs beyond a small angle and it is very frustating. The aircondition for the middle row seat freezes the knee of person sitting in middle.The MP3 player is not of cool quality its OK. The factory fitted speaker is horrible, I had to replace it within a week with Pioneer 300W speakers. The sheer size of Scorpio outperforms the factory fitted music system and like in a car the trunk functions like sound box, there is no place for bass to come out. The music system sounds like a hand held transistor with no sound fiedility. I am planning to go for an amplifier and a sub woofer which will cost me 10k. At the same time in my other car Hundai-Accent I have pioneer system with good pioneer speaker and I do not need any sub woofer or amplifier, I get very good loud bass from the speaker fittet in back that utilized trunk space for generating bass.

Plastic quality is better than previous version but still not great. There are lot many places where the plastic does not fit perfectly showing the shoddy fitting work done. It is like Mahendra hired a carpenter to cut plastic with saw and glue those plastic sheets on doors. The glove compartment in front never closes in one go, it is very flimsy and looks very cheeeepoooo put together with metal rivets, it is like carpenter fitted...once I thought of closing it permanently.

Built in seat cover looks dreadful I went for complete leather that costed me 33k and it changes the looks inside. There is some amount of noise that comes from back (seat system, back-door, windows) especially on bad road as the body fittings are not tight and fit perfectly or padded properly.