A Pilgrimage...

Places - Udupi, Dharmastala, Kolluru
Total Run - 1,381.7 KM.

Oct 20-24, 2006 being holidays, we have decided to go on a small pilgrimage to Udupi, Dharmastala and Kolluru. This is my second long drive in my Scorpio. The first was to Ooty and it was very good.

We left on 21st morning and took the Bangalore - Mangalore road via Hassan to Udupi. The drive was fantastic till Hassan and after that we had trouble. The road was absolutely bad. I think 'bad' is a very small term I could use. It was pathetic. Took about 3 Hrs to cover a stretch of about 30 KM and you could imagive our fate.

We reached Udupi at around 6:30 PM. We lost a lot of time covering the bad stretches of roads and took about 4 breaks in the total journey.

On 22nd, we drove to Dharmastala from Udupi. It was about 110 KM and the road was really good. Had darshan and came back to Udupi by around 4 PM. In the evening we had darshan of Udupi Krishna and it was really good.
On 23rd, we drove to Kolluru which is 77 KM from Udupi. Kolluru is famous for Mookambika Temple. The road from Udupi - Kundapura is not good. You need to keep your leg on the clutch. From Kundapura - Kolluru is a very good drive. Kolluru is on the footsteps of Western ghats and you will go through thick forests and zig-zag roads. Its a decent drive.

We had darshan at the temple and started back to Bangalore. This time, we decided to come via Shimoga instead of the Mangalore road. We continued on the ghats and after 110 KM drive, reached Shimoga. The route is lonely, but the roads are pretty good.

From Shimoga it was another 298 KM to Bangalore. Initially the road was not that good, but after about 30 KM, the road was really smooth.

Reached home around 8 PM after a 500 KM drive. This is the first time I did such a long distance in my car, and none of us were tired. My Scorpio never let me down and gave a very good quality drive.

I have to mention that with A/C, the average milage I got was around 13.5, which is very good for a SUV with 2.6 Ltr CRDe Engine :)

All New Scorpio 2006

I decided to buy a Scorpio long ago. But, was unable to buy due to the huge investment. Finally, the day has come when I could afford it. I was trading in my 3 Year old Santro in which I did about 55,000 KM to buy my dream car.
I went for a test drive when the new version of Scorpio was launched. I was quite impressed. Thanked my stars that I could buy the new version and not the old one. On May 10,2006 I went ahead and booked the car. Got the vehicle delivered on the 10, June 2006. WOW!
This is a fambulous car made by India, for the Indian who cannot buy imported SUV's. People told be that Scorpio is not at all advisable for Bangalore (this is where i live) roads. But, I still went ahead. After driving for around 4 Months, I can definitely say that this is a Santro in its segment in terms of Manuvarability. Believe me! I am not writing this on behalf of Mahindra nor any magazine. This comes from my heart. You should know how to handle a car and you will definitely enjoy driving this machine.
If at all I need to suggest one this for improvement, I would only say "Breaking". It takes around 3-4 Sec to get the car to a standstill when you are driving at 100 KMPH. This is a bit huge time when you are talking about Indian roads. If this beast had ABS, nothing like it. I think I read it in one of the car magazines that ABS would be included by the year end, and i am sure that the price would be at least 1.5 Lacs more (which would definitely be beyond my budget). Even this version is amazing...