Re: Safari STORME VX 4x4 (Pearl White) - Ownership Review
Views after 6000 kms on road
The beast has taken me places covering an assortment of highways, cities, beaches and a mountain. Mileage is around 12 kmpl with 50-50 split between city and highway which comes down to 11.0 kmpl when using 4x4 occasionally. Dealership people mentioned that it should be at least 13 kmpl post the 5K services – will need to check this out.
Driving on the Beaches
Having got 4x4, couldn’t help going to beaches near home almost every other weekend. The beast was happy too – had no qualms about handling this terrain (tried with 9 [7adults + 2 kids] people on board once). Got used to driving around the beach so often, I forgot the basics and became overconfident. One day, while treading on the beach on 4H (just 2 people on board), stopped on a spot with very loose sand and the beast got stuck. Tried getting it out on 4L but no luck - all attempts only led to sinking it much deeper into the sand. (pic below).
Fortunately, dealership staff came for help in no time and went out of the way to get me out of the mess – right from attempting to dig away the sand all around to make way and handling questions from the police. Finally, they got water from the beach, poured all around and got him out. Took nearly 3.5 hours.
I was also impressed with the cleaning service from the dealership after the recovery – was really worried because there was sand all over. Nowadays am little hesitant to go to the beach as the little misadventure grabbed too much attention.
Driving on the Ghatts
Faced the first problem with my beast while driving to Yercaud (a hill station that requires around 21 hair pins to reach). Took the first left hair pin and the beast ended up on the wrong side of the road – was totally shocked and wasn’t sure if I was driving properly.
On the next left hair pin, took my time to make as wide a turn possible and even that was not enough. However, the right turns were going along fine. It took me 3 or 4 turns to finally conclude something was amiss with the beast. Somehow managed to negotiate the remaining turns and got there. (some pics of the beast in Yercaud below)
On the way back, took a different route during the day with lesser hair pin bends and lesser traffic and went straight to the dealership. TASS mentioned that the issue was due to loosening of ball joint bolt which I think is a serious problem, and am not sure how that could affect only the left turn. However, given that the beast had been handled a bit roughly during the rescue from beach, decided to pass on this one temporarily. (Requested home delivery after service so haven’t had the chance to discuss with the service people in detail yet)
City driving
It is not a surprise that STROME stands out as highway cruiser. For stop and go city traffic, though maneuverability is somewhat difficult (compared to a sedan) the beast makes its case with all round view and the road respect. The side foot boards serve much more than their intended function – like keeping adequate separation from most other vehicles.
Driving speeds of 25 to 35 kms is occurring most frequently for Chennai traffic conditions and 2nd gear felts overpowered and 3rd felt under powered for this speed range initially. Had requested if something can be done about this as part of 2nd service and TASS seems to have done some tuning.
It is a lot more comfortable to drive around in the city now. In fact, I am still wondering how to inform the TASS to maintain the same tuning in the future – the current level perfectly fit my style of city driving.
A few things that I am not yet comfortable with,
The fuel tank lid
Most people know that the fuel lid in STORME appears somewhat out of place. What is even more annoying is that when you release, it opens up to only about 90 degrees outward and the inner lid also does not retract out very well. This makes that area somewhat clumsy while filling fuel. (This particularly grabs attention because in Honda City the fuel lid opens to about 120 degrees with a nice little slot to fit the inner lid)
The IRVM anti-glare
VX version of STORME has an anti glare coating in the IRVM which is not very effective in reducing the high beam glare from vehicles behind. The lower end version has a better functionality – the old style lever that can be pulled forward or pushed back based on need. Perhaps this lever also could have been provided in VX or the anti-glare needs additional coating.
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