[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by howler

I think i can see "ecosport" across the front of the bonnet,

Oops! My mistake. Somehow i always thought the Ecosport was an all-new creation.

[karan561]

Originally Posted by benbsb29

Karan, that is not an Ecosport. The Ecosport is an entirely new model for developing markets, IIRC.

But, Ecosport always existed since early to mid 2000's and was developed for markets such as Brazil & other developing nations.

No doubt the 2012 Ecosport is entirely a new model and based on the Fiesta platform whereas IIRC the previous gen ECOSPORT was based on the FUSION Platform

[zenren]

Originally Posted by benbsb29

Karan, that is not an Ecosport. The Ecosport is an entirely new model for developing markets, IIRC.

Ford launched the first generation Ecosport in 2003 and the one we are discussing is the second generation.

Source: Wiki


Looking at the number of spottings we see everyday, it looks like a good marketing strategy from Ford. Look at the publicity and attention their yet to be launched product is getting across India.

All this at the expense of just burning some fuel, which could also help them gauge the on-road behavior of the cars and probably how the ecoboost engine would behave with the actual petrol available across India. It could even be a test of Ecoboost's fuel efficiency. We'll probably see the results if that is something they can brag about.

In any case, seeing the Ecosport convoy going around the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities gives me confidence that our adulterated petrol would still work on this modern engine!

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by suhaas307

Picture this..

You're driving your brand new EcoSport on Indian roads. Naturally, you have to stay on the left side on a two-way road and you're approaching your house. You park your EcoSport on the left side of the road, next to your house. Your wife tells you that you need to ferry the MIL to the Airport so you'll need help her with her suitcases.

You walk into the house, you grab her suitcase and walk out the front door and towards your car. You stand behind the car and you attempt to open the boot-lid. With the boot-release lever on the right, the door swings open effectively blocking your view of the house. This prevents you from loading luggage in one fluid motion with the door kept open.

You load one suitcase. but what about the other luggage?

You have two options:

- Slide the suitcase underneath the opened boot-lid.

- Hurl the suitcase over the door and catch it on its way down after running around the door.

OR

- You could keep opening / closing the boot-lid every time you load one suitcase.

My house is on the right hand side of the road or at least falls on the right hand side coming in the direction I take to reach home everyday. Works perfectly for me.

They should have just made it open upwards like a hatch door. All problems solved

Edit: @pnredkar - Thanks for pointing that out. I completely forgot about the wheel.

[pnredkar]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

They should have just made it open upwards like a hatch door. All problems solved

With a wheel mounted on the door, I think opening upwards is not an option.

- Prasad.

[suhaas307]

Originally Posted by sbala

I agree that this will be annoying. So was the indicator stalk in Ford cars. People always complained. But we owners got used to it . The same will happen here.

Originally Posted by naut

Although I would much prefer to have the door open to the right rather than the left (unlike what ecosport has), there's another solution to the problem you've described above.

Originally Posted by zenren

Tried picturing and it didn't force me with any of the above listed option!

Guys guys guys!

You've missed my point entirely!

The key point I'd made in my earlier post was this:

Originally Posted by suhaas307

With the boot-release lever on the right, the door swings open effectively blocking your view of the house. This prevents you from loading luggage in one fluid motion with the door kept open.

You see, assuming that you are standing (on foot) on the left side of the road and on the pavement (and the car is parked on the left-hand-side), there is no way one can load luggage into the boot of the EcoSport WITHOUT walking around the opened boot-door.

For the record, if we decide to sell our Civic and get a new car, the EcoSport is a strong contender. This boot-lid quirk is not exactly a deal-breaker so it shouldn't be a problem.

Originally Posted by zenren

The assumption in your scenario is that the boot-lid, when opened would block the entire gate. If the gate is so narrow, how will the ecosport enter through that gate?

No! This has nothing to do with the gate of a house / how narrow the gate is. It's about not being able to load your stuff into the boot without walking around the the opened boot-lid - with the spare-tyre / the boot-lid facing the pavement and not the road.

Originally Posted by vikram_d

My house is on the right hand side of the road or at least falls on the right hand side coming in the direction I take to reach home everyday. Works perfectly for me.

They should have just made it open upwards like a hatch door. All problems solved

*winks*

I think the reason why they've engineered a door with the hinges on the side is because of the spare-wheel on the boot-lid. I believe hatch-like hinges won't be able to support the spare-wheel on the boot-lid? Not sure.

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by suhaas307

I think the reason why they've engineered a door with the hinges on the side is because of the spare-wheel on the boot-lid. I believe hatch-like hinges won't be able to support the spare-wheel on the boot-lid? Not sure.

Got that part and already edited my last post. But thinking in engineering terms hydraulic dampers could take the weight of the wheel, but it would make the door really hard to open because of the weight of the wheel. So I guess the side opening approach works the best in this scenario.

[suhaas307]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

Got that part and already edited my last post. But thinking in engineering terms hydraulic dampers could take the weight of the wheel, but it would make the door really hard to open because of the weight of the wheel. So I guess the side opening approach works the best in this scenario.

Oh yeah, I just noticed that!

Looks like while I was in the process of keying-in my post, pnredkar had already put his post up.

On a similar note, I really like how Ford has managed to integrate the boot-release lever into the tail-light assembly. Looks nifty!

And the spare-wheel mounted on the boot-lid gives the car some much needed masculinity. While the Duster looks butch, chunky and sort of old-school, the EcoSport looks fresh and very contemporary. Initially, I figured the Duster needs a boot-lid mounted spare-wheel to go with its character and the EcoSport could do without it. But my view on this has changed over the year.

Vikram, as an engineer, could you tell us if it's difficult for a company like Ford to switch the position of the hinges for specific markets? Would it really bump-up costs of production so much that Ford seemed it best to avoid the exercise altogether?

[bblost]

Originally Posted by suhaas307

No! This has nothing to do with the gate of a house / how narrow the gate is. It's about not being able to load your stuff into the boot without walking around the the opened boot-lid - with the spare-tyre / the boot-lid facing the pavement and not the road.

A counter point:
If the door was facing the road side then the mounted spare tire will be waiting for the first auto-rickshaw to slam into it.

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by suhaas307

Vikram, as an engineer, could you tell us if it's difficult for a company like Ford to switch the position of the hinges for specific markets? Would it really bump-up costs of production so much that Ford seemed it best to avoid the exercise altogether?

It would. Substantially. You would need two sets of dies for pressing the boot door and these huge dies are really expensive. Or they could have done what Tata has done with the Winger's rear door. Both doors on the Winger are identical and the handle is moved based on the region where that vehicle will be sold. They could have incorporated this in the design stage and that would have meant no extra cost of manufacturing. They could have had mounting points incorporated on both sides of the door and that would have solved this problem.

But to be honest I don't see this as too big a problem. it's just that we are so used to these kinds of doors opening towards the right that this one feels odd at first. This is something similar to what I went through when I shifted from the Swift to the Mondeo with their indicators and wiper stalks interchanged. It took a couple of days but I got used to it eventually. Similarly people will get used to this also.

[arjab]

Why so much fuss about which way the hatch swings?
With due respect to all, in a typical family person's ownership life cycle of a vehicle,(assuming the owner has not given the vehicle to the rental/cab/taxi segment), how many times do you open the hatch anyways? In a 5 year ownership cycle how many times will you open the hatch? 500 times? 1000times? don't think so.
So personally, i do not view this "which side hatch opens issue" to be a deal breaker. What is more important is loading floor height, boot intrusions etc which has a bigger bearing on the efficacy and utility factor of a vehicle's boot space.

Incidentally, you will also notice that most European hatches have their fuel filler flap on the right rear quarter panel (as they typically pull in to the petrol stations from the RHS of the road from the autobahn's/autostrada's/autoroute's) . That does not preclude us from buying the POLO's, FABIA's, LAURA's does it ?

[sunsetorange]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

It is inconvenient. But then how often do we open that tail-gate? I wouldn't write off a good product for such small oddities. Incidentally, it is cost-cutting exercise by Ford and while evaluating inconvenience caused vis-a-vis cost of altering involved, they also take frequency of boot use into account.

Picture yourself in your Ecosport with a fully loaded hatch, on a vacation. Your tyre goes flat on the ghats and you get down to change. You are happy the spare is on the tailgate, but the wheel spanner and jack are at the bottom of all the luggage. Open the tailgate, everything tumbles out on to the road(path of least resistance) smack in the path of the vehicles behind you (narrow ghat road)! 1) Curse Ford for being a cheapskate. 2) Run after the runaway luggage. We can live with LHS indicator stalk , but this takes the cake. Please don't think i am out to bait Ford. I am a happy owner of a 4 year old Swift vdi and 6 months old Figo tdci who is waiting for the Ecosport to replace the Swift.

[vineethvazhayil]

Originally Posted by arjab

Why so much fuss about which way the hatch swings?
With due respect to all, in a typical family person's ownership life cycle of a vehicle,(assuming the owner has not given the vehicle to the rental/cab/taxi segment), how many times do you open the hatch anyways? In a 5 year ownership cycle how many times will you open the hatch? 500 times? 1000times? don't think so.

I open the hatch/trunk everyday in the vehicles I drive. That too, at least twice. I keep my backpack with my laptop etc, in it inside the trunk/hatch to keep it away from the prying eyes of people. That said, the direction the hatch opens is not definitely a deal breaker. However don't discount the inconvenience of the whole thing.

[agambhandari]

Oh my Lord! Such a big debate over the side the door swings! We know the side now and there isn't much we can do about it.
We have to accept this little quirk in the EcoSport . and I believe all of us will do this and this won't be a deal breaker for any of us.
Cheers!

[diwa]

Originally Posted by agambhandari

Oh my Lord! Such a big debate over the side the door swings! We know the side now and there isn't much we can do about it.
We have to accept this little quirk in the EcoSport . and I believe all of us will do this and this won't be a deal breaker for any of us.
Cheers!

The reason why we are Team-BHPians . To bring out +ves and -ves of an automobile. Don't forget manufacturers are tracking us.