[arvindmanju]

Originally Posted by sunilg33

The stock tyre is from MRF in the picture. I seriously hope they change it in the production car.

Just being curious, whats wrong in the MRF tire? Pardon my ignorance.

[sbala]

Originally Posted by arvindmanju

Just being curious, whats wrong in the MRF tire? Pardon my ignorance.

I was also thinking about the same. MRF tyres on my Fiesta came till 45k Kms. Though, people claim it as hard rubber, I was happy with that. Not the best, but certainly good one ..

[akhil_rpmlover]

Originally Posted by arvindmanju

Just being curious, whats wrong in the MRF tire? Pardon my ignorance.

Originally Posted by sbala

I was also thinking about the same. MRF tyres on my Fiesta came till 45k Kms. Though, people claim it as hard rubber, I was happy with that. Not the best, but certainly good one ..

I guess its issue with Road-noise. And of course, compared to Michelin's and BS, MRF is not upto the mark. I thought MRF had an issue with life as well. But @sbala, how did you manage 45K with MRF ? I thought they wont do over 30K, as was with my earlier experiences .

[urajkumar]

This thread is certainly heating up day by day! Well i too have been following the thread since i am waiting for the Eco-sport engine with AT version but however i must admit what i hear is not good news.

Two of my friends working in Ford confirm it is going to come by July 2013 only . I hope they are wrong since with this many vehicles showing up across india without camouflage indicates the contrary.

The AT version will mostly come only in 1.5 liter petrol version and not in eco-boost engine since the torque (i think so, forgive me if i am wrong) in eco-boost might be too much for the AT box ford has. Since they have already tuned the AT to the 1.5 liter version in the fiesta, it will come first. If they do plan to mate the AT to the eco-boost engine, it will happen subsequently only. Also if the AT box can handle that much torque, the diesel can also be paired theoretically but we know its not going to happen for now. Besides the ecoboost plus AT will price the baby suv out of the markets reach.

Now the other sad part is the 1.5 liter engine means even with the sub 4 meter length it will not enjoy the excise duty benefits and so AT in 1.5 liter is nothing less than 11 lakhs (ford fiesta style version is 10.7 lakhs). The manual ecosport due to engine import duty will cost as much as 1.5 inspite of excise duty cuts.

The diesel which will give most of the sales however will get excise duty cuts since the benchmark for diesel is 1.5 liters and sub 4 meter which could end up making it very close to petrol suv price.

So i guess ford rightly would be focusing on Diesel version which i guess makes sense. So that could be the trump card.


last but not the least my friends in ford told me the delay is only because they are heavily trying to localize the car to bring down costs but they must also realize they are losing market share in the run. Its better they open bookings with an introductory prize and start delivering cars slowly to ensure they don't lose momentum. At least they wont lose customers who will start giving up due to uncertainty. Maruti i believe could launch the ecosport rival by end 2013 and so it would backfire for ford since we know maruti might do another "ertiga" here. They are certainly milking the swift platform well.

lets wait and watch the space now! If they don't give us concrete details within Feb, this thread will lose steam for sure. At least i will stop paying attention and grab some other car considering the juicy deals which are being offered by every other manufactured.

[sbala]

Originally Posted by akhil_rpmlover

I guess its issue with Road-noise. And of course, compared to Michelin's and BS, MRF is not upto the mark. I thought MRF had an issue with life as well. But @sbala, how did you manage 45K with MRF ? I thought they wont do over 30K, as was with my earlier experiences .

It's just how one maintains it :-). Michelin's are high quality / cost tyres. They rarely come along with the car. Out of the remaining, I would say MRF is not that bad. Yeah, they are noisy when compared with BS and Michelin. But comparing it with other OEM ones, it's better.

[agambhandari]

Going by the above written news abot diesel being priced close to petrol, then why would Ford even think of bringing the Petrol here?

Clearly, the Petrol would be the value offering and somehow Ford seems to be putting 1.5 P as the base model, wonder how they are gonna manage that.
Interesting days ahead...

[anumod]

Originally Posted by akhil_rpmlover

I guess its issue with Road-noise. And of course, compared to Michelin's and BS, MRF is not upto the mark. I thought MRF had an issue with life as well. But @sbala, how did you manage 45K with MRF ? I thought they wont do over 30K, as was with my earlier experiences .

Sorry for being off the topic, my Fiesta MRF tyres ran up to 60K. I could have run 10K more, but I changed because the tyres were 4 years old. The only issue I was seeing that road noise.

[rajesh.sml]

How much it will cost if one gets all the tyres changed from MRF to Mich or BS ??

[spinfreak]

It's better late than sorry. Ford confirmed inside news is launch with 5k cars already at dealer stockyards - not before May'13. No Liva / Etios / Swift like situation where bookings ran into 80-90 thousands, but didn't translate into actual purchases, and now the cars have discounts on diesel variants. EcoSport will be ready delivery off shelves. Don't be surprised if initial mix of stock contains base variants, mid variants, white, black and silver color mixes as well in addition to the gaudy launch blues & yellows top models with alloys. That will keep up demand since not everyone wants top variants in blue yellow or red exteriors. I say brilliant strategy by Ford. Slow & steady, decent pricing (at par with Duster launch price) should kill off competition.

Ford only plan to sell 5-8k additional vehicles through this (cos the G Fiesta is also here to stay. Wonder if it'll be able to do even the current numbers once ES is launched). Overall they'll reach 170K cars a year or so they think! :o Good luck to them, or good luck competition B-)

[vnabhi]

Originally Posted by anumod

Sorry for being off the topic, my Fiesta MRF tyres ran up to 60K. I could have run 10K more, but I changed because the tyres were 4 years old. The only issue I was seeing that road noise.

MRFs are the most durable among stock tyres. They also command the highest resale value. When I changed my stock tyres on my Figo to Michellins, the tyre dealer offered an exchange value of Rs 3.2 K per tyre if they were MRFs, 3 K for Apollos and 2.8 K for Goodyears. My car came with Apollos, so I lost Rs 800 in the process, compared to MRFs.

My Fiesta has crossed 37 K in 6 years with the stock MRFs and they are still good enough for another 10 K. But I will change them soon because of their age.

It is soft-compound tyres like Yoko S Drives, etc that do not last beyond 35 K.

Sorry for going OT on tyres, but wanted to pen my thoughts.

[shalini_g]

Originally Posted by vnabhi

MRFs are the most durable among stock tyres. They also command the highest resale value. When I changed my stock tyres on my Figo to Michellins, the tyre dealer offered an exchange value of Rs 3.2 K per tyre if they were MRFs, 3 K for Apollos and 2.8 K for Goodyears. My car came with Apollos, so I lost Rs 800 in the process, compared to MRFs.

My Fiesta has crossed 37 K in 6 years with the stock MRFs and they are still good enough for another 10 K. But I will change them soon because of their age.

It is soft-compound tyres like Yoko S Drives, etc that do not last beyond 35 K.

Sorry for going OT on tyres, but wanted to pen my thoughts.

Sorry for going off topic. Just to add abt MRF.

On my IKon , the stock MRF done 71K and still going strong. Good enough for another 1K. I may change it soon as the car and tyres are 7.5yrs old.

Regards,
Gopi

[dhanushmenon]

Guys, though everyone admits being off topic with a disclaimer, I think we're grossly drifting off topic now.

[swiftnfurious]

Guys, Thank you all for your inputs on MRFs and we are now convinced on below points :-)

1. Road noise higher
2. Lasts long especially when well taken care of
3. Better resale value among competitors

Originally Posted by agambhandari

Going by the above written news abot diesel being priced close to petrol, then why would Ford even think of bringing the Petrol here?

Clearly, the Petrol would be the value offering and somehow Ford seems to be putting 1.5 P as the base model, wonder how they are gonna manage that.
Interesting days ahead...

I think only Ecoboost may be priced closely to the diesel (or even petrol AT). In the case of AT, there is distinct product differentiation making a strong case for petrol AT. In case of Ecoboost, I hope the power output of 120 (?) should make it amuch more fun to drive car with a resonably good FE. So people who runs lesser may opt for it. Since you have triggered a thought, I think I will reposition my opinions on variants like below. :-)

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

...My guess on the variants + price differences (NOT trims) are

1.5L petrol MT
1.5L petrol AT (MT + 75K/-)
1.0L Ecoboost (AT + 25K/-)
1.5L diesel (Ecoboost + 25/-)

This is a wild guess. Based on calculating 1.25L difference between base petrol & diesel variants and also assuming Ecoboost may not be priced at a premium over diesel in India.

Re-positioning Ecoboost & 1.5 AT variants below

1.5L petrol MT
1.0L Ecoboost (1.5 MT + 50K/-)
1.5L petrol AT (Ecoboost + 25K/-)
1.5L diesel (1.5 AT + 25/-)

This way ecoboost still is priced lower, showing better savings & probably close to diesel running costs. The AT is 75K expensive over the manual tyranny. Diesel variant will be 1L extra over petrol variant!

Again, just wild guesses. Would like to get some inputs from people in the marekting department or auto sector.

Originally Posted by spinfreak

It's better late than sorry. Ford confirmed inside news is launch with 5k cars already at dealer stockyards - not before May'13. No Liva / Etios / Swift like situation where bookings ran into 80-90 thousands, but didn't translate into actual purchases, and now the cars have discounts on diesel variants. EcoSport will be ready delivery off shelves...

Do you have any idea on the planned monthy production capacity of the lines and their projected targets? Had read about the management been very keen on zero wait time on all the models.

[dhanushmenon]

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

1.5L petrol MT
1.0L Ecoboost (1.5 MT + 50K/-)
1.5L petrol AT (Ecoboost + 25K/-)
1.5L diesel (1.5 AT + 25/-)

This way ecoboost still is priced lower, showing better savings & probably close to diesel running costs. The AT is 75K expensive over the manual tyranny. Diesel variant will be 1L extra over petrol variant!
.

I think that's quite aptly placed and distributed for pricing. The only question which remains now is how well ford would price it. And that discussion itself has been in such lengths that the dead horse would start cursing us for beating it again.

[selfdrive]

Originally Posted by dhanushmenon

I think that's quite aptly placed and distributed for pricing. The only question which remains now is how well ford would price it. And that discussion itself has been in such lengths that the dead horse would start cursing us for beating it again.

Totally agree. If I get a rupee for everytime somebody mentions the pricing on this thread or hopes for a sub X lakh price or speculates about the launch date, I will save enough for the top end version.

I hope we can focus our energies on the car dynamics and what we would like to have, as against the speculoos on price/ launch date/ market positioning strategy. As it is I am thinking Ford is letting loose the test mules without camouflage to gain free publicity. We should endeavour to prevent a repeat of a Kolaveri type mountain of this ES. remember what happened with the NFS?