[sriniadk]

Originally Posted by Razor44

Ironically enough, there was only maybe a couple of registered Citroen C3s on the shop floor and the dealership had zero visiting customers .

One of the unlucky customers among Ford buyers with bad Ford service experience. Irrespective of out ever company car it is - good public relationship will always be helpful. Try to maintain a good cordial relationship with a workshop manager and keep him as a point of contact. So that you can prebook appointment or any problem over phone and reduce the time in which your car is going to be in Workshop. Try to find a new service center in your nearby locality or maybe approach the same workshop in a more stern manner. If the metal doesn't bend while hitting it, heating the same will always be helpful .

[The Rationalist]

The Ford service in Kerala has been very good. I had to change the automatic gear knob due to rubber getting disintegrated, seat belt had started to wear out, then the seat lever got broken and got the new ones in 3-5 days. If they keep the service as good now, I will keep the car for another 4-5 years (already in it's 9th year). Even if I have to give up the car for free I'm happy as it has been a blast driving the car. I can't think of any replacement car that can give such driving pleasure without spending a fortune. It will be a very sad day when it arrives. I will have to settle for a pre-owned 3 series that's at least 8 years old or spend ₹24 lakhs on a Virtus, the latter proposition isn't much enticing though, unless they do something to make the interiors better.

Only hiccup was New India Assurance quoting a very high amount to renew the insurance quoting delay in getting parts if needed and all. 8 years I was renewing with these suckers, never in my life will I take theirs. HDFC Ergo renewed it for a moderate amount.

[Gargee]

Originally Posted by Razor44

My Aspire Sports Diesel is currently in its 6 year and have run 45k kms. Ownership has been absolutely fuss free and the the car puts a smile on my face whenever I press the accelerator pedal. I have always serviced my car at GK Ford Raipur ( bought it from there too) and service has been a very positive experience so far. Now the dealership has been taken over by Citroen but the Ford service remains but through a separate entrance.

True, you get addicted to driving a Ford (had an Ikon 1.6 for 20 years!)

Not sure what you mean when you say the front tyre got damaged. Is the wheel damaged/bent? OEM parts are available online and you can take the help of a local tyre shop to change the wheels. For other issues, locate a local garage and insist on Ford original parts (they are bit expensive but worth it).

If you are very happy with your Aspire and if the car does not have any other major problems, you can easily and certainly retain it at least for a few more years.

[antz.bin]

I have also started facing issues with my Ford for the very first time.

During my Ladakh drive in May/June. I started noticing squeaky noises in the suspension when crossing large speed breakers. Since it was very cold there I attributed it to the weather since the squeaking tended to go away after a few minutes of driving.

I gave the car for a service the day after I returned as the service was due and told the SVC about it.

The car has run about 1500 km ever since and the noises have only grown. This means that this concern was absolutely not touched upon.

I also had wipers changed just before leaving for Ladakh and the new wipers started streaking in about 6k km/2 months. Both the front wipers. The factory installed wipers had no issues till about 23k km/3 years.

[AlokSharma]

I was a proud owner of a Ford Figo Aspire Diesel till last week.

I loved the car to the moon. The engine was fantastic, low maintenance costs, and the driving dynamics were good. I had even got it remapped earlier this year and boy oh boy, the in-gear acceleration was insane. It was a treat to drive this car knowing that roughly 130 horses and 275 nm torque were waiting there at your disposal at any point of time. It was indeed invincible.

The negatives of the car mostly started with the body shop experience at Bhavna Ford in Jan 2020. The car got rear ended on the western express way in Mumbai by a guy who was apparently learning to drive and the car took quite a beating from behind. I took it to Bhavna Ford Navi Mumbai and they took almost 20-25 days to return the car back to me. The last few days, I had to literally call them a number of times to speed up the work. Finally they called and returned the car. After reaching home, while parking I realised that the angle of the rear parking cam was slightly off and upon calling I was told to leave the car again for a day. I was in no mood for the same and went about with my daily driving. Covid struck then in Mar 2020 and due to work from home, car was in covered parking in the rains of 2020. The next year in 2021, I started taking the car out towards the end of rainy season around August end and within a week realized that the boot had some water seeping in making the floor wet especially when the car was standstill in the rain.When I spoke to Bhavna Ford regarding the same, they threw the 6 months body shop warranty on my face. Upon speaking to the service manager there, he then settled to inspect the car and told he would give some discount on labour charges.

Since I was almost done with the rains in 2021, I decided to wait. Fast forward to Jul 2022 and the problem had again started. By Aug 2022 the whole floor of the car was wet and I had to take it to the service centre for a thorough check up. Again the car was kept for almost a week - 10 days and he informed me about some leakage from ac unit form the front side as well. The boot was again completely opened up and fixed back with some sealant I was told. I paid for this fix up out of my pocket and now felt that this wouldn't happen again.

Fast forward to June 2023. I had a family member hospitalized and I was on the way to the hospital. I started the car and it started with a loud noise. Read up on the same, and realized it was related to the starter and fuse box. Since the hospital was just 1.5 kms away and it was raining I drove it till there. Again while returning back home, I heard the same noise while starting and thought of reaching home and calling up the service centre to pick the car up for inspection. I was just about to reach home when I could smell something burning and the car went off in the middle of the road. Since there was some amount of rolling resistance, I parked it outside my building gate and called up the service centre to schedule a pick up. They told me about the towing charges and so I decided to use my road side assistance on my car insurance. The car was supposed to be picked up 2 days later. On the day of pick up when I opened the boot, I could see that the floor was wet and it had also spread towards the lower bottom of the rear seats. I was completely aghast and furious about the same. Upon reaching the service centre, I told them to have a look at the same post the engine issue.

Now I was told 2 days later that there is an issue with the fuse box along with the starter and since Ford was shifting it's spare parts warehouse from Bhiwandi in Mumbai to Chennai and Gujrat, the parts would take a week to get delivered. I even got a call from a Ford India executive about the same and so I assumed bad timing and thought of waiting for the same. The parts arrived after 18 days. By now, I had lost all my cool especially I needed the car the most due to rains and the daily hospital run. They gave me some wierd reason that they can't work on the leakage part of the boot as the car couldn't be moved to and fro. On Friday after noon I was informed that the service guys were handing over the car to body shop. I thought of waiting for an update till the next day morning from the body shop and it was the same guy Shashikant who was the service advisor who had originally handled the work in 2020. I waited for a call till 2 pm from his side and finally decided to call him up. He told me that he was out with his family for the day and will have a look at the car only on Monday. I was literally pissed off with his attitude as if there was no one in the body shop to work on my car I thought. I decided to wait till Monday, and I had to call him back again for an update. He again with his lethargic attitude informed me that the body shop will start looking at the car only by 2nd half as there were lot of traffic of cars in body shop. My blood was literally boiling by now with his careless attitude, I decided to speak to the customer relationship head and service manager at Bhavna Ford the next day and gave them an earful about the same and told them that I was writing to Ford about it.

They hurriedly formed a whatsapp group the next day and I asked them to assign a different Service Advisor to me. However they assured me that Shashikant will get it done and they started sending me regular updates throughout the day. Even till the next day there was no conclusion and I was told that there's no evidence of leakage whatsoever and if I still have to waterproof it further, I will have to pay up. I decided, I had enough since it was already over 21-22 days and I told them that I would collect my car that day itself. I called up the service advisor. He neither picked up my call nor called back even after 2 hours. I dropped in a message that I would be coming in the next one hour when I was conveniently informed on the group that he will need some time to get the car cleaned so I should come later at 5 pm. I said fair enough.

Upon reaching the dealership at 5.15 pm, when I saw the car, I was furious. The seats had black marks all over and the seat belts had fungus all over them. I gave the body shop manager an earful and stormed out of the dealership.

The next day while casually visiting my friend who stays nearby, he told me that a guy in his building is facing a similar leakage issue in his Aspire as it is always parked in the open and the leakage is pretty bad.

I got a call from the customer relationship manager the next day and she was quite patient in hearing out my ordeal. She was polite and accepted the whole behaviour of the service advisor was unwarranted. But she also told me that there has been a lot of complaints and traffic of cars coming to the service centre especially related to water leakage issues. On the other hand she said that now since Ford has shifted the spares warehouse to Chennai, it would easily take a couple of days for any of the parts to arrive at the service centre. She even offered to get my car's interior cleaned thoroughly at anytime I get the car to the service centre.

After the whole episode, I started thinking in the direction of selling the car as my warranty was about to expire in 6 months. Even though I could have extended it for 2 more years by paying close to INR 12000, I had apprehensions regarding the service quality going down the drain from here on and also the long delays to receive parts from across Chennai would ensure that my vehicle would stay at the service centre for a long time for any repairs.

I sold my car to Spinny and was happy with the price they gave me since the car was always 3M car care maintained and was in otherwise a good condition.

I wish Ford could have stayed back and maintained the service quality. I would have loved to keep the car for a couple of more years and enjoy it thoroughly.

[CoolFire]

It seems the service quality differs from state to state. Luckily for me, here in Kerala it is quite good (Kairali is the dealer in my case). I had an issue of multiple door latches failing in my 2014 Ecosport and to my surprise they said a recall was issued for this part in my series of cars.

I got all the four door latches replaced free of cost a few months back. I am not sure, but think this could be a very rare instance (at least I don't know any other similar case) where a costly recall like this is done by a manufacturer who is no longer selling cars here.

[sriniadk]

Service experience at PPS Ford Vizag

Purpose:

Today I visited PPS Ford, Vizag for my routine 10000km service of my Ford Freestyle TDCi. Actually it has only been 8000kms after my last routine service. But in near future I am planning to do a road-trip of around 4500kms which also includes 1000-1500kms of hilly terrain. So to get my car ready for the road-trip I had already spoken over phone to my service advisor Prasad (has become a good friend of mine) and discussed regarding the same. We will examine the vital checks of the car first and then make a decision, he said. So according to my convenience I got the appointment fixed in afternoon.

Prasad advised me to do the routine service because as such the car had run 8000kms post last service and it would be better for the road-trip mainly because of 2 reasons,

1. First the car would over run the 10000km barrier by around 2500-3000kms, which is not good for engine life as well as for Warranty claims. Since my car is in extended warranty what he advised me was not to break this 10000km sequence as if in case of any malfunction and if that is put up for warranty claim then there are chances that the Warranty claims can be cancelled due this reason of not servicing in time.

2. Another reason is that since I am going to drive the car in Hilly terrains, there will be a significant amount of load being put on the engine which will be testing the car to its extreme limits. So definitely by doing the routine service it will give me peace of mind and boost my confidence as the driver of the car.

Repair work:

No major repair work was there in the car to be looked upon. The test driver took the car out for a test drive and reported no complains from his side. Then my car was put on the ramp jacked up. Prasad had briefed me that in the 70000km service, only the engine oil, oil filter will be changed. He also informed the technician to check the life of the gear shifter linkage bush as that is highly susceptible for failure after 40000km in this new Getrag gearbox. But in our Freestyle group, they had already informed regarding the same and I had changed it at 60000km service.

** I would advise all Figo, Aspire and Freestyle diesel owners with Getrag gearbox to change the Shifter linkage bush every 40000km **

So, these are the work undertaken during the service

• Rear brake drums were cleaned with a 3M spray.
• The handbrake lever was tightened.
• Engine oil, oil filter changed.
• AC air filter changed (it was dusty and clogged, I recommended the same to be changed)

After engine oil, oil filter change the level of oil was checked using the dip stick. All other basic checks of the car as carried out like brake oil, coolant level etc.. Then again after service the car was taken for a test drive and it was good to go. Then the car was sent for full body wash and interior cleaning.

Jacked up Freestyle


Cost of the 70000km service :

Total Spare parts cost (Engine oil ,oil filter ,Sump plug gasket, AC dust filter) - ₹ 1550.00
Total Labour cost - ₹ 2381.00
Cumulative charges for service cost - ₹ 3931.00

Final Verdict:
I am really satisfied with the service being provided by the Ford. Even after its departure Ford has worked out really well till now (Touchwood). I spoke with Prasad, and he was telling me that the service will continue to be here operating for next 6-7 years. The spare parts are right now coming from Chennai depot. Unluckily I might move out of Vizag and go to Mumbai by next year. Hopefully I should be able to establish a good relationship with the Ford service center of Mumbai too .

After a good wash

[aviator1101]

Originally Posted by sriniadk

I am really satisfied with the service being provided by the Ford. Even after its departure Ford has worked out really well till now (Touchwood). I spoke with Prasad, and he was telling me that the service will continue to be here operating for next 6-7 years.

Feels good to come across another happy Ford customer.

Your friend is right about the availability of service. Same information I have also got from Kolkata. Minimum another 6-7 years of assured service by Ford.

In fact I would say that their gesture of further extending warranty is really nice. I had extended warranty upto 5 years. This time I extended it upto the sixth year. You may also consider it in case you plan to keep the car for long.

Wish you safe miles ahead on your Freestyle Sir.

[broke_enthu27]

Ford Freestyle is a gem. There is not a single Ford car that came to India, that I wouldn't buy today. Figo Diesel is the best diesel hatch that I have ever driven. Absolute gold. With a little more support from us as customers, we'd still be having those Ford machines around.

[akp666]

Originally Posted by antz.bin

I have also started facing issues with my Ford for the very first time.

The factory installed wipers had no issues till about 23k km/3 years.

Originally Posted by AlokSharma

I was a proud owner of a Ford Figo Aspire Diesel till last week.

I wish Ford could have stayed back and maintained the service quality. I would have loved to keep the car for a couple of more years and enjoy it thoroughly.

Ohhhh Man. I am facing similarish issues. The body shop repairs have been shoddy and my bonnet vibrates a lot more after the repair and it irritates me to the core when idle. It was not so bad before and no fix in sight. I got irritated and just left it as it is. Atleast it's secure. Just vibrates more.

Regarding the spare part availability. New battery? Wait for a week. Wipers? Not in stock. Wait for a week.Anything is wait for a week minimum. When the wipers were back in stock, the just stop working properly leaving streak marks. I usually do not go beyond the OEM even if it is for small things. Ruining the experience of an otherwise wonderfully maintained ecosport which is a hoot to drive. I am also unsure what to upgrade to, because the ecosport has spoilt me to the core. Having a tough time deciding whether to let go of it and get the new seltos/elevate/XUV700.

[Razor44]

Originally Posted by broke_enthu27

Ford Freestyle is a gem. There is not a single Ford car that came to India, that I wouldn't buy today. Figo Diesel is the best diesel hatch that I have ever driven. Absolute gold. With a little more support from us as customers, we'd still be having those Ford machines around.

Ford freestyle is a gem which Ford sabotaged. I think it was the first car in the segment offering ESP, hill hold, TCS with 180 mm of ground clearance which at the time of its launch was only available in a handful of cars below 20 lakhs. And at the time it was really starting to sell and catch people's imagination, Ford decided to sabotage it themselves by removing android auto/ apple car play which Maruti offers even in Alto-wagonR. I know of two potential buyers who cancelled their purchase after that. Ford India's history is littered with such inexplicable instances of shooting oneself in the foot.

[Pachiq]

Hi, i got an offer for 2012 ford fiesta classic 1.4 diesel titanium. Car is maintained well. Can i buy it? Because lots of my friends are against this as ford exited india. I am a little worried about the spares and service. I loved the car, the way it drove. Felt bad about missing out an excellent car earlier.

[cryptarchy]

Originally Posted by Razor44

Ford freestyle is a gem which Ford sabotaged. I think it was the first car in the segment offering ESP, hill hold, TCS with 180 mm of ground clearance which at the time of its launch was only available in a handful of cars below 20 lakhs. And at the time it was really starting to sell and catch people's imagination, Ford decided to sabotage it themselves by removing android auto/ apple car play which Maruti offers even in Alto-wagonR. I know of two potential buyers who cancelled their purchase after that. Ford India's history is littered with such inexplicable instances of shooting oneself in the foot.

I was one of those. I was planning to buy the titanium model, but in new batch they also removed rear parking sensors. Titanium+ was out of my budget. Otherwise I really liked the car during test drive.

[tharian]

Originally Posted by Pachiq

Hi, i got an offer for 2012 ford fiesta classic 1.4 diesel titanium. Car is maintained well. Can i buy it? Because lots of my friends are against this as ford exited india. I am a little worried about the spares and service. I loved the car, the way it drove. Felt bad about missing out an excellent car earlier.

I wouldn't suggest it. Reason being, it is a diesel and more than 10 years old. There are high chances of lots of maintenance coming soon. If it was a 1.5 diesel model, it would have been a better option.

[darrenjpinto]

I seem to have landed in a similar situation with the ford authorized service centers, recently i had booked my 2016 Ford Figo for a windshield replacement and then for a general service. I chose Cauvery ford as they are very close to where I stay

• However i had to book each service separately, the first for the windshield replacement at their body shop and then the regular service at their service center on hennur road. this is not what a customer can expect from the same authorized dealer shouldnt it be one entry and exit point?
• Next the windshield was replaced and the driver dropped it off to the service center, i called and spoke with the customer support person who then assured me that the vehicle will be taken care off an that a service advisor will call me. 2 days later after numerous calls to the service advisor i decided to visit the center and saw the car parked outside and nothing started. at first I felt I should take the car elsewhere but they promised me it will be done ASAP and i made the mistake of allowing them to continue.
• The car was serviced and parts changed. i was informed which parts had gone and what was being replaced, the bill seemed to have other additional parts and charges which was promptly mentioned as other required parts/charges.
• On reaching home I scanned the bill and realized that , they were parts charged for which wasnt what i had asked them for , they were parts charged for which wasnt actually changed, charges for AC cleaning and deodorizing that wasnt even done, just some cheap room freshener sprayed all over the cabin. I have pictures of the torn shock boot that the advisor said was actually a gasket for the thermostat housing. Engine mounting when all that was changed was one gearbox mounting.

I raised this request to the service engineer and he keep saying he will revert and when i got no reply i sent a mail to customer service at ford, after a few back and forth exchanges they reverted that i should take the matter up with the dealer and that they only can resolve it. Now im the loser as i have paid for these additional items and the work was not done correctly and the company has washed their hands on this matter.