She's turned a year old today so can all of you cheer
& sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY please?
In the process, she's also completed 21000 kms and what I've driven of it has been pure unadulterated fun! To celebrate, we took her out early morning today & had a ball on the way & back from the kids school. It was a good early morning adrenalin rush for all of us. I love my Dicor but this baby is something else obviously......floor the pedal & let her rip, without any worries on the extra width or bulk when it comes to zipping through gaps or stopping in time!
That said, guys, I've not driven her much since November - just the weekend spins and evening zips to the Club and the very occasional trip to work when the Dicor has been at the workshop. She is (sigh) in the hands of my driver now but.....(touch wood!), he's taking good care of her. There is really not much to update except for the fact that its been a trouble-free & cheap ownership experience so far (just the 700 bucks mentioned in my last update).....the 20k/one year service is now due & she'll be taking the treatment this weekend (will update costs once done) along with the one year Waxoyl re-treatment (free, under warranty). We've not had any issues at all since my last report, mileage has increased (partly due to winter having set in & partly because with the driver, AC usage is 50% since he drives without AC when we are not in the car, AFAIK) and we've been getting between 11.86 (lowest) & 13.44 (highest) kmpl, average being a healthy 12.34 kmpl. I think that's pretty good for a brand (Ford) which has never been famous for fuel economy (before some of you pounce, remember this is the
1.6 PETROL) & one that has PRETTY GOOD PERFORMANCE and is a REAL HOOT TO DRIVE (
IMHO).
She did get banged on the right rear quite some time ago by a scooterist (who'd mistaken the smooth rear for a crash test facility!). Coming off the Chirag Delhi flyover, this guy was way behind, cars ahead of me slowed down & so did I (mind you, gentle slowing, not abrupt), his brakes refused to do their work so he smashed into the bumper & his handlebars took a chip out of the tail lamp assembly (could have KILLED him!). The bumpers are tough I must say, NO dent at all, just a whole lot of (yucky) green paint, most of which went off by spraying Colin all-purpose cleaner....but there were streaks on the side so I decided to restore her to her glory & had the full bumper repainted. Cost me 2k but I wouldn't call that "a cost of ownership" for obvious reasons.
Oh, an update on the pick-up - suddenly remembered someone's comment the other day on the way home about how a Baleno or OHC would do 160 in 3rd gear "with ease"......so I thought I'd try & see how much this baby could do. This was on the stretch in front of the Army R&R hospital going towards the cantonment area. Decided to FLOOR the pedal as the light turned green and redline her through the gears. Well, I had to back-off a little before we peaked 3rd gear because of a sharp curve coming up (where the road turns & goes towards Outer Ring Road) and at that point I'd almost touched 150 kmph (speedo) - but lemme tell you, that was pretty close to the redline. Will try out a redline sometime late night-early mornings & let you know.
Well, that's it folks, apart from the fact that I do miss her these days on my commute but I'm glad that I don't subject her to the nasty peak hour traffic jams with every possibility of someone pawing her from behind or the side!
One new gripe - After the Dicor, it feels like I'm sitting in the basement & peering out through the skylight!
CONTINUING GROUSE - Want to smoke a City ZX Vtec but STILL haven't found any takers
Someday....somewhere I hope!