January 23rd, 2010.
Saturday at office, nothing much to do and TBHP is having its weekly backup. As I was thinking what to do, I received a call from Chennai number. Picked up and heard a lady's voice saying she was calling from FORD India, Chennai and has called up to get feedback about my experience with Ford showroom and service centre which I dealt with.
Pleasantly surprised about the call. After giving them my valuable feedback, I decided , this is it.
Next month in february, it will be a complete year of ownership of my Ikon and I have been thinking of writing a review since long.So here I go, finally!!!!
Need for a Car and research for it
We(me and my fiancee) were to get married in March of 2009 so the need of car arose automatically. We were quite happy having our share of fun on my ever faithful Yamaha Gladiator since June 2006. I swear by the trouble free ride that this bike gave and is still serving good. But we needed extra space to accomodate more family and friends, needed to go for a long long drive and still enjoy the comfort of airconditioning and most importantly needed a boot to accomodate the accompanying luggage of our relatives and friends.
Imagining the luggage coming on a auto while we take the car was really unimaginable
.
So there it was, we decided. It has to be a car with a boot, a sedan as a hatchback wouldn't serve the purpose.
My requisites -
1) Good, fun to drive car.
2) Nice handling and should be able to take the curves and sharp turns.
3) Maintenance should not be a big worry.
4) should be mod friendly after completion of the warranty.
Wife's requisites -
1) Good airconditioning(she always travel with windows up and a/c on)
2) good rear legroom and comfortable back seat for long journeys.
3) Strictly within the budget
4) Strictly no Palio(though I loved it)
Common requisites-
1) Decent boot space
Shortlisting and Test Drives
We started hunting around Oct-November of 2008, till then, for around a year I was researching on internetand that's when I got hooked up with TBHP.
As we were very clear that we want a boot, it left out many good hatchbacks of our list. I liked the Palio a lot, the yellow and orange colour on it is to die for plus it came very cheap. Indica Vista was just launched and Swift rear bench was very (in)famous, though I like the car.
Only 4 cars made to our list.
1) Indigo
2) Indigo CS
3) Ford Ikon Flair
4) Swift D'zire
All petrol models as we were sure, we wont drive much.Till today,our daily office commuting is taken care of by our ever faithful Gladiator.
Indigo - Went to Malik Motors at Road no 1, Banjara Hills, found out that in December there will be heavy discount on the car owing to year end. They were running some discount in November too, but that was not much. The salesman advised to wait till December and then book the car. No test drives taken. Only took the quotation and model details.
Review on TBHP had educated a lot about this car and we were always aware of the acres of space available inside but the niggles and maintenance part was a big worry. Plus it also meant a little stretching of the budget. The boot was too big.
Indigo CS - Frankly, it looks a lot lot better than the normal Indigo but then it had the Indica headlight which I didn't like. I wanted the Indigo headlight on the CS to make it complete(which ultimately did happen in it's facelift later). This car impressed me a lot, not only with it's space inside but also with the space inside the boot. Very smart. I don't remember exactly but does it also have foldable rear seat??
We decided we will have the dark red colour on it. It passed the verdict on all parameters.
Looks - excellent
Space inside -excellent
Boot space - Very good( I would say "practical and Optimum")
Budget - Very Very excellent, it was probably 4.65 on road(the fully loaded model) plus we shoved in 35K on accessories, so that made it complete 5 lakhs on road(round figure
)
Again didn't take the test drive as vehicle for test drive was not available.
But was pretty much decided that we will take this car home. Only question was when?
As in March we needed to be away for a month. So leaving the car unattended for a month was my concern.
We then went to Concorde Motors next day, again petrol model was not available for a test drive. They only diesel model as test vehicle. They said petrol model was not fast moving we don't have a test drive vehicle.
We reasoned that until we take a test drive how can we decide.Then they arranged for a test drive at their yard. As those car were unregistered, was not allowed to take them on road outside.
Drove the petrol model inside their yard; car appeared smooth, some trouble in engaging gears. Seats were upright, didn't much like the centre console and the dull interiors. Rear seat has ample legroom but again even those seats were upright.Would not have been comfortable for back benchers on long drive. Was not much impressed with the drive.But still all that was not a deal breaker.
IKON - We went to Fortune Ford at Somjiguda, the same day we went to Concorde after seeing the ad in newspaper that Ford is offering good discount on Ikon Flair. They had just launched the new facelifted Flair so the discount on previous model was good. We decided we wil have a look though we had the notion that Ikon will be expensive. As we went to showroom, both the new and old model Ikon was displayed alongside and frankly though I'd prefer the new model than the old, but only new digital tripmeter,changed front bumper and clear glass in taillights were the noticeable changes in the new model.The older model looked better and sportier. The old bumper looks much better than the new one, plus the discounts made it look much better.
Test drive vehicle was only available in the evening, we were told, so in the meantime went to concorde motors for the test drive of Indigo CS as detailed above.
Came back in the evening for test drive and were taken to Necklace road for the test drive in the new model were the steering was handed to me.
Wife was seated in the back seat and liked the rear seat and cooling of the a/c was optimum even at level 1.
I started driving the car,1st gear good, 2nd gear better, the engine was nice and smooth and I loved the sound from the exhaust. 3rd gear even better and then finally to 4th. Didn't bother to get to 5th gear.But I liked the way car moved ahead with a little tap on the pedal. Slowed down to 60kmph and then nice sharp U-turn and the car took it like it has been doing this forever and was ready to move ahead straight as fast as you can imagine. It didn't roll( or I just didn't feel it).The handling was superb and I was impressed. Wife was also surprised the way car handled the U-turn. Drove a little more. Was happy with it but trying hard simultaneously not to show it on the face.
Swift D'zire - Didn't like the design of the boot too much but that could not have been a deal breaker for me. But after the test drive of the Ikon,I didn't even bother to get inside a Maruti Showroom.
Will come up soon with the photos and next part of details.