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-   -   Ford EcoSport : Official Review (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-reviews/136854-ford-ecosport-official-review-175.html)

Arvind,
I have seen the kinetic blue color numerous times, since I have taken 3 test drives of the EcoSport till date.
I for one, loved it. It looks absolutely stunning and has just the right amount of flash.
Here's a pic if you fancy one:

I just drove a friend's Ecosport from Chennai to Bangalore. The dynamics of the vehicle are very well sorted out for its ground clearance. It definitely is not in the league of Fiesta, Linea, Punto and Figo. The only issue is lack of feel from the steering.

Made visit to Elite Ford in Marathahalli Bangalore. Their Ecosport Display is on the first floor. At the base of the stairs they have a whiteboard with waiting periods. Was shocked to see that most of the petrol variants (Both 1.0 and 1.5- Apart from the base variant) have a listed wait period of 9 months to 1 year. The lowest waiting is for the base diesel which is around 5 months. Wonder how many people are ready to wait 1 year for a car. They also had a waiting time of 1-2 hrs to get a test drive and requested us to come back on a weekday. They were also out of brochures and price lists (including photo copies) and said they would email it.

In summary looks like they are swamped. :)

Slightly OT: We stopped and test drove the Ertiga. Almost all variants and all colors are readily available. Was quite surprised considering the amount of waiting it had in the months subsequent to launch

Elite ford seems to be a pretty small dealership. I had visited that place thrice during the first week of launch and they were yet to start the deliveries while others were showing off their deliveries on Facebook.
Their cars on display are always out of battery and we can't even open the boot.

Deliveries are bound to shoot up if they don't give delivery. I suggest you to try cauvery or metro if you are seriously considering it

Visited Elite ford again today for yet another test drive. The SA there informed me that they have not delivered any ecosport till now. I had pre-booked ecosport in mid June and getting a bit restless now with no signs of delivery still .

Woah! They seem to have rear ended the car. Why do dealerships manhandle cars so much?

I took a TD of both the Ecoboot (first time) and TDCi (again) this weekend and I still think the diesel is a better engine. The Ecoboost is an amazing piece of technology and doesn't feel like a 3 pot at all but the turbo lag is annoying and the motor without the turbo seems pretty strained and not capable of pulling this 1.2T car. The good part is that the motor is very revv happy and so getting to around 2k rpm doesn't take too long and then the turbo just takes over. Since my TD was within the city, every speedbreaker, turn where I had to slow down, it was a pain to wait for the turbo to spool up and the drive to turn fun again.

The diesel on the other hand, is a totally different beast. The TD was back-to-back with the Ecoboost TD so I could compare them better. The motor doesn't feel like a diesel motor at all and the pull is pretty linear. There is a *very* tiny amount of lag but that's almost not noticeable and the consequence is that the diesel feels more driveable within the city. If your primary driving is within the city and you drive anywhere close to 1k-1.1k a month, my pick would be the diesel, and this is coming from a petrolhead.

I was told by the Harpreet Ford showroom (MG road) guys and that they've only delivered about 10-14 cars so far and this month's allocation because of the recall is also just about 27 more cars. Acc to them all their 5 showrooms in the NCR region are going to collectively get about 1000 cars in the next allocation so deliveries should start in full earnest from August onwards only. They had about 80 cars in the first allocation and I'm guessing this particular showroom doesn't get the highest priority since its a pretty small and new setup.

They were delivering the first Ecoboost petrol yesterday to a gent who had booked it on 27th December 2012 ! I read the date on the booking form.

Just spoke to my SA in the morning. 55 cars allotted for bookings between 13th June and 30th june. Since i paid some extra cash he said he would try and allot one in that slot. Originally booked White but told him that am flexible with colors. Gave the options as White, Black and Sea grey. Kinetic Blue and Mars Red not available. Fingers crossed!

Before booking Ecosport I had gone for a TD of Duster. The SA told me that TD Duster wouldn't be available for some time. While going into details he told that one of their Newbie SA had taken it for a spin on a low traffic stretch in Ahmedabad Suburbs and managed to topple it. The vehicle bumped into a median, toppled and went for a total loss.

This proves that in the hands of a true blue fool nothing is foolproof. :)

Last evening at around 4PM I saw the display/TD vehicle at Adugodi. Those familiar with the place will know the speed breaker just after the cane furniture shops. The vehicle was going quite fast and the driver didn't bother with the brakes and managed to make the vehicle jump atleast a foot. This kind of driving is not normal, people slow down for a bump in most cases, unless they are unmarked. I won't be surprised if I hear of a EcoSport TD vehicle in Bangalore toppling or having too many squeaks and rattles, careless driving can wreck any make,any model theres always a 50:50 chance with a fool behind the wheel.

An idiot can topple himself even while walking, why drive ? :uncontrol

Ford would have done good amount of testing before releasing this vehicle(Its a global model) and the terrain of Brazil matches more of our curvy roads isnt it ?

At the same time, i see many people conclude that it is entirely due to drivers fault. Very few have been lucky to own Ecosport now and its too early to comment on toppling of this car.

But the point to note here is, the steering is extremely light and i felt it lacks feedback. Even at speeds above 80kmph, i felt steering to be still light. So if a driver is ignorant to this and does sudden movements at high speed, due to light steering, it can happen too !!

Apart from that ES feels planted and drives well. But it is no where close to even the low end sibling Ford Figo in terms of ride and handling

:OT but So True, I can testify to that statement. The Figo sticks to the road like you would not believe. Sure most people don't really care about ride and handling bit those that do will appreciate the Figo for it's Fevicol like adhesiveness.

I have driven 36,000 km on my Figo in less than 1.5 years and honestly I could not have asked for better handling and dynamics.
My Fortuner on the other hand and agreed it's a SUV so the same rules don't apply but it leaves a lot to be desired. Even braking in the Fortuner is a calculative thing. You can't willy nilly just apply the brakes at Speed and hope for the best, you have to calculate it a bit.

So if the Ecosport can provide handling somewhere in the vicinity of the Figo then it's a good buy.

And can we please just lay to rest the toppling fiasco, enough bandwidth and time have already been wasted on it. You can topple any car if you drive like a fool whereas a good driver will find it hard to even topple an Omni Van.

Respect your car and know it's limits and you will never be in trouble.

If the steering is light even at high speeds, then it's a major concern! :Shockked:

Can you confirm that the steering doesn't weight down sufficiently as speed increases? This is a major hazard to safety and I can't believe that Ford could mess up something like this! :Shockked:

I happened to read an ownership report in another forum who took delivery of his diesel Ecosport. He had stated that the steering is light at single digit speeds but gradually weighed as the speed increased and it's a blast to drive. Also happened to talk to another owner here in Cochin and he was very satisfied with the steering. Even when I drove the ecosport, I found the steering to be very light when still but gradually became heavy while I was driving at 60km/hr.

Looks like deliveries are not happening anymore. No more reports coming. Most dealers got only a handful of cars in the first lot, and the second lot is nowhere in sight. Dealers don't have a clue as to when it will arrive. Ford dragged the launch for a cool six months, and now they are dragging on deliveries too. I have a feeling that Ford is busy fixing something. Something bigger than the glow plug.

While they are at it, I hope they fix that steering too. Maybe the topplings and steering are related.

Globally Ford Ecosport or Escape comes with a 4wd version as well. I don't understand why Ford has not launched the 4wd version in India. There is a serious dearth of 4WD options in this category and why Ford has not shown that farsightedness by not launching 4wd option as well in this segment.