Team-BHP - Ford Figo : Official Review

I had an incident with my Figo recently. I was passing a tall speed breaker in our small town at night when another car with brighter head lamps made me misjudge the edge while giving way. The edge of the speed breaker proved to be an abrupt drop. The wheel dipped over and there was a loud grating noise of the underbody scratching throughout the length of the car. I kept driving after that as we were near our destination and far from home. I snapped a few pics of the underbody but couldn't fond anything hanging and none of the warning lamps were glowing so I decided to check it at the service center the following day.
On the following day, I called the ford showroom and got a technicians number. The technician advised me to check the fluids and offered to tow the car under road side assistance. But I told him that the car is not giving signs of trouble and i wanted to hoist and see to make sure and that being close to the center, which is far from my home but neater to my work place, i asked for an appointment to take the car there. He said I can go there any time. I asked for their lunch timing and informed him i will be coming after lunch.
While on the way to the center the temperature warning blinked twice in an interval of one minute but didn't repeat after that. The car was hoisted and I found deep scratches on the suspension and on the underbody panels. The underbody treatment done at the factory was the apparent loss and I decided to make good with the underbody painting while the car undergoes first service a couple of hundred kilometers later. The service staff were great and inspite of the rush and que they took time to immediately hoist my car and checked for signs that would have led to temperature warning. He checked the cooling systems by touch while the engine was running and found them fine. He then asked Mr to bring it if there is any signs of trouble. Thank you Mr RajaGuru of Akshaya Ford Madurai.

Can anyone tell me more about the underbody scraping and its effect on ford cars? Should I go for something specific while inspecting the car on the hoist, when facing a heating issue arising out of underbody treatment?

I have decided to take risk of upgrading headlamps to 90/100w with relay, fog lamps to h11 55w and horn to megasonic. I wish I had taken the risk and avoided the incident with better lighting and blaring in the first place! OK little lessons, thankful for them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by COMMUTER (Post 3903320)

...I have decided to take risk of upgrading headlamps to 90/100w with relay, fog lamps to h11 55w and horn to megasonic. I wish I had taken the risk and avoided the incident with better lighting and blaring in the first place...

Do you find the stock headlights that bad ? I have not taken mine out in the night yet, so its too early to comment but remembering my upgrade of head lights on the Fiesta, I am not surprised about the Figo too ! Please update on the brand and relay details you are opting for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shajufx (Post 3903339)

Headlights are sufficient on their own. But the rising trend of upgrading headlamps by most of the motorist is tiring on the eyes. I'm closely following the discussion by the aspire owners in this forum. I will update the process here too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by COMMUTER (Post 3903790)

I would like to agree with you on it more often than not. To make things worse, Indian roads are full of people who never bother to dip their headlamps. I drive back home from work in my new Figo at around 7pm daily(on 25-30 ft wide two-way road) The headlights are satisfactory generally speaking . They turn ineffective only when faced with high-beam incoming traffic. This is making me seriously consider a headlights-upgradation myself!! (a bit reluctantly though)

Finally after a lot of thought, I did headlamp upgrade yesterday. Relay was a local autopower brand and bulbs were Philips essential vision 90/100. There was no splicing, I stood close and made sure the accessory people never spliced anything. I am also planning to fix the fog lamps at the service center for 4.5k on first service and then upgrade to h11 55w from out side.

I am also planning on horn upgrade. I inquired about megasonic but was made to look at stebel/roots windtone. Can anyone tell me the cons of fitting megasonic in Figo?

PS - I took delivery on January 5,2016 and have crossed 2200kms in one month. I have averaged 19.5-21.5kpl with the tank refills. The mid stays at 21.5 most of the time. My daily commute comprises 14km highway and 8km city traffic,(not bumper to bumper but moving at 15-20kph), the weekend ride is 60km highway 40 km on bumpy potholed dual carriage way SH. Niggles are the rear left manual door gets stuck and needs to be opened with a strong pull on the outside.

Quote:

Originally Posted by COMMUTER (Post 3904151)

I would not suggest to go for megasonic because they are way too loud to be used in city traffic plus you might have to install a relay since they draw lot of power. Some of the horns you can try are-
1-Hella Red Grill or supertone-Superb sound plus sleek in design
2-Roots Windtone (Sounds like those VW horns but softer)
3-Bosch Symphony
4-Minda Windtone
5-Roots Vibrosonic (something similar to the megasonic but less louder)

In my swift i have two pairs of horns-Roots vibrosonic for the highway runs and Seager windtone for city traffic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by COMMUTER (Post 3904151)

Megasonic?!! That would be a massive overkill for a small car. It is usually seen on those political type Sumo/ Innova/ Xylo vehicles. Vibrosonic with relay is loud enough.

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Originally Posted by teemus (Post 3904686)

In my new office premises, it is a daily ritual to open the hatchdoor, the security guard peeks in for some microseconds and closes the hatch.

For this, I have to operate the boot release button daily and it takes at least 2 - 3 attempts to make it work. The trick is to find a sweet spot, hitting which opens the boot. I am yet to locate it exactly though.

Has anyone else experienced this or is it specific to my car?

Hi Teemus,

I was facing the same issue, and not counting the first few days, when I used to shut the engine off and play with the remote.lol:

So ended up reading the manual (which I should have earlier), and found that the hatch-release button will only work at speeds lesser than 5kmph. So it should work flawlessly after you have halted and waited for second or two, before pressing it. Try that the next time, you might be saved of those 2nd and 3rd attempts.

Cheers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shajufx (Post 3904714)

Thats a weird situation which may be isolated. I find the boot release as soft as a TV remote button... Please get yours checked by the service guys.

Quote:

Originally Posted by methecupid (Post 3904741)

Hi Teemus,

found that the hatch-release button will only work at speeds lesser than 5kmph. So it should work flawlessly after you have halted and waited for second or two, before pressing it..

Thanks guys!

To clarify, I have always pressed the button after coming to a halt, so that might not be the cause.

I will definitely get it checked with the service guys, question is when? Perhaps only at my 10KM service, I have already reached 5K, so another 3 months approx.

Let's see if I can find the sweet spot by then to be sure of opening in 1st attempt! :)

On a different note:

Just would like to update on the recent mileage figures.

Fuel filled : 15 lts.
Driving conditions: 100% City, Peak hour traffic, 90% AC
Load: 3 persons always
KM's done : 255Km
Actual FE : 17.0 Km/lt
MID FE: 18.1 Km/lt

Quote:

Originally Posted by shajufx (Post 3904789)

The button is only a thumb size right ? Are you trying the right button or searching for a G spot of the entire car ? lol:

Mileage figures are impressive, I am seeing a 8 kmpl on the display and it just crossed 120 Kms on the ODO today ! Hoping and praying it crosses 30 kmpl by mistake as it munches more miles (Figo Petrol though) !

Haha, good one! But the G spot is certainly under the right foot bang in the middle of the A pedal, isn't it? The car likes it there!! ;)

Yes, the button is thumb sized vertical rectangle of sorts. From what I have observed is that if I try and press at the center it opens with higher probability (not always but more often than not) not so much if pressed at a little offset (top or bottom). Hope you get the drift. :)