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-   -   2018 Ford Aspire Facelift : Official Review (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-reviews/204308-2018-ford-aspire-facelift-official-review-4.html)

Pricing has been spot on. DZire simply feels really expensive. Specially with the feature list, you are always getting a variant higher at the same price of any variant of DZire.

Ford is taking customer feedback really well. Most of the changes are something any existing owner or potential customer may suggest after owning or driving the previous gen Aspire.

But as always, sky is the limit. As an owner of previous gen Aspire, I would have liked below points taken care of,

1. May be its purely personal, but I don't like the alloys. To me, the Figo Sports black alloy RIMs are best looking so far. Even as whole design, I personally like the previous sports edition over this facelift design.

2. TDCi clutching is really an issue for me when compare to Maruti DDiS. No, its not that hard and you get used to it in a few days. But when you compare it with likes of DZire, it does feel hard. Specially if you spend a lot of time in B2B city traffic. Since they now have a new gear box, I wish if they should have done something about the hardness of this clutch.

3. I regularly drive the previous gen Aspire in peak hours of Kolkata city traffic. Mind you, in summer the temps do touch 45+ and yes A/C is supper effective. But there is still the need of rear A/C vents. Do you all remember that old TV ad of Bluestar office A/C, where part of the office feels like north pole and other parts are like hot sahara desert? At times I do feel such behind the wheel as the rear passengers may want me to speed up the blower but that makes people in front feel cold and uncomfortable. Its not that rear bench feels hot but breeze in face require a bit higher blower settings than what the onboard temperature sensor feels. I wonder, how much extra it may cost Ford to add a simple rear blower like XCent? Even the new DZire gets it and non car people, specially the family members love this feature. This one piece of plastic box with couple of PC chassis fans make them feel premium.

4. Indians are cost conscious, they are not miser. Indians do look for value for money but they do understand the difference between cheap and VFM. Prime example is Swift or Baleno. Alto sales are getting out numbered with a car costing double. DZire AGS ZDI+ is priced close to VW Ameo 1.5 TDi DSG. Those examples aren't enough to dare for a superior dual clutch auto box for TDCi?

5. Ford should have given more efforts on their speedo console design. MID has improved with all the needed information but it still feels outright boring.

6. ESC + TCS on FreeStyle 1.5 TDCi Manual but skipping that in Aspire. Why? Is it because of cost? Allow this as optional in higher model but why skipping it altogether when you have already invested for RnD and both share same platform/interior and other parts. It makes no sense to me.

The facelift has addressed every other ownership wish and adopted to the market demand excellently. It is a drivers dream. Excellent FE (specially from this TDCi) with an explosive engine. When you garnish this dish with satisfactory and super cheap service experience, its simply impossible to say no this car.

A well executed update to a car that was already pretty good. The new petrol engine was much needed.

I am not sure what it is like to buy a Ford today. The last time I walked into a Ford showroom, there was not much interest in selling any of their cars. If they can improve their sales pitch, there is no reason why this car should not sell. Forget trying to catch up with the best, the target should be to beat you closest competitor which is surprisingly a TATA.

Having owned the New Figo & doing the TD of Freestyle & New Aspire; agree with all the points covered in the review. Very well written review, thanks.

With all the hype around build quality; I guess it’s only relative to yesteryear's Ford which has set high benchmarks. My 3 year old Figo still holds well despite seeing smooth & not so smooth roads. The Figo twins are still better built then most others in this segment.

While purchasing Figo; had to let go off Aspire only because of beige interiors & my fetish for black interiors stupid:, like others I also wish they provide an option for all black theme.

The new petrol engine, while no snorter, but is clearly much more punchy then the erstwhile 1.2 & the better profile tyres do make their presence feel by providing much better handling.

Not seeing enough discussion on this, so really wanted to post this, even though it might be construed as slightly off-topic... :OT

What's up with Ford and MIDs? Except the Endeavor, the MIDs on all Ford cars are disappointing. While MIDs hold a minimal importance to the overall design of the car, the Ford MIDs are such a turn-off!

Cars much cheaper than, say, an Ecosport Titanium, have so much more to offer with animations during start-up and shut-down, colored indications and an ever-improving, interactive UI. All this, while Ford continues to come up with new cars in late-2018 which have a monochromatic MID with pixellated font and virtually zero interactive features. And while Ecosport at least manages to get a half-decent MID in the S-variant, the Freestyle and Aspire seem to provide no relief whatsoever despite the choice in variant. You just have to go for that tiny, bottom-of-the-console MID, which looks like it was added as an afterthought.

Everywhere in the stories of those buyers who chose the Ecosport Titanium S over the Titanium + variant, you will hear the absolutely horrid MID of the Titanium+ (and lower variants) mentioned. It does have a small yet subtle impact on the buying decision.

Is there a reason behind this? Possibly the crazy cost-cutting drive that Ford has recently been on ended up excluding the re-design of the MID for their cheaper offerings!

I wonder if anyone feels as strongly about the Ford MIDs as I do. stupid:

I am pretty sure everyone who is in the market for a Ecosport/ Aspire feel equally strongly about this, and are appalled at the new Ecosport's basic MID. However, since in the big picture the car is otherwise feature loaded and does offer a lot of value, I guess buyers choose to live with this one shortcoming or ignore it to the extent possible.

Not everyone is willing (and quite understandably so) to spend a few lakhs more to upgrade to the S variant just for this, so they would stick to the Titanium/ Plus variants, as the case may be.

IF ... Ford lasts in India till then !:D

:OT
If they were to pack up, they would have done it by now.

I am not sure from were does this thought of Ford leaving the market comes from. Is it just because another Amercian automaker did the same?

They are 7th in market share for October '18, out of 14 manufacturers in India, above Renault and VW and just below Toyota with some good cars in their portfolio.

Give it a thought.

Agreed. Yes, Ford is nowhere near the top guns in terms of sales, but there is a definite effort on Ford's part to connect to the market and reach out to a much wider audience than they had ever before- be it through increased marketing spend or through their products themselves. I personally feel that the Ecosport, Aspire and Figo are fantastic products well within the reach of the average young Indian middle class, and offer a ton of value.

There is no foreseeable reason why they would pack up and leave the market. The refreshed Aspire and Ecosport does clearly exhibit that Ford has been listening to customer feedback and incorporating lots of changes in these products which are really useful and not merely cosmetic.

I did feel about it when deciding on the Freestyle.

But ultimately it does provide most of the necessary info reasonably clearly. My gripe is that they couldn't provide a 2nd trip meter.

:OT
My Bike has 2 trip meters, a clock and speedo on a huge display which is almost the size of the whole instrument console of the Freestyle/Aspire, with an analogue tacho separately.

Ultimately as long as the information is there I decided it's not too bad. You just glace at the MID, as long as it shows the essential info clearly and legibly, we shouldn't complain too much, though a better MID is always welcome.

On the EcoSport at least you're paying more money and would expect a better MID but on the Aspire a clear MID should do quite well for many people.

But at the end of the day we don't buy a car for its MID do we
stupid:

Any relevant data to back up your doubt?

Since making a statement as such about a profit making company standing ahead of VW/Renault/Skoda or such in market share needs some backing.

GM is a shocker. Really big shocker as otherwise, FIAT with far worst performance is standing tall to meet their warranty and service commitment towards their existing customers.

I think even GM too realised their blunder and thus heavily focusing on existing customers to please them with their A.S.S and warranty support.

Won't be surprised to see GM making U Turn soon.

I am a Ford customer. When I bought my Aspire over DZire, I knew, I am already sacrificing resale value so even if this turns out to be true, I am already dead set on running this car till it's time for NGT to bully me on scrapping this. And mind you, Ford may have lost a bit of build quality but it's still good enough to run that distance. Beside if GM shocker is something to go by, service/spare/warranty is still available for all models.

Ford Indian leadership is doing an excellent job. Turning the company profitable. Launching the right product for the market. Concentrating on things what market wants. And they are slowly but surely churning out numbers.

Ford already have global offering to easily match Indian market till EV becomes mandatory so till then, lasting won't be any issue for Ford.

They are the same even today. I am an old model Figo owner. Went to the dealer last week for service of my Figo and getting the new Aspire AT.
Sales guys not interested in selling at all. I am asking around the people in the showroom, which doesn't have any customers there at the time, but nobody has time to answer my queries.

This is quite contrary to my experience. The sales guys went out of the way, when I went for purchasing and finalizing my Ecosport. Their courtsey and efforts were definitely better than the sheer apathy of Maruti Suzuki and the lack of professionalism of Honda(refer my previous post - https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shift...ml#post4458435)

I had recently been to the Ford Service Center for my first service and the experience was exceptional. It was not just the positive experience but the effort that the company takes to monitor the performance of their service centers which matters. I was contacted on multiple different occasions post-purchase to check the running of the car and the persistence of any issues. The dealership itself has a specific feedback plan post one-month of car ownership, etc. Similarly, my feedback was taken at multiple levels after the car's service. The company does seem to be making an effort. As per a recently published survey that I came across, Ford customers continue to be the most positive about the cost effectiveness of their post-sale services. They recently took the effort to invite many Ford customers to their factory as an effective PR effort, during which they discussed many issues or quality concerns including the safety concerns revolving around the 17" Ecopia tyres on top-end Ecosport variants.

However, in the recent times, some of their cost-cutting measures have had a negative effect on their customers, who have a comparatively higher expectation from Ford - the poor MIDs, the lack of engine covering etc. and potentially the most problematic for the company - the cut-down in the promotional efforts!

As has been mentioned in this thread as well, the segment in which the Aspire was launched was a very competitive one, and effective pricing is just one among many factors that will help them make the car a success, especially when they are facing off against rivals like MSIL and Hyundai, who frankly, don't even need advertising. Despite this, I have seen little to no media/OOH spend on the Aspire, as compared to the noise the competition made during their launches. Freestyle and Ecosport have had at least some media spend but the Aspire seems to be lacking it considerably. This, in my opinion might be the biggest reason behind the current lack of interest in the Aspire.

We can`t just generalize one such experience for entire Ford dealerships. No doubt there will be bad apples, but there are more good ones too.

I have been a Ford owner for past 6 years and while I was in the market while buying Ecosport, I have been to 3 different dealerships owned by different groups in 2 different cities. All dealership experience has been very good and I ended up buying it from a dealer from Mangalore where virtually they don`t have any competition from other dealer unlike Bangalore. But still the experience what I had was impeccable.

Service was satisfactory. They looked into all matters I had informed the service advisor about.
Battery was giving a problem but I got it changed from outside as Ford only gives one year warranty whereas battery dealer gives 2+2 years warranty.

By the way, your explanation of what all Ford is doing could not have been written better by the Ford media team.clap:

Hehe. Can't deny that I am Ford fan. Though I have taken cognizance of their pitfalls in multiple different posts - The MID, the 17" wheels, the cost cutting and the lack of a proper marketing strategy... I still feel it would be harsh to say that they have lost customer centricity and the will to sell despite some of these issues. And their cars are still great to drive!