[ramharis]

HI Guys

My Figo diesel, finally home on 29th March 2011, Booked on March 19th, selected from yard on 22 March, delivered to Chennai Ford on 24th, Registered on 28th and home on 29th.

This is my first review so kindly bare with me here

Old Car - Ford Ikon 1.8D NXT 2005 (initally owned by Ford India), Purchased for Rs. 3.87L with Odo at 40474, and sold for Rs 2.15L at 76K Kms. Finally decided to buy a new Car with in 7L.

My Specific Requirements - ABS, Airbag and Diesel.

List of Cars I had short listed :
1. VW Polo – Everything about the car is good and I really love the cars design and ride and handling well its German need I say more. But top end goes out of my hands.

2. Maruti Swift - well the design never grew on me and the rear space, well Iam 6.2ft and mom and dad are also around 5.9ft, so obviously space problem. And they are also running like autos too many in numbers.

3. Ford Figo - Like the diesel engine, space is on the better side than the other cars in the segment and cheaper than all the others i guess.

So Finally without much delay and confusion and choice selected Figo, and the T-BPH reviews also did played a vital role.

Car Selection, Booking and Delivery

Booking
Went to Chennai ford just to check and start the Loan process and to my luck they were running an offer of Rs.12K worth accessories free if booked within the next 3 days. So called the sales person gave my Debit card and asked him to book one. He was happy to take my request and immediately brought in the form for booking and filled up my details and asked me for the color and the model. Model I was ready to go with Titanium since ABS and Airbag were mandatory for me. And for color asked him to wait until the day after for me to select the color.

Color Selection
Dad had white fixed in his mind, but mom wanted to have squeeze. I too was inclined towards white though. Took mom to the showroom and showed her all the color, lucky me that day they had one car in each of those colors and they were all standing in one line. Had a black ikon before and it was very hard to keep the biker and taxi drivers away from the car, so decided not buy any dark color. The options I had were Squeeze, Colorado Red, White and Chill. Gotta say Chill makes the car look old as if its been around for 5 Years. Never liked the Colorado Red (but like the Ferrari Red) and the car looks a bit small in squeeze, so finally decided white. The next day called up Sales guy and selected white.

Vehicle Selection
Since my cousin is working in ford, called him up and asked him to select one for me from the company yard. He checked out 4 Cars and selected the one with good engine note and the one with MRF tyres. He told me that figo’s with MRF tyres have less road noise. Got the VIN# and gave it to the Chennai Ford guy and asked him to take care of it. My cousin put the request at factory for having it billed to Chennai Ford and ship the car out to the dealers yard. The car got delivered to the yard on the second day and was in the showroom on the third day of selection.

Payment
I had gone in for Loan for Rs.4.3L and had that process started with axis bank on the day of booking. Got a call from HDFC Bank for car loan (you know one of those junk calls) had them process my request as well. HDFC called me the second day and asked me if they could have the agreement signed, asked them to come the next day. Called up axis bank rep and he said the process is not started yet, I needed the car badly so asked them to stop since they are delaying my whole process of taking delivery of the car. Got the agreement signed in HDFC and the loan amount cheque was also sent to Chennai ford on 26th March and made the rest of the payments the same day.

Registration
Got the call from Chennai Ford that they are sending the car for registration, so I too went there to select the number. Searched around for my car and to my astonishment it was not there. Met with the rep who takes care of registration for Chennai ford and checked if he had my car in the list for registration today, he wasn’t aware of it. Call my sales rep and inquired, he said the car hasn’t been sent and that he will send it immediately. I was lucky enough to make it that day for the registration and also selected the number for the car. Good thing that Chennai Ford guy had good rapo with the RTO.

Delivery Day
Sales rep called me once the registration was over and informed me that the car will have all the fittings done by that day evening so I can take the car next day. Went in the next day and there were a few thing missing like Mud Flaps, Mats, neck rests and fog lamps. They had installed the Sunfilm and the scuff plates which was good. Except for the fog lamps and alloys, the others were installed and took delivery of the. Took the car home dropped it home and went to office in bike that day since I had no time to go to temple, it was already 1PM. Dropped the car the next day for Alloys, which was done in about 3 hours and also made it to the temple that day for pooja. Fog Lamps were still out of stock.

After 2 weeks got the fog lamps installed, after repeated calls and pestering them that I need it for long journey, which I didn’t actually.

The Accessories I got free worth Rs.12K
1. Sun Film – Opulent
2. Scuff Plates
3. Fog Lamps
4. Neck rests
5. Floor Mats and Boot Mat
6. Mud Flaps

Got the essential pack removed from my on road price because of the free accessories.

Additional paid accessories. Rs.19250.
1. Alloy Wheels – Rs.18000K
2. USB Cable – Rs.1250


My Review of the Car
First thing I did went I brought the car home after pooja was to remove all the seat covers cause I don’t like that in there. Then took mom to the vegetable shop and left for office after dropping her off at home.

My initial observations, the clutch was too close to the floor, so have to go all the way before I shift which was not bad. The suspension seems to be a bit firm, because the car was jumpy when compared to ikon along the came road I use everyday. But gotta say the engine is absolutely brilliant, just sight press on gas pedal and the car pull beautifully, liked that very much since my ikon was pretty sluggish with AC On.

Engine – love the way the turbo pulls the car, I don’t generally do much highway driving so within city the car is excellent to drive. The clutch is very soft and the engine responds to every slight adjustment in accelerator. I need to work on the shifting between first and second because in slow moving traffic sometimes first gear is too much of power and second gear is less to keep pace with traffic.

Space - I could say it’s a bit better than the other cars around. Im not loosing much space with compared to Ikon. I feel both of them are in the same league. But the seating height, mom loves it, she feels more comfortable in getting in and out of Figo than ikon. Guess the ikon has low seats.

Handling - since I was using ikon earlier have become a fan of ford’s driving dynamics. It sure does put some smiles the way the car handles, adore it. Nothing more for me to say here, since waiting for the car to cross the 5K kms mark to try some very agile maneuvers and zip around in city.

Design
The overall outer design, I can say its not modern enough but also not old enough. The design is slowly growing on me though, however wouldn’t take me upto to adoring it, but certainly will start liking it. I guess you spend more time inside that car than on the outside. Did not take the one with Coral dash, as it does not bring out the color of the seats and door trim. With Black dash the seats have a chance to show off.

Practicality
Initially had some issue with the driver’s seat backrest, there was some lumbar support that I was not used to, but my back seems to have adjusted to it. The rear seats are really not bad. My cousin told me that the seats are exactly the same as in the fiesta, did measure it found to be true to some extent. Its not a big car so its easy to drive around in city and easy to find a parking space as well.

Equipments
Heard from a few about the Bluetooth pairing issues, never had any issue not even once. The fogs and headlamp dim are good but the headlamp bright needs more work since the light is not thrown properly. Have the USB cable also installed and that works fine too. The remote is good to use with even a boot release but the only drawback is they provide only one of them, the other just the normal key.








Just a few issues facing in the car

1. Head Lamps level seems to on the right, I mean the high beam on the left goes towards the right and at one point it even meets with the right side high beam. Need to get that checked out.

2. Tailgate’s lock seems to be very hard, need to hit a couple of times before it closes correctly.

3. The rear windows doesn’t seems to stand at one place, till one stage about 98% they go completely but that 2% needs some pressure. If its not completely closed I get lot of wind noise and road noise coming in. I guess this would be common among all figos




4. At high speeds of over 80kph the whole car is silent but there is small amount of wind noise coming from the driver side window which increased gradually along with the speed. Have that marked in the picture below.



5. The main issue in the music system is the USB does not accept anything else but FAT32 file system, Tried NTFS and the immediate reply was USB Error. Not sure why Ford or the headunit provider didn’t think of allowing NTFS file system.

6. The car has run about 1600+ kms and the brake dust from the front wheels seems to be more, especially on the right hand side, will take it to the service center to have that checked too.





7. There seems to be some castor issue, as the guys were not able to get alignment done properly. Tried doing that at XL Tyre Point in annanagar, they tried to do it 3 times and still my steering wheel is tiled to left about 15 degree. Will need the Service center to work on that too.

Conclusion
Event though I have these small issue, I could say iam satisfied with the car and iam loving it. You cannot appreciate victory without disappointments. I can say that I did make a very good choice to go in for figo, because does provide me good comfort, VFM and creates that smile with the handling that no other cars do.

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the public forum. Congrats on the car, and thank you for sharing this review! It'll greatly help other members & guests.

[bluevolt]

Let me be the first to congratulate you on your new Ford Figo. Nice review and pictures. Figo diesel is a pure value for money car. Please take good care of her and keep the thread updated on regular basis. Once again congratulations and wishing you many miles with your car. Drive safe.

[Saanil]

Congratulations on your new car! So its been over 30 days since you got it. Can you please mention the FE you are getting. Also if possible can you please post some pics of the interiors

[shk 8896]

Congrats on the figo.Trust me white is the most commonly spotted and also my favourate shade on figo.The alloys are also nice.Please put some more pics especially of the interiors.Nice review .
Drive safe
Sreehari

[ramharis]

Thank you, will certainly take good care of the car, especially since this is my first new car. Since its a new car and all, didn't care much about the FE, but did check it the last time and it gave me approx 14kpl all within City (didn't get a chance to take it for a long drive), have been revving till 2500rpm as per the advice from my cousin.

Here are pics of the interior














Thanks
Ram

[Vik0728]

Congrats on your latest acquisition ramharis, Looks really Neat.

Personally I think only White and Red look the best on Figo since one of my cousin owns the Grey one and its just not as enticing as the other 2!!

[ramharis]

Thanks, and yes the white is really a good color. if the car was available with the exclusive blue that Fiesta 1.6S had, i would have selected that without even looking at the others. I think even the Morello or Jewel Violet that Ikon and Fiesta had respectively would suit the car since the seats have plum color.
All car manufacturers need to bring in more color shades like the Palio had. Bright color will undoubtly suit nearly all hatchback.

thanks
Ram

[Naparajito]

@Ramharis- Congrats!! Your vehicle looks superb in white. The 1.4 Duratorq is effortless and has zero turbo-lag which makes it the best all rounder. Anyhow its a superb vehicle and hope you keep up doing well with it.
Cheers,
Naparajito

[dhanushs]

Congrats on the new car ramharis!!.. ..

Its raining Figo's in tbhp and that alone proves, how much of an enthusiast's hatch it is. Also, glad to see that most opt for Titanium, infact most Figo's I see has been Titanium.

Well, did you choose to buy those floormats?. Or did they come standard, or was it a freebie from the dealer?. The reason I'm asking is that, those floormats are absolutely crappy, and fill the interior with dust. The only good thing about them is the slide lock. The floor mats wont last long, either. IIRC, they were priced at 1000bucks?.


Also, you got nice OEM alloys, how much did they cost you?. 22k?. And IIRC, this one was way better than the other design, or did they have more designs?.

Please let me know.

Cheers!!..

[ramharis]

Did not pay for the floor mats, they were provided as a free among the others i had mentioned. The driver side mat already has started out in one place within a month.

The alloys (ford sales team calls Platinum Black) costed me 18K and was the only one in that color. all the others were 3 silver ones and one chrome (5 spoke), did not go well with a white car.

all the silver ones costs 16K
Chrome costs 24K (i think)

will try to get pics of all the other alloys, took photo of all but not sure where i put them in the system.

[ramharis]

Other 3 alloys available. Theres one more, will try to get the pics.

[dhanushmenon]

Congrats on your new car. The car is a stunning beauty shod with alloys and fogs.

Originally Posted by ramharis

have been revving till 2500rpm as per the advice from my cousin.

It is suggested by ford that the rpm be always maintained between 1500- 2000. You'll get a comfortable 80 Kmph in 5th gear at rpm 2000.
And it is also recommended as engine running in procedure that you dont revv up the engine much during the initial 3000 Kms. Try to keep it below 2500

Check here for running in of your new engine. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/owning...r-new-car.html

Search the forums in TBHP, you'll find many threads which will help you run in a new diesel engine and also of maintaining the car

[ramharis]

Originally Posted by dhanushmenon

It is suggested by ford that the rpm be always maintained between 1500- 2000. You'll get a comfortable 80 Kmph in 5th gear at rpm 2000.
And it is also recommended as engine running in procedure that you dont revv up the engine much during the initial 3000 Kms. Try to keep it below 2500

Well iam keeping the revs below 2500, there is till about 500kms more for first service.
Things iam wishing to do in my first service:
1. Side Strip ( the one that ford dealers provide) - Approx Rs.7K
2. Under Body coating

Is there anybody in chennai who can fabricate a twin barrel headlamps for Figo, I have a design in mind which has one normal high beam and one projector lamp. It would look better and of course the performance will be good. The stock ones are not good especially in High beam, the light spread is not even.

Thanks
Ram

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Congrats Ram! Figo defenitly looks best in white and red!

Regarding the headlamps, if you are not satisfied with the performance, why not try upgrading the lamps alone (may be 100/90 with relay?).