[swami.n]

Quick Update:
Did the 30k service today at MPL ford and the total bill was 4558.
Extremely satisfied with the service and they never tried to increase the amount for unnecessary stuff.
So far all services have cost less than what my friends with swift/dzire quote for their's.

Car is going as strong as ever and giving consistent performance through the months and years.

[swami.n]

Quick Update:
Did the 40k kms Service on Monday at MPL Ford Saligramam Chennai & the bill worked out to Rs.3276.
This is after a flat 25% discount message which I received from FORD.
Service included, Air Filter, Oil, Oil Filter, A/C filter change. SA said the brakes are fine and did not need a replacement this time.

After 3.5yrs & 40k kms, the battery had reached the end of life. SA said Ford battery costs 5200. But as one of my Friend is a battery dealer, got an Amaron battery @3800 after exchanging old battery.

The car is now ready to take on the next few years.

In the mean time, a recent thought of upgrading to the next segment is going through my mind & considered either a new Ciaz ZDI SHVS or a relatively new Pre-owned Corolla Altis D, but the decision is put on hold as I'm awaiting approval from FM at home
Hope to convince her if I get a good proposal for the Figo.

[swami.n]

Hi BHPians. Need advice on buying a new car. Posted this in the What car section as well.

First - A brief of my situation. Almost 4yrs back we had bought the Figo TDCi and its now @ 42kkms still going as good as new.

So far Figo serverd its purpose fine, as my wife's office(27kms from home) was on the way to my work place(40kms). I used to drop & pick her up. But since the past year or so, my place of work has moved which is now 15kms & well ahead of my wife's office. My new work place falls right in the highest traffic density & taking the car for 15kms consumes almost more time than my prev location which was 40kms. So started using my Gixxer/Thunderbird daily. First few months I still used to drop her & go to my office which again came to about 40-42kms. But off late due to work commitments I have started to go directly to office in bike & wife takes ola most of the days & wego on some of the days. The Figo is now used only during the weekends & the running has come down from 2-3k kms to a mere 400-500kms per month average.

Though my wife knows to drive the Manual & has got her licence, her driving experice is very less and limited mostly to open highway stretches. More over she is not the LiveToDrive type like most of us here. So even if she starts driving the Manual, I'm still not sure if she would be even more stressed out driving in crawling traffic for 55-60kms every day.

Now we have three options.

First - Stick with Figo & see if she gets accustomed to the MT & can handle the left leg becoming sore - the most economic. This would mean we might not need to change the car for the next couple of years & can upgrade to a car of next segment or even in the Altis segment in 3yrs time, but this comes at a cost of stress for my wife.

Second - Buy a small preowned AT car, say Nano or Alto - but this would tend to make the Figo becoming even less used, as weekends in traffic also would be the AT car. But we cannot sell the Figo as the AT would not be sufficient for the family.

Third - To exchange Figo & get a new AT. This would mean the car should atleast be same or bigger than the Figo's size. This means we should either go for the premium hatches or the Compact sedans. Cars like i20, Baleno, Jazz, Aspire, Zest, Amaze, xCent fall into the list. Also the car would again start running close to 2k kms per month. Most of the petrol ATs in the above list give 10-12kmpl in day to day driving which make a Diesel AT more practical. The problem here is only 2 cars have Diesel ATs in the segment we look at. The Dzire & Zest. The next is Verna which is a bit too much of stretch financially & size wise too. In this case the Dzire is striked out First as both of us are not inclined towards the Swift/Dzire design & the Dzire falls short of our Figo's interior space and has similar sized boot. So Zest becomes the only option if we want to stick to our planned Financial commitment.

Option 3a would be to sell the Figo & go for a preowned diesel AT from a higher segment like Verna or Cruze etc(Here the stretch would only be the size). But my wife is Ok for a preowned car only if its a second car. She says if we have only one car, its better to be new.

Looking for you help.

Suggestions towards all options welcome & out of the box options are accepted as well.
Would like to hear from those who have been in a similar situation & what they opted for.

Thanks in advance.

[nilpat]

Being Figo owner why dont you go for New Figo/Aspire AT version?

[swami.n]

Originally Posted by nilpat

Being Figo owner why dont you go for New Figo/Aspire AT version?

As I mentioned, a diesel AT would be a more practical choice for our usage. Ford petrols are usually less frugal and the service and reliability ofthe DSG box is still unknown territory. My wife's cousin brother works for Ford and evenhe was not sure about the costs involving the DSG

[swami.n]

All,
With a very heavy heart, sold my 4.5yr old Figo Diesel. But very happy at the same time as I got a pretty good offer for a very new 11month old City iVtec SV run just 5500kms.

As my office commute has now come down to 30kms from 80kms to & fro, and as it falls right in the highest traffic area, I have been using bike for daily commute and the figo was used only for weekends and out of town trips. In the last couple of years, the figo barely clocked 10-12k kms. And with us getting a Nano AMT for wifey last Nov, the figo usage came down even more. No car can beat the convenience of Nano AMT in traffic.
But the Figo was still serving us fantastically well with very low maintenance costs. Never thought of replacing it for a few years.

But had to learn a life lesson recently when the whole family of one my colleague died in a road accident in a Swift Dzire(previous gen) and the variant did not have ABS or airbags. So the thought of replacing my figo which dint have the safety features was at the back of my mind. And the figo is now used only for our out station trips.
At the same time a close friend offered a good price for my Figo(his usage is primarily within city) and an offer from one of my friend's colleagues for a relatively new City.
So all things came together and we gave the Figo and got the City.

[swami.n]

Quick Update:
Did the 50k kms Service yesterday at Eureka Ford Saligramam Chennai & the bill worked out to Rs.4375 including GST.
This is after a flat 25% discount and free oil filter.

Got the alignment and rotation done separately at Padmavathy Tyres, Virugambakkam. The tyres are good enough to take the next 10-15k kms. The contis have held up quite well. Currently 45k kms run with them.

Note:
As I sold the car to a very good friend of mine, and him staying very close to my house, I accompanied him for the service and will try to keep this thread updated. It might be of some help to others and for my friend too if he needs help.

[MadRasTan4986]

Originally Posted by swami.n

Quick Update:
Did the 50k kms Service yesterday at Eureka Ford Saligramam Chennai & the bill worked out to Rs.4375 including GST.
This is after a flat 25% discount and free oil filter.

Hey Swami

Great thread. Enjoyed reading your posts. Can you please tell me how you're able to get these discounts?

Our family has an 2011 Ford Figo and the new 2015 Ford Figo 1.5TDCi. (Yes our family loves Fords. And the old one is due for a sale and we will most probably get the new Ecosport after selling the old one.)

Is Eureka Ford a good service centre? After MPL went away I switched to Chennai Ford. They are ok but always try to up sell and thankfully I've avoided the same. Otherwise they are pretty decent. Thanks to Ford's service cost assurances. Hi-5 to Ford India for that.

Look forward to your reply and feedback. Thanks.

[swami.n]

Originally Posted by MadRasTan4986

Hey Swami

Great thread. Enjoyed reading your posts. Can you please tell me how you're able to get these discounts?

Thanks for the appreciation. Actually I don't enquire about discounts, all those are SMS received from Ford saying they have 25% flat or some % on labor or parts. Luckily more than once, my scheduled service fell right in the date range they gave. Usually I receive these messages before the financial year End or sometimes before July/August.

Originally Posted by MadRasTan4986

...Yes our family loves Fords...

I too love Fords. But I got the City for a deal too good to refuse. And my running had come down considerably making a Petrol more sensible. If I had to go for a diesel, certainly a pre-owned Fiesta would have been top of the list.

Originally Posted by MadRasTan4986

Is Eureka Ford a good service centre? After MPL went away ........
Look forward to your reply and feedback. Thanks.

Actually I don't feel any difference in MPL or Eureka as I still see some familiar faces even after change of ownership. Also building a good rapport with the service engineer helps a lot. Sometimes even when they could have done things better, I speak directly to the person before escalating. Coz I know how good or bad customer facing situations can be.
You need any help with the Saligramam Eureka, do PM me.