[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by saisrujan

Ford doesn't go by the folder structure by default. If you want to navigate through your folders to find music, there's a "browse folders" option somewhere. What it does is this - it builds an index of ID3 tags (a meta-data of album, artist, track, genre etc) and uses them to organize your music.

Thank you for your feedback, saisrujan.

TBH, my music has proper ID3 tags on it, and is also structured by folders, so there's an element of redundancy involved. My gripe is that when I choose to play all music on the USB drive, it sorts by just the file name (or the ID3 song name), and ignores the artist/album name.

I can avoid this by selecting an artist and album, in which case it plays the songs in the right order. But, I don't want to do that, because it will keep repeating the same ~70 minutes of songs until I choose another album.

If I ask it to play a particular artist, it makes the same mistake of sorting by song name, ignoring the album name. For a lot of the music I listen to, I have different versions of the same song (studio, single, live, covers) in different albums, and it is agonizing to listen to them one after the other.

I have read that creating a playlist in the right order, and then getting Sync to play that playlist helps avoid this issue; I shall try that out later today.

Technically, it appears Ford/Microsoft have chosen to use only 1 sort field (probably the ID3 track number or the file name), instead of having more sort fields.

[Ph03nix]

Excellent review Arun. I am sure all the details you have put in will help of lot of future Ecosport buyers make a truly informed decision.

Wish you thousands of satisfied miles in it. A true team-bhp style 5 star review.

[saisrujan]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

For a lot of the music I listen to, I have different versions of the same song (studio, single, live, covers) in different albums, and it is agonizing to listen to them one after the other.

So, all the while, I was trying to teach alphabets to a doctorate in literature, and in the process, experienced pride and happiness assuming I was contributing and making a difference!
Hope you find a solution that works for you.

[Dry Ice]

Congrats Arun! Lots of fine details there. Wishing you a great ownership experience for the coming years!

[nipcarlover]

Congrats on the EcoSport Arun!

She does look good in blue, haven't seen one on the road yet, surprisingly.

The review was quite awesome, had a nice time reading it!

Keep updating the thread!

[ndinesh]

Hi Arun,

Congrats and wishes on your ecoboost. That's a well written report.

Originally Posted by saisrujan

So, all the while, I was trying to teach alphabets to a doctorate in literature, and in the process, experienced pride and happiness assuming I was contributing and making a difference!

Hi Sai - Don't worry. Even if it did not help Arun, it helped me and am sure it will help many others going forward.

[puchoo]

Many many congratulations and wishing you a great time with her. I dont know about Vittal Mallya road but that comment was hilarious!!

Originally Posted by arunphilip

Driving to the Shell petrol bunk and getting down with a new-car swagger, only to be totally outclassed by a Beetle and an R1 that were there. (Pro-tip: Don't swagger with just a 10-lakh car on Vittal Mallya road)[/list]

[avm]

Congrats Arun !!
Request you to please post a few more photos of your beauty.
Im thoroughly confused between Mars Red and Kin. Blue. Iv only seen the blue cars in the showroom where they look pretty HOT. but you'll be the best man to update us on how the blue looks on road.
Cheers!

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by avm

Im thoroughly confused between Mars Red and Kin. Blue. Iv only seen the blue cars in the showroom where they look pretty HOT. but you'll be the best man to update us on how the blue looks on road.

Today I had the good fortune of seeing another ES in Kinetic Blue on the road, so I was able to judge how my car looks to others.

• The M. Red stands out and catches eyeballs and attention. If you like this, and if you don't mind the orangey shade, go for it!
• The K. Blue gets attention but in a more subtle way. This is more in line with my preference, so I'm comfortable with this

Note that these are the only two 'colours', all the other options are basically variants of the white to black colour palette (OK, granted, chill has a tinge of green in it).

I've seen the Kinetic Blue shade on the 2011 Fiesta, 2012 Figo and the EcoSport, and believe that it works best on the EcoSport. I feel that in the case of the Fiesta and Figo, having this blue on the entire body of the car - including the body-coloured bumpers - results in visual overload for the colour. When the car is in motion, it looks striking (maybe that explains the 'Kinetic') but at a standstill it looks too vivid.

On the other hand, the EcoSport avoids the pitfall of 'too much blue' by having the black cladding on the sides, black rear bumper and spare, as well as a partially black front bumper and a huge air dam.

EDIT: The K. Blue also looks good when dirty. I've given up trying to keep it clean with our rains and slush, and it looks nice with some muck on it!

[avm]

Thanks a lot Arun. Please do post some photos of your beauty.
Also, I had one more doubt, are the controls / speedometer illuminated during day time also ? or do they just come on when you switch on the lights ?

[firsttimeowner]

Originally Posted by avm

Thanks a lot Arun. Please do post some photos of your beauty.
Also, I had one more doubt, are the controls / speedometer illuminated during day time also ? or do they just come on when you switch on the lights ?

I had the same doubt the first few hours that I drove my ES. but later realized they're on through out. It's only at dusk that I appreciated the fact.

[avm]

Originally Posted by firsttimeowner

I had the same doubt the first few hours that I drove my ES. but later realized they're on through out. It's only at dusk that I appreciated the fact.

Oh well thats a great thing then! This is a feature generally seen only in high end cars
Thanks for the information buddy

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by avm

Thanks a lot Arun. Please do post some photos of your beauty.
Also, I had one more doubt, are the controls / speedometer illuminated during day time also ? or do they just come on when you switch on the lights ?

The lighting for the instrumentation is always on. While the lighting behind the letters isn't apparent in the day, the needles have a nice blue glow.

As (the aptly named) firsttimeowner said, its at dusk that this looks really stylish.

[DDIS]

Congratulations on your new acquisition! I am sure you will have great times driving this Ford.

You have put up a nicely split review there. Nice read

[arunphilip]

So, here are some more driving impressions over the past 4 weeks - all within the city.

Odo reads 800 km, and my 2nd tankful-to-tankful gave me a mileage of 10.5 km/L with the MID showing 10.4 km/L. I'm reassured with this mileage, as it reflects travelling within the city at 9:30 am and 8:30 pm, with idling at signals, and 100% AC usage.

Night driving

• Night driving is not a hassle.
• Ensure that the headlamp level is set to position 0 or 1, otherwise your low beam will fall short - when I took delivery it was set to 3, and I struggled a bit for a few weeks until I realized this.
• The stock bulbs are OK, though a bulb upgrade to Night Breakers or Xtreme Vision is definitely on the cards. Fitting a relay for higher wattage bulbs is something I'll defer for a year down the line, just to ensure there are no electrical gremlins that might need warranty cover.
• When you switch on the fog lamps, you won't really notice a difference if the headlights are on. However, when you then switch them off, you'll realize you've lost a bit of illumination.
• The MID at the center of the dash is quite bright at night - I will be fitting a matte mobile phone screen guard to take the 'edge' off its brightness.

Driving in the rain
2 days after taking delivery of my car, Bangalore received heavy rains for the next few weeks. That instantly meant that all my dreams of blasting away through the city were washed away, along with most of Bangalore's roads.

• The wipers are great! You can see them flinging the water away on the right side of the windscreen, leaving a nice and clear patch behind.
• The wiper controls are great for control freaks - you've got slow, medium, fast and intermittent with varying speed levels (7, I think). Where I'd previous just pick a speed and live with it (or toggle between 2 speeds), I now found myself tweaking the intermittent setting's speed to achieve the perfect speed. Rainfall is not a constant, so I'd find myself fiddling with this again after a few minutes. I need to chill, and just pick a sensible speed.
• My Getz doesn't have a rear wiper, and I now wonder how I've managed without one.
• The fog lamps are useful in giving a wider spread of light closer to the car, so if you're going through an unfamiliar road, it helps in spotting potholes and other such obstructions.
• I found that heavy rainfall on the roof created such a din (like rain on a tin roof) that it cut short my conversation inside the car. This is definitely a difference compared to my Getz, in a negative sense. The noise is more pronounced towards the rear of the car (the roof above the boot area). I wonder if some manner of damping here might be required, but I'm nervous about getting this done, as the curtain airbags are present around the top of the B-pillar. Any thoughts or inputs are welcome.
• Apart from the noise point, its a nice feeling being cocooned in the EcoSport during rains, secure that its clearance and water-wading capabilities will see you through (most of) the worst that our city roads can throw at you.

Tires
The Michelin Primary 3 ST tires continue to impress, with no complaints at all from my side.

I have unfortunately crashed through deep potholes twice when coming off a flyover at speed (60-80 km/h) but the tires have held up well, with no sidewall damage. These potholes were near invisible as the road was damp, making it appear uniformly dark. Funnily enough, the next time I went that way, I went at crawling speed, only to find the pothole patched up.

After a much needed wash at 3M
The rains meant that the EcoSport picked up a lot of slush and dirt. On the advise of the 3M guys and to keep swirl marks at bay, I asked my guards to avoid regular washing. The net result was that this wannabe SUV ended up wearing SUV-like colours and dirt.

I finally took some time out to head over to 3M HSR layout and got it nicely cleaned up on the outside (great job as usual from the team there). The interiors were very clean, helped in a large part by the 3M Nomad mats. Here's one shot of the car after the wash: