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-   -   Going Fida Again!!! Fiesta Petrol 1.6 SXi (Moondust Silver) Purchased. (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-drives-initial-ownership-reports/73374-going-fida-again-fiesta-petrol-1-6-sxi-moondust-silver-purchased.html)

My old Ford Fiesta 1.4 EXi after the unfortunate accident:

1. Budget - 7L (+/- 50K)
2. Car Type - Sedan
3. Engine Type - Petrol (My monthly running will be in the range of 1000 - 1200 kms)
4. Safety features - ABS is a must, Airbags are good to have.
5. Other bells & whistles important to me - Alloy Wheels, Good leather seat covers, decent interiors.

1. Fiat Linea - Awesome looks and that's about it. Engine had no power when I test drove it. I felt that my brother's 2004 Fiat Palio 1.2 has more power than this beauty. Was thoroughly disappointed.
2. Maruti SX4 - I never liked its looks. I feel that it's like an overgrown baby. The fully loaded version was 8.5L on-road. Didn't even test drive it. Sorry, SX4 owners, this is just my opinion :).
3. Hyundai Verna - My jijaji owns a Hyundai Verna petrol and I have driven this car extensively. I was never a fan of its petrol engine.
4. Chevrolet Optra - I saw an advertisement in the local newspaper which talked about a major discount on Chevy Optra. On-road price for LS version (without ABS, Airbags) was 8.4L with this discount. Not a bad buy I thought, but again I would have to shell out almost 1.5L more than my budget and end up without ABS.
5. Ford Fiesta - Tried & Tested car. Was very happy with my Fiesta 1.4 Petrol for 3 years and loved every inch of my drive with it. Test drove the 1.6S and found it even better. 7.37L on-road for SXi and S after the corporate discount offered to my company by Ford.
6. Honda City - If I had 2L more than my budget, I would have never thought about any other car.

Some pics taken at the time of final delivery:

1. Perfect price for this segment. VFM.
2. SXi comes with ABS, Airbags, Leather Seat Covers, Wooden console finish, Nice rubber finish on the dashboard.
3. Turn indicator on ORVMs.
4. SXi now comes with 14" alloys.
5. The 1.6 petrol engine is awesome. I must say, it's the best in the class. Total driver's car.
6. The stock ICE is good enough. USB port is missing though.
7. Good sporty stance of the car, which I always loved about this car.

Cons:

1. Stock tyres - MRF ZV2K (175/65R 14) are not so good. Got them changed to Michelin Energy XM1+ (185/65R 14) after delivery. Rs. 5000 was charged extra by Darshan Tyres for exchanging all the 5 stock tyres.
2. Chrome finish on ORVMs only looks good on the Moondust Silver as it blends in well with the Silver colour IMO. I am afraid; it looks a bit cheap on other colours. Not sure what Ford design team was thinking when they decided to go with the Chrome ORVM finish.
3. Less leg room for back seat passengers compared to other cars in this class.
4. No alloy wheels for the 5th spare tyre. Disappointing.
5. No automatic climate control feature.
6. No audio controls on steering wheel like other cars in this class.

CAR DEALER REVIEW

Bought this car from Talera Ford - Pune. Overall am satisfied with the dealer. They gave me some good discounts - 3rd Yr/1,20,000 kms extended warranty, accessories pack & Waxoyl finish was included in the 7.37L on-road price. The Sales Consultant was well mannered, although he can improve on his product knowledge. He also screwed-up on the insurance front. He got ICICI Lombard insurance in spite of my telling him that I had a bad experience with ICICI Lombard and I only want Bajaj Allianz this time. Anyways, will have to stick with ICICI Lombard for a year now & will change it to Bajaj Allianz after a year. At the time of delivery, the Sales staff was very cordial and explained me everything. The car was delivered bang on time as was promised.

TYRE DEALER REVIEW

I got my MRF stock tyres changed from Darshan Tyres (Nagar Road - Pune). They offered me the lowest quote among all the tyre dealers I contacted in Pune. I had to pay Rs. 1000 per tyre in exchange for a Michelin Energy XM1+ (185/65R 14). After reading the tyre reviews on team-bhp, I was confused between Bridgestone Turanza ER-60 and Michelin Energy XM1+. I finally decided to leave it on the tyre dealer and he recommended me to go with Michelin. Both Bridgestone & Michelin were available with him at the same cost, so I finally went with his suggestion. The tyre changing job was done in about half an hour and we were back on the road with the Michelins. Overall, I rate them high for their quick response time & low cost.

Michelin Tyres getting fitted at Darshan Tyres:


With the new Michelins:


WAY FORWARD

1. Get some good sun control reflective films for my car. Any suggestions please? My budget is approx. Rs. 3K.
2. My 2.5 yrs old touch phone (HTC P3400) is having a lot of problems now, with frequent restarts and call drops. The plan is to purchase an affordable touchscreen phone with an in-built GPS & good music player. The music player will be connected to the Aux-in of the Fiesta stock music system and for GPS, am planning to purchase all India maps from MapMyIndia. Nokia 5800 XpressMusic fits my requirement perfectly as it is afforable at Rs. 12500 (minus Rs. 3500 for my old phone). Any comments on my GPS plan?

P.S.: The uploaded pics are taken from three different sources, and hence the ever changing quality of these pics. Kindly adjust. I will upload some more pics after my planned trip to Matheran on the coming weekend.

Cheers!
Amit

Already a Fiesta Owner, going again for another Fiesta -Great !
Congratulations and welcome - another Fiestan !

Regrding GPS on a Nokia handset - just go through the thread under 'gadgets,computers & software'' and then 'satguide vs mapmyindia' or any other topis where you can get more ideas about this handset with gps facility.

Congratulations Amit!

I see a lot of existing Ford customers returning to the brand again for their next purchase. Good trend!

Amit,

Congratulations on your new Fiesta and all the best for many driving experiences ahead. Looking at your faith in going again for Fiesta renewed my confidendece that I too had made a good choice in Fiesta like others.

One thing which puzzled me was if the spare tyre did not have alloy how would be it useful in case of emergency. Would it be allright if 3 tyres are alloys and one a non alloy wheel. I know its too negative thinking but it just flashed in my mind.

Do let us know which handset have you preferred and how do you plan to hook it up to the aux in.

Congratulations Amit, good choice and happy motoring with it.

Nice review. Congrats! I bet you will have a great time with this pure driver's machine.

The gray and silver interiors on the S are actually much better than the the EXi with a lot of soft touch plastic and trims. I felt the darker interiors to be more practical than the SXI's beige.

For a budget of 3K, Garware or 3M would be the way to go. I think Garware is very VFM. Just make sure the installer is good.

Congratulations on your new buy. Your faith in the same company and even in the same model just adds to the confidence of the would-be owners like me.

Your narration made a good read too.

I have booked Fiesta 1.6 SXi (Diamond White) and now tired of waiting for the delivery. I also had almost similar kind of feelings and justifications before going for the same.

Congrats again !!!

nothing speaks like a returning customer :)

Nice buy, the fiesta is indeed a very balanced choice offering everything including a sporty feel!

Just a question, do the rear seats pass the old people test? I mean, are they easy to get in/out of, leg room, ride etc. Also are there rear ac vents?

cheers

PS: Do post some interior pics too!

Absolutely no problem. Cost cutting is the reason. Remove 1 Alloy wheel=save around 5K;Give only 1 remote enabled key=save around 2K :)

Infact, abroad there's the concept of space saver spare tire. This one would be a inch (for eg) shorter than the regular tires and you can drive for a certain distance up to certain max speed with this tire. Ideally this would save some space in the boot. The initial SWIFTs had these in India and later ARAI intervened and disapproved this practice. Maruti had to replace the spare tires due to this.

Also, some of the after market alloy wheel retailer also would suggest you to go for 4 alloys instead of 5. But personally am against this since there is a possibility that we cannot source the exact alloy design later.

As a Fiesta owner I can tell you that they don't. The car is too low for easy ingress/egress for older people. My parents would rather sit in their Santro than my Fiesta. It is that tough. Even the front seat is not better in that sense.

Re-Welcome to the Ford Club, Ford Fiesta Club, And Fiesta SXi Club, And Fiesta SXi Moondust Silver Club;-}

Two 2 Tango!

Nice Review. Thinking of copying/pasting the pictures/review for my own ownership thread.LOL.

BTW, did you check with your dealer regarding any warranty issues on your tyre upgrade! Here in chennai, we are running scared becos of warranty void threats!

Do drop in at http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-d...-you-here.html for getting more information (and confusion as well)

Sanjay, I checked with the Sales Consultant and he said that the warranty is not void for marginal change in the width. But, it will go void if I upgrade the rim diameter. Also, I checked a thread from frankmehta. Even he has increased the width of his Fiesta 1.6S tyres without voiding the warranty.

@abhi1309 & @anekho
The back seat passanger leg room is a problem area for Fiesta. But, it's not so less that is becomes unmanageable. My mom who is 61 now, never found any problems with the leg room even in my old Fiesta 1.4 EXi. But, she definitely praised the legroom of Hyundai Verna which my jijaji owns.

Its all depends on the dealer because he is the one going to look after the car (Ford is not going to come and inspect what you have upgraded on the car etc?). So keep the dealer happy and he will assist you for such
things!

cheers bro! she's a looker!!

PS: get the xpressmusic 5230 if Wi fi is not a requirement! It's perfect for 8.5 k!

Congrats on your 2nd Fiesta! Does your music system have an auxillary input?