She came to my life 7 years back in the month of May, yup one of the first iKON’s ever sold in India. Had a test drive and fell in love and after a lot of debate decided for her, took delivery from Cochin and drove down with a friend to trivandrum 220 kms south. First stop was the local accessory showroom to get that mandatory set of mats, 2 sets (one fabric and the transparent plastic ones for protection).
Coming back to the first drive, run in was in my head, started with 80’s on speedo and after breaking the journey for 2-3 times over 100 kms, but then she is one beast who loves speed so landed up doing 120’s by the end of first 150 kms, never knowing the speedo climbed so much lol. and it continued till the last few kms last Friday when she crossed 42,500 kms on odo.
What do I say she is one quirky gal, loves those winding roads, highways with broken patches and those tight overtake scenarios which I explored over the years, let it be hills of Moonar or namma bangaloru, rough patches are even more fun the way she glides over with a rumble (yes mrf vts are loud, suspension hmm not louder but still wants to be heard) and entertaining when you correct the rear during one of those tricky turns, back steps out, do not brake just ease the throttle a lil and counter steer and yup she will snatch back to normal.. oh what fun..
Infamous brakes!! Not really gave few scares initially but was sorted out somehow (still a mystery) after some 20k kms during a routine service, and really was no worry after I changed the front brake pads at 38k kms, don’t know if its just me mastering those brakes, I didn’t screech ones in my last weekend trip ???
Suspension again bloody robust, initially ford recalled my car for a small rubber damper/stopper correction, used to give a thud when humps were taken lil over enthusiastically, that’s it, apart from that a regular tightening over the services not even a paisa spent till date and yup she feels a lil soft these days but you give her a rough patch (krishnagiri-dharmapuri stretch for instance or bandipur with rubble humps) at around 110 kms/hour oh boy she just brought back those old memories again last weekend.
To all old-city and baleno owners, no offence but having driven all 3 cars over the same/similar stretch, trust me none gives you the confidence that this lil iKON gives at abusing the suspension, yup I had bent one rim (edge) on one of such excursion in mysore road but nothing a local tire walla couldn’t correct over 10 mts, that’s it she is built like a tank, I still believe in this and any day I would put my money on iKON for lil abusive driving.
Tank! that remind me, she ones jumped a wall 5 foot high landed on soft sand nose first onto a beach, no I was not the culprit rather my pops lol, and some good Samaritans took over and dropped the rear also, in the process managed to get the spare tire pop inside the boot, took the car to a dealer, did a thorough suspension and alignment check, all aok and drove off. Oh yeah one guy standing and jumping inside the wheel well brought it back to shape, not tough after all.
Engine, yup lots have been told, one thing I want to say is she aint that thirsty!! She gives a decent 10-11 kms in bangalore city with AC and last highway trip gave 16 kmpl consistently, am pretty wild with accelerator mode, master the torque delivery that’s all the secret, listen to the engine growl and shift, yeah ones in a while you will be fooled and she will hit the brick wall of rev limiter also, my fav stretch was signal from EG pura on ring road where I have to state very boyishly that nobody dared beat me in the traffic signal drag, which was not the case when I did the autocar drag 2 years back, with a tank full of gas, ac switched on and saw a golden Honda city take a 50 or was it 100 mtr lead at finish line, then again my launches are awesome lol.
She gave me some sleepless nights also, first the injector conking off at 12k kms, don’t blame the car, it was left idle for a year, had to happen, then again the erratic idle and cough which was diagnosed as engine job but thank my lucky stars was just a fuel evaporator problem.. phew.. then bloody silencer eroded away and broke into two one evening, couldn’t find a decent off the shelf replacement and went with custom job, simple job remove the last 2 cans, instead put a pipe and good muffler with loads of glass wool, will give you a beautiful growl, beautiful response from throttle and absolutely negligible mileage drop.
Ok I can go on forever and bore, but at least this much I OWE HER!! Do I regret, not really I had my fun and who knows some day I can have my iKONIC dreams back.
Pros: FUN FUN FUN, TANK ur driving, FUN FUN FUN! (NOT A 140-150 straight line expert, rather a 100-120 kms i care a S**T person)
Cons: Dealer workshop can be beautiful as well as horrifying experience, so brush up your automotive mechanical knowledge.
She is not Ur neghbhorhood chick but hey she cares a damn too.. that’s why I will be in love with her..
cheers
Jaggu