Team-BHP - Ford EcoSport : Official Review

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Price Starts at 5.6 but you end up paying almost double of it in Bangalore if you want to buy Diesel or Petrol AT high end version. Devil really lies in detail. I dont think Its a good deal anything going above 10 , one should really think seriously considering buying Duster by shelling 1.5 more at least you have a real SUV.

Anyone has link to AT version video or text review. How good is AT version ? I am really confused , I was holding my decision to buy Duster now AT costing 10.6 in Blr , I might consider buying Duster RXL I need to just stretch another 1 lakh. Any suggestions should go for Eco AT or Duster RXL?

Finally after a loooong wait, Ford have got another winner on hands. Hopefuly they will emulate the success with Ecosport which they had got it with Figo. This time they got the pricing right for the Indian market too. They definitely have leant from the new Fiesta pricing fiasco and made efforts to learn the market more deeply rather than just launch the product. Hats off to the Ford team for great product.

I have been an owner of Ford Fiesta and can can proudly say that Ford does make some gem of a car. Apart from lauching great products I wish they would expand their service network to provide a hassle free service.

Quote:

Originally Posted by agambhandari (Post 3161564)

I called the Ford India Toll free helpline. The info. I got was that all the booking process will be concerned with the dealer and the customer only. The dealer will decide the allocation to the customer and there is no centralised booking process.
Hope this helps.

Ford India is then basically telling you that you are at the complete mercy of their dealers, with no recourse or remedy. God help. I will wait, no, I need to seriously rethink my plans now. I am now feeling nostalgic about my experience of buying my pre-owned Innova from Toyota UTrust :thumbs up. I got a call for a workshop inspection by a TKMIL inspection team approx. 2 weeks after the sale. They did a detailed exam of the vehicle, and all this was apparently to ensure that the used car dealer is not dishing out lemons to customers in their name....and this was over and above the CSAT call I got from both the dealer as well as some agency appointed by Toyota. And all this for a 5 year old, pre-owned Innova that was not even a "certified" model.......Sigh !!

Buying is not the car-owning experience. Its barely the beginning of the car-owning experience. I hope Ford India has some plans to tone up their processes, now that the stress of a successful launch is behind them.

Had prebooked the A/T version.

Needed an A/T for wife and choices were limited in the <10L range. She didnt want AStar and Brio seemed expensive for the A/T.

With ecosport
- gets a proven A/T as Fiesta has been in India for sometime
- Dual clutch is a bonus
- high seating position , which was a criteria
- Too much running (<500/month) is not expected other than ocassional trips out of blore
- Own a fiesta ( pre classic edition ) and have no complaints on the aftersales

Resale could be a problem with automatic, but i dont forsee a need to sell in any near future.

While I have not driven the Ecoboost version of Ecosport yet and so cannot comment on specifics, I don't believe the Ecoboost is being projected by Ford as an enthusiast-centric performance machine like how T-Jet / Laura vRS/ Polo GT TSi are being marketed in the media. It is unfair to bash it for being not-so-quick or not-so-exciting.

World over, car makers are slowly shifting to smaller displacement turbo-petrols with the advantages being two fold - one being the better driveability/performance comparable to a higher displacement NA engine, and another being the expected / claimed efficiency advantage of using a lower displacement engine itself. I believe Ecoboost is just a part of that trend.

In my opinion, the Ecoboost 1.0 is being used for its ability to extract more torque from a 1L petrol engine with the use of the turbo, whilst retaining the traditional refinement and lower maintenance advantage of a petrol engine. The emphasis is not on being a performance scorcher like a T-Jet or TSi, but more on developing low-end torque which is quite important in a SUV like the Ecosport, no matter how pseudo-SUVish it is. This (getting higher bottom-end torque) would have otherwise been difficult with a NA petrol, requiring higher engine displacement, thus compromising on fuel efficiency, garnering a gas-guzzler image and being a market dud. Of course, advertising their Ecoboost brand also adds to their public image of being innovators and people might be tempted to buy Ecoboost with all the hype and advertising going on.

On a different note, there were a few reports on the net criticizing Ford for producing 'Eco-Boast' engines :), a dig at their claims of increased efficiency with smaller displacement turbo engines, which in reality aren't more frugal than their NA counterparts. The 1L engine should be pretty frugal in India though, compared to other petrol SUVs on offer here.

Here's an interesting read on how smaller displacement turbo-petrols aren't as frugal as they are claimed to be:
http://news.consumerreports.org/cars...my-claims.html

EDIT : I don't know how laggy the power delivery is on the Ecoboost. I can only find out after a test drive, until then I won't be commenting on anything. But extracting 120HP from a 1L engine is pretty remarkable on paper.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vineetg84 (Post 3161758)

please:NEED EXPERTS OPINION
My daily commute will be max 30 kms a day,with rs 1 lakh difference between diesel ecosport titanium and 1 litre petrol ecoboost titanium,which will be a better buy for me .Criteria is whichever model is more fun to drive.Plan to keep the car for 3 years.I currently own a ford figo zxi diesel model.

Fun to drive will be definitely the Ecoboost and with a daily commute of under 150 kms a day i would term a diesel, not a worthy decision, simply because maintenance in a diesel is higher and the price difference in the petrol and diesel variants does not justify the buy of the usage is so meager. Im told the non eco boost petrol is also quite fun to drive but id go for the Ecoboost anyday unless i wanted an automatic, even in that case the diesel os out as it does not come with an autobox, still my guess is that the numbers game in the Ecosport will be the diesel because in India we are all diesel lovers for no rhyme or reason. So if i were you, i would buy the Ecoboost.

Then there is another school of thought which says that ecoboost is not the answer. Well, one cant go by city figures as they almost never match with the claims made. I remember taking my W124 E220 to Mahableshwar and reaching there non stop in 3.45 hrs and back and the vehicle giving me almost 18kmph. The car never gave me over 6.5-7 in the city. So the capabilities of the engine to churn out economy is always better explored on an open stretch with the engine running in 5th or 6th gear as the case may be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shivasuma (Post 3161053)

A small correction. The automatic is a 1.5L.

Yessir, noticed the mistake but was too late for editing then. Thanks for pointing out buddy!!:thumbs up

I'm planning to go for the basic Petrol version. For me that is making the most value for money proposition at the moment. On road price in Mumbai for Corporate registration is going to be close to 7.5 Lakhs. In this price bracket I think this is the best bet I've. The engine might not be EcoBoost which is turbo charged but still it's the same engine which is powering the Fiesta 1.5 and Fiesta even the basic version is above 9 Lakhs in Mumbai.

This means I've to finally sell my Cedia with a very heart,a s I don't have any more parking space left....

Excellent pricing by Ford. They have learnt their mistakes after the new fiesta tanked after a horrendous pricing strategy. Even discounts are not doing the trick for the NF now.
The eco sport 1.5 petrol is an excellent alternative to super expensive hatchbacks like the i20 / swift ZXI / Polo.
The diesel is priced a little higher, these top end versions of the B+ hatch backs and the mid variants of entry level sedans are around 7.5 to 9, so Amaze / dzire diesel buyers may not make that shift to an ecosport diesel.
People who want proper sedans will still spend that 10-12 lakhs on cars such as verna, vento etc. I dont see much of these buyers trying to save money by buying the ecosport, because it is much smaller, even though it does look big.
The ecoboost engine will end up being a marketing tool more than anything else. Ford's only mistake in the whole ecosport launch seems to be this. But there must have been some factors like high cost of import or something that would have led to ford pricing this at 10L.
This morning I had suggested one of my friends to look at the Ecosport diesel instead of the i20. But with nearly a lakh in between them, i think he is actually better off buying the i20 diesel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vineetg84 (Post 3161758)

The EcoBoost is more Fun to drive and with your kind of running, there isn't much sense in getting the Diesel.

But, since you plan to sell the car after just 3 yrs, the resale value should be also considered.
Considering that you say 1 lakh now. Say you put it in a fixed deposit, it will grow to about 1.4 lakhs in the 3 yrs you have the car.
So after 3 years, the difference in resale values if upto 1.4 lakh between the Diesel and EcoBoost, you can easily get away with the EcoBoost financially.
But other than that, as I said, the ecoboost is also better to drive with more power than the Diesel, so financial aspect isn't the only one.