Guys, sorry about the delay. Saturday was pretty crazy with tons of work cropping up and I had to attend the ongoing Fashion week in Okhla to cheer on a friend who showcased her collection.
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Originally Posted by EssYouWe Any plans to jazz up the rear? Its too boring innit? |
Not really, except for the sport bumpers. All ears to any suggestion from your end.
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Originally Posted by better4worse Damn lucky indeed ! Khan bhai, I managed to do a Polo TD today and I like the car !!! By the way, I see the pics you've shared in one of your previous posts on the same page, did you manage to have a look at the Polo with outer (add-on skirting for 50K). I'm sure you must've. I saw one at the VW showroom and boy she looks 'Pretty' (goes without saying in RED) does one get that as a standard in the Highline variant ? (guess I missed asking the sales person about this bit) |
Nope, the side skirtings and sport bumpers aren't part of the standard feature set. I've already put down a 10K deposit for these and am expecting them sometime next month.
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Originally Posted by aryasanyal Thanks a ton. Looking eagerly for your writeup. |
As requested:
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Polo vs Figo (petrol):
Looks and Design:
The Polo has a great front end, an okay-ish side profile and a bland rear. The Figo on the other hand, has an average front end, a slighly ungainly side profile and a confusing rear. The shapely headlamps and black band at the front give the Figo a good imposing profile for anyone looking at it through the RVM of their car but the impossibly long tail lights make the car seem like it's driving around with a long face. At night though, the tail lights don't light up completely and that's a good thing. People driving behind it will be able to identify it as a Figo (or a Fusion) which probably can't be said about the Polo with its two red squares stuck on the back. Alloys aren't standard on the Figo (I test drove the ZXi and Titanium) and the choice of plastic wheelcaps isn't particularly appealing.
Polo:7, Figo:6
Engine:
The Polo's petrol unit doesn't sound very refined at idle and as rightfully mentioned a couple of times on these forums, sounds like a diesel. Slot through the gears and some noise does make its way through. On the other hand, the Figo has slightly better NVH levels with very little of the clatter at idle. Rev the engine though, and it'll be the Polo that melts your heart more than the Figo. The Polo gets a very good mileage of 14-14.5kpl in the city, the Figo needs a calculator to get that value (more on that later). I certainly don't believe it'll give more than 14/18kpl in city/highway conditions since the engine is quite small and needs to work hard.
Polo:7, Figo:7
Acceleration and Handling:
Both cars seem pretty equal when it comes to getting their tail down for a fast getaway, although the butt-in-seat stopwatch might give the edge to the Polo. The Polo's better communicating steering wheel makes the going a bit easier when moving through fast corners. ABS and EBD might be standard features on both top end versions but surprisingly, the Figo struggled while performing a Scandinavian flick <I had gotten the approval from the sales guy who was a budding street racer in disguise> with the brakes juddering a bit. Make sure you get a good set of tires when buying a Figo because the default MRFs will give way before the limits of the brakes and chassis are reached. Also, the suspension isn't as good as the Polo when driving over craters (I mean potholes) and slightly rocky terrain. With the Polo, there were no such issues and everything is
magnifique. Just don't blame me if you happen to scrape the underside with your off road excursions.
Acceleration: Polo:8, Figo:8. Handling: Polo:8, Figo:6
Steering: The Figo has a good power steering unit that feels precise in the hand. However, I don't what kind of brainless zombie designed a rack without tilt or telescopic adjustments so if you're over 6 feet tall, good luck trying to read the dials clearly. The Polo has a equally weighted steering that feels good and even looks good compared to the 'lifted from a truck' like feeling that you get from a Figo - anyone's who's ever sat or driven one of Ford's trucks or SUVs will know what I mean. The hitting area for the horn is a bit bigger that the Polo.
Steering: Polo:9, Figo:8
Gear shifts: This is one area where the Polo clearly outshines the entire competition and not just the Figo. Rowing through the gears in a Polo feels like you've just won a dinner and date with your fantasy woman (or man, just in case
). The Figo's gears felt a bit incomplete and the driver has to make a slight effort in moving through the gears - perhaps it just a case of an abused test car, but slotting from 2nd to 3rd felt going through the longest day in your life. And whatever the gear boot is made of isn't very good. The test car had barely 800kms on the odo and some of the rings on the boot were already misaligned.
Polo: 10, Figo:7
Interior, Gadgets and Comfort:
This is one area where the Ford shows some of its might and tries to claw back the deficit. Ford have almost outdone the Germans in creating an interior that's strictly functional although it does look quite nice, only if you get the black dashboard and not the flashy "look at me!" red one. The seats are quite comfortable and have all the basics covered - height adjustment, seatback angle and fore/aft movement. Storage The car has a lot of niceties that are present in other higher end cars (Punto etc.). Electric RVMs- check, bluetooth connectivity-check, a very convenient trunk/boot release button-check, all of which are missing from the Polo. Visibility through the RVM is also better in the Figo than the Polo. However, the VW has better driver console guages that are clearly more legible. The HVAC unit does its job marvellously and in fact, can get a bit chilly if you don't keep the blower down. Coming to some of the sore points, the Figo's MFD doesn't display a lot of info - it's just restricted to an odometer count, distance-to-empty (DTE) and a trip meter which means going back to the old fashioned way of getting a calculator or, if you've kept up with modern times, a cell phone to furiously tap your way through to a fuel consumption value. Not only that, there's no engine temperature guage so basically you're dependent on a tiny light that will (supposedly) come on if the engine ever happens to get angry. There is only one cupholder so expect a fist fight to break out with whoever is sitting in the passenger seat. The audio feels pretty downmarket with the speakers complaining at the slightest hint of bass and a cold rather than warm sound, although the presence of an aux-in jack for an external music player alleviates things somewhat. The lack of power windows at the rear even in the top end variant is downright inexcusable. For those coming from a Maruti or Hyundai, they will get the European layout of control stalks all fuddled up, just like in other European cars. There is a very slightly perceptible drop in performance when the monster A/C gets turned on, don't blame this on the small engine though since the Polo doesn't seem to have this problem. Lastly, while it's not something that'll impress the ladies down at the club, the programmable key fob will certainly impress your kids and allow you to open the boot from the comfort of your own home.
Interior: Polo:8, Figo:8, Comfort: Polo:8, Figo:9, Gadgets: Polo:7, Figo:9
Rear legroom:
One area where the Figo seems to smack the Polo. Although both cars aren't anywhere close to say, an Indica Vista, the Figo actually does have a decent amount of leg and head room at the back, and this was after I had adjusted the front seats to suit my 6'1" frame. Seating 4 6' adults should be a piece of a cake in the Ford, something which can't be said about the Polo. How the engine will respond to so many 6 footers in the car is an entirely different story and something that I never got the chance to test (the sales guy was a five-foot-sixer).
Polo:6, Figo:8
Trunk/Boot:
While both cars have folding 60:40 rear seats, the Figo seems to have a bigger boot overall. The presence of a boot light is always useful and is something that's missing from the Polo. The Figo's boot is easier to open, the Polo's boot is easier to close. The lifting VW badge in the Polo never ceases to amuse some people and is probably the answer to the Figo's programmable key fob.
Polo:8, Figo:9
Having added up the marks, we get:
Polo:86
Figo:85
Note: not comparable with the scores obtained in the Punto vs Polo comparison on page #1.
So there we have it - if you thought the Punto and Polo were close, the Polo and Figo are even closer. In real world terms, it's pretty much a draw and yet again, comes down to your preference of driving characteristics and handling vs extra semi-luxury features. The Polo clearly outshines the Ford in handling and gear shifts, the Figo claws it back in gadgets and rear legroom. However, before you move off this thread, there are TWO very important things on the mind of most buyers - the big fat monster called the price tag and the availability factor. At a lakh less than the Polo, the Figo represents fantastic value for money and I feel that in the long run, the Figo will quite handily outsell the Polo although for some (like me), the charm of a German car will prove to be too hard to resist. However, drive down to your nearest VW showroom and you will probably be disappointed on learning that there's close to a 2 month wait period for the Das Auto car compared to the <1 month for a Figo.
Before you plonk down the deposit at the Ford stealership though, be sure that you can live with the absence of many seemingly tiny things that we take for granted in a car.
When asked for my comments on the TD feedback sheet, I wrote the same words many of you have been thinking about - the Figo Titanium certainly doesn't feel high end and I feel (hope) Ford might release a proper variant with all the bells and whistles sometime down the line.
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