I bought this vehicle 1 month back with great zeel, after going thro the test drive, I was very impressed by the inside space, drivability, and decent looks, at the time of booking the dealer’s LATHANGI FORD, BANGALORE services was very good. Then started the problem with the dealer, on the day of delivery just few hours before their time , they informed me that by mistake the car didn’t go for the registration, and they can’t deliver, I had made plans for vacations with the family, have to cancel all of them, after arguing with them the manager gave me Teflon coating as compensation, the next day I went to take the delivery at dealer fixed time of 4 pm, it took 4.5hrs for them to give the delivery, one lady named BHAVYA got my signature on all the documents including the feed back card and vehicle check list without explaining them, when she was asked how could she get the feed back card signed without letting me fill, she arrogantly tells me to write what ever complaint I have on her, gets away from there asking someone else to attend me, there was lots of confusion about the paper works, inspite of me paying all the charges in advance they started arguing about the non payment without looking at the receipts I had. and finally I came out to take the car, I found the mud flaps and floor mats were not fixed, again they told me I have not paid for it, i showed the receipts, then they told it can be fixed next day as there is no people around, since it was raining on that evening, I didn’t wanted to take the car without mud flaps after arguing they finally fixed them only to know that it had fallen down after a weeks time, The number plate was fixed 2 days later with the promised Teflon coating, making me wait for almost 5 hrs unnecessarily.
Anyway lets come back to car performance, with the A/C the lagg is too much in 2nd gear, THIS MAKES THE DRIVE DIFFICULT IN CITY BUMPER TO BUMPER TRAFIC. but without A/C it is not noticable, in 3rd gear we can go as slow as 20 kmphr thats an advantage.Engine makes lots of sound just like old indica deisel, or sometimes more than that, but with a/c and window’s closed it is good, the plus point of this car is good interiors, with lots of features, good visibility of road from inside, the bad part is road clearance is horrilbly low, with more than 2 people in the car it hits almost every big road humps in bangalore, but we can’t blame the manufacturer for badly designed humps at most of the place,
On the highway the vehicle is superb, with great stability even at 130km/hr but one should be carefull about the brakes at high speed which is bit slow in reaction, while coming back from a long drive Blower stopped working at speed 1 to 3, only speed 4 was working, the HEAD LAMPS are not sufficient for highway drive it restricts the speed to 50km/hr. So I went to the dealer with the blower problem, they got the failed resistor replaced for the blower, and they suggested to go for different bulbs for the head lamps, which I got it changed by paying Rs. 1900/- . the lights improved marginally but not to my expectations.
Again after 2 days the blower stopped working, this time the dealer told me since this is second time they would like to check in detail, they made me wait for 2 hrs and told me faulty blower had to replaced which has to come from chennai, asked me to pick the car next day, but it took 4 days for them to give back the vehicle giving various vague reasons. I spent around Rs 1500/- in those 4 days for my transport. The people in LATHANGI FORD are good at making false excuses’s with the customer, trying to convince the customer in some way rather than Satisfying the customer,
The management at dealer and also ford company should look at this problem if they have to keep the customer’s faith in them. And for me I don’t have an option other than going to this dealer since I stay far from other dealer, the Ford company should increase the dealer network and service stations so that the customer will have an option.
Overall I would say I still have to adjust with the vehicle, i can’t write the car is BAD OR GOOD.But certainly didn’t had a good experiance with the LATHANGI FORD.
i will write the review after some time.