I own FORD IKON Flair 1.3. I was thought of sharing my experience of owning ford for last 6 years and driving it for 55K KM. Here it goes.
About car maintenance and history-
I think car is well maintained. Accident free for more than 5 years (I am enjoying no claim bonus of 50% in my insurance.). Car is regularly serviced by the FORD authorized service dealer in time.
After 50000 KM car has shown up some sigh of wear and tear and also due to somewhat bad roads and driving conditions I have some physical damage to the car (exhaust pipe damage/rust and bumper damages and slight body damage) which needs to be taken care off.
Maintenance experience
Issues –
There are some issues with the car maintenance
1. Limited authorized service centers in the city limits. Closest one to my house is around 7-8 KM. So driving to service center for a small unplanned maintenance is painful.
2. In my initial days of car ownership one of the FORD supervisor told me I will need to replace the ignition coil after 3 years I refused 4th year warranty extension and have to pay close to 8k ( Approx price) for replacing HT wires and coils in 38 month ( just after expiry of warranty).
3. I have few issues with electric components like central door locking switch needs replacement and light switch, ignition switch coil replacement etc.
4. FORD initially provided pickup and drop facility for planned maintenance appointments and it has stopped the practice now. This adds to inconvenience in your busy schedule and distant service stations.
5. Service capacity has not increased but number of ford car has increased, so now I see lots of rush in the service station and customer care quality has gone down significantly (Less capacity to handle more cars, lack of adequate manpower to handle increased influx of customers etc). This also increased the service time. My last routine service took 3 days to deliver the car.
Experience
Though I don’t have any direct comparison of the maintenance cost of other vehicles so it will be unfair for me to comment if maintenance cost is high or low here.
I had few maintenance/repair requirement in the car and cost estimate is as below from the ford authorized work center.
1. Front and Rear bumpers are damaged – Cost as told to me is Rs 3000 for one bumper and painting will be Rs 3500 and locks and fixtures etc another Rs 1000. So this close to Rs 7500-8000 per bumper.
2.