Road Trip to Gujarat
Ford company recently offered me a car, a Ford Figo for review and we decided on Ahmedabad to take it for a spin. It was time to hit the roads again.
This was one road trip which we been waiting for a while. We had heard so much about the beautiful roads of Gujarat that made driving pleasurable. Added to that were the heritage and beautiful tourist sites of Gujarat. Considering we got the car in January, we quickly decided to start with Ahmedabad and enjoy the Kite Festival during Uttarayan. Our complete itinerary looked like this.
Mumbai to Ahmedabad.
Visit Kite Festival and other things to do in Ahmedabad including Sabarmati River Front, Mahatma Gandhi’s Ashram, Sewa Cafe ( a unique way to serve) etc.
Village Adalaj to visit Adalaj ni Vav
Modhera Surya Mandir or Modhera Sun Temple and Rani-ki-Vav in Patan.
Nal Sarovar bird sanctuary and back to Mumbai. over period of 4 days.
On top of that we were going to stay in an age old Haveli right inside the old city of Ahmedabad. Yay!
Our tentative route map for our road trip to GujaratSo when I received this Ford Figo I wondered if it would be comfortable mainly because of its size. It appeared small. I thought it’ll be nice to compare a hatchback with a sedan since we are proud owners of a bigger model of Ford for the past many years. But I was completely wrong !
Probably this hatchback has been the best selling model in the portfolio and the makeover would definitely enhance the popularity of the car more.
I am not a car buff but I definitely need a comfortable vehicle to move around especially if I am going on a road trip…. A car which won’t trouble me every now & then, a car which gives me a good mileage and a car which can fit in a tiny parking space as well. 😀
Here are few main points which I noticed about Ford Figo. I have not tried many features, I will not be able to write about all of them.
The car is small in size but quite spacious from inside, has a nice attractive shape and I really liked the Kinetic blue color.
When I was told it has Diesel engine, I told to myself to make a note of the difference it makes on our wallet. The full tank capacity of 45 liters was good enough for this size of car, unheard of in cars of similar category.
Pickup seemed to be sluggish but I got used to it pretty quickly. Later I decided that it may be because of the Diesel engine and I was comparing it to our Petrol Car. 🙂 Having said that I could touch 100Kmph fairly quickly and could maintain the speed for fairly long distances without much stress.
Later in the day we were on the Expressway cruising at 120 Kmph and the good point is that the car was pretty stable. God forbid, in case of any accidents we were assured of our safety with dual front airbags in front of our seats.
Air-con is so powerful that even on running at level 1, we had to switch it off every few minutes since the passenger at the back seat had started complaining about the chillness in the car. 😀 And mind you, it was noon time.
Many times we forget to lock the doors when we start. No worries, the intelligent system automatically locks all the doors as soon as we start moving.
Also, motorized control of side mirrors is a plus point.
We drivers were of different heights. So it was a bonus when we had the height of driver’s seat adjusted to our convenience and also were able to adjust the steering wheel tilt.
The dashboard is quite well designed and along with music system it looks sleek and trendy. The sound is loud and clear. It has Radio + CD/MP3 player with USB, Aux-in and 4 speakers although it took a while for us to figure out that the USB port was inside the glove box!
I have not driven the older model of Figo so I am not aware of the features it has.
Headlights of this new model have a larger reflective surface, resulting in much better illumination at night. While we did not get to use the fog light, it was nice to see the front bumper incorporating a new trapezoidal grille and the tail lights with a new design and also the alloy wheel cover.
Overall, it gave a fresh appealing look. It could give a run for its money to its competitors in the same segment. Definitely a good value for money.
Areas of improvement-
– I felt that the rear windows could also have been the power windows instead of the traditional roll-up levers.
– Being a lady driver, I would want to have a Vanity mirror on Sunvisor on driver’s side as well.
– Of course it would have been better for the USB port on the face panel itself.
Thank you Ford for giving me the opportunity to drive this car. Wish you all the best for its success.
If you want to travel places with me, I suggest you to join me on my Facebook travel page.
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One more superb review . Great passion on cars . thanks for sharing
Ek photo car mein baithe huye driver ki bhi ho jati 🙂
Vishal,
Thank you.
Manish,
That photo will come on my personal Facebook account, not here. 🙂
Lucky you!! Wish some one give me to for upcoming , what ladakh trip 😉
Nice review but its good not to have power windows from security point of view. Also keeping USB port inside gives a clean look.
Seems like you had a great time . . Nice review 🙂
Dheeraj,
Ah, I can only wish you all the best for your trip. 😛
Shivam,
Thank you.
Well, if security is the point then why all high end cars have all power windows?
On USB port – I have driven other cars also and they have it on the dashboard. Doesn’t spoil the looks. 🙂
Maliny,
Thank you very much.
Yes, I had great fun driving this car. 🙂
Nice review Nisha. Thanks for sharing.
I like the car, but as your rightly observed, the tepid pick up is a turn off for me.
Janit,
Glad that I am not the only one to observe it. 🙂
Hope Ford people do something about it.
Thanks a lot for your post.I have one question, from the Music system photo it looks like you are using “USB female to Aux male cable”, but you are saying that it is USB port( i.e.USB female) coming out of glove box.I am bit confused with the photo and the post.
If you are using USB via Aux cable , does the music system support all the USB flash drives.
Having read this I thought it was very informative. I appreciate you spending some time and effort to put this information together. I once again find myself spending a lot of time both reading and leaving comments. But so what, it was still worthwhile!