Would I recommend this car? Absolutely – especially in its Diesel avatar. Would I recommend Ford Service Stations today – Absolutely
Rahul4321 BMP recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Ford Diesel Cars Extended Warranty
I was browsing Team Bhp a few weeks ago and saw multiple seperate posts related to (a) the Ford Ecosport / Figo / Aspire diesel engine, (b) whether it is worth getting the 8 year warranty and (c) what kind of costs can someone anticipate if they are buying a used Ecosport / Figo / Aspire which has crossed 70 thousand kilometres.
I could shed some light on each of the points above as I my Aspire S (diesel engine) has recently completed 80 thousand kilometres and I have a 8 year warranty which has served me well
First things first – some of you may remember that I purchased a Jimny in December 2023 courtsey of the year end discounts which has now crossed 15 thousand kilometers. As a result of the Jimny entering my life, for the first 6 months, my usage of the Aspire had dropped rapidly. Once my initial fascination with the Jimny ended, the usage of the Aspire picked up again and has continued to grow ever since.
As things stand right now, the Aspire has covered in excess of 80 thousand kilometers. The 80k milestone was achieved while returning from Pushkar to Ahmedabad in heavy downpour which lasted for almost 2 hours.
Ownership Experience
To give you an idea about how the car is behaving at the 80k milestone, I must first give credit to the engine – it’s a monster of an engine in terms of reliability, mileage, low down torque and midrange. With all these positives and the DPF horror stories of BS6 Diesels flying around, I am tempted to keep this engine until I can simply because it is a jack of all trades – master of none.
The car has been utterly reliable since Day 1. It has never left me stranded and there has never been a single day where the engine has given up on me. I ofcourse service the car every 10 thousand kilometers / 1 year without fail but even then at 80k, there have been absolutely no niggles to report of in terms of the engine. The 1.5 TDCI has amazing low down torque (especially as compared to the petrol NA Jimny), amazing fuel efficiency (I touched 23 km/litre on my 1200 kilometre roundtrip to Pushkar with the AC on at all times), really good midrange where it just pulls through gears 3 and 4 like a locomotive and a fantastic top end which FOR ME ends at 120-125 kilometers per hour. I tend not to drive above those speeds. Even on steep inclines, the car surges forward as soon as I release the (heavy) clutch similar to my old Bolero DI. I am really impressed with the quality of Ford’s engines as well as its sheer reliability. The rest of the car, especially the build quality – that’s a different story and why the extended warranty is important.
Apart from the engine, I really find the braking to be very good. The car has ABS and EBD and with the wider 195 section tyres (on the Sports variant), it stops on a dime. It is also extremely flickable around wide sweeping bends at speeds of 100 kilometers per hour. Around 120 kilometres, the presence of the boot interferes and the rear wheels try to step outside of the intended curvature.
The gearbox is nice and light but the heavy clutch can take a toll on your foot in stop and go traffic – especially if you drive another petrol car on a regular basis. The build quality of the chassis and interior trip is also quite good but not the greatest. Over the past 8 years, I have had to use the Extended Warranty for many issues – notably (a) AC Vents blowing hot air instead of cold where they had to replace the Motor which opens / closes the vents (b) The hinges of the storage compartment above the music system where they replaced the entire storage compartment (c) Power Window switch going Kaput which they replaced. This was through Year 3 to Year 6.
Replacing Steering Gear – Rack & Pinion Gear Assembly
Year 7 was terrible in terms of a problem which just would not go away. The steering column started making “thwack-thwack” sounds on bad roads and also when climbing out of potholes. The sound came from deep into the engine bay near the right-hand side front wheel. I spoke to the service centre repeatedly but they would tighten the tie rods or the steering column and all would be okay for a few weeks before it would return again. Frustrated I asked them to fix it for good or else, I would have no choice but to escalate it (especially with the car still under warranty which I had paid for). They finally isolated the issue to “Steering Gear – Rack & Pinion Gear Assembly”. I have put a picture of it in this post. The cost was somewhere around 10k INR which was covered under the 7th year Warranty. They kept the car for almost 30 days because the part was not available and they had to back-order it from Ford who also did not have it in stock and so had to ask their vendor to manufacture it. Not sure if this is true, but this is what I was told. I shifted to the Jimny for my daily office commute as I had no intention of driving a car which was making clanging sounds on bad roads. Finally I took delivery of the car after about 35-40 days in the end of January 2025.
All was well for a couple of months and the noise started once again in the last week of March 2025 when the car was in Year 8 of its life. This time the sound originated – not from deep into the engine bay – but somewhere closer to the bottom of my steering wheel. I was quite furious and disappointed. This time – not only was the “thwack-thwack” sound originating on bad roads with potholes but also when I braked hard from speeds (exceeding) 80km/hr down to 30 km/hr. Additionally, the steering wheel was also visibly shaking / vibrating upon heavy brakingwhich was a problem I did not have before. Now the car was in its final year of warranty – the 8th year.
I told the service station to keep the car until they could permanently identify the problem and fix it. I continued to use the Jimny for errands and office commute. To their credit, they kept this car only for a week this time around and asked me to come in for test drive. When I went to the service station, the interior was in a deconstructed phase; the car did not have the horn pad / airbag module, it did not have the right hand side stalk and it was also missing the cover under the steering wheel which mean I could directly see the steering column like in a rally car.
Apparently- they had removed all these components to isolate the issue but until I took the test drive, they would not tell me what the issue was. I took a long test drive, taking it over bad roads, deliberately crashing into a few potholes and braking hard but the car was absolutely silent. I finally asked them what they found and they said it was the airbag module in the horn pad assembly which had come loose and developed “play”. They told me that they cannot repair it and would have to order it. Thank God for the 8th year warranty. I went back home and took delivery of the car in another 7-8 days. Now the car is absolutely silent. The engine purrs (as usual) and the entire chassis makes no squeaks or rattles. It is almost as good as it was out of the factory barring a few outside dings which it picked up and proudly retains as tell-tale signs of the 80 thousand kilometre journey. All in all, this Year 7 – Year 8 ordeal was the only painful recurring problem which contributed to testing my patience in this 8 year journey with Ford.
Should you buy a BS 4 Ecosport/Figo/ Aspire?
To anybody who is thinking of picking up a used Ecosport / Figo / Aspire in its diesel variant, go ahead – especially if it is BS4. You cannot go wrong with the car. The diesel is an absolutely reliable engine and the service station support is as good as Maruti’s. To anybody who owns one and is wondering whether they should get extended warranty – go for it for the peace of mind because Ford is no longer in India and you may get hit with a huge cost for a low-moving item which is not readily available and which a vendor has to manufacture on special order.
I have not needed to use the Extended Warranty on the engine in all of the 8 years which only speaks wonders about the famed TDCi engine but I have had to repeatedly use the Extended Warranty on the Chassis and the Interior trim.
Would I recommend this car? Absolutely – especially in its Diesel avatar. Would I recommend Ford Service Stations today – Absolutely. What could have been better – the chassis and the interior trim which has kept giving me niggling issues from year 4 to year 8. But then 80k kilometers is not a small milestone and the car has been through good roads, bad roads as well as no roads so some things are bound to happen. Would I recommend the Extended Warranty if there is still an option to purchase it – Absolutely. What’s next – the 120k milestone as I keep piling kilometers into the car.
Some pictures of the car – I wanted to take a picture of the car from outside at the 80k kilometer mark but it was raining cats and dogs on the Ajmer – Udaipur highway. So I only have a picture of the instrument cluster as the car touched the milestone
Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
