[Resolved]  Ford Ikon 1.6 Nxt — Inferior quality service

I went for the Ford IKON 1.6 Nxt. on Dec 31, 2003. With every passing day my fancy for the car wore off due to high maintenance and fragile. With in years I had to replace the parts one by one. Now after four and half years of having the car I have to spend more than Rs 50k. The car has become an expensive one that I want to get rid off.

A couple of months later, I have to replace the front and rear suspension, power windows switch, battery and a lot more of parts. A car that has run barely 60 KMs needs all new suspension I can’t believe this. The power windows switch is completely malfunctioned after 3 years of careful use and not to say about the side mirrors. This was probably a deliberate feature of Ford design. When contacted their dealer I was told that this sort of maintenance was normal for a car. Not all cars but for Ford cars may be. Another appalling feature of Ford is that they refuse to escalate the complaints with their superiors. I have serious doubts whether their senior management knows that their vehicles have serious problems.

Looking at the pattern of faults and malfunction, as a quality management analyst I can deduce that low quality material was used and there is poor or no quality assurance in their manufacturing process. These cars cannot withstand the rigors of Indian roads. They are made of cheap substandard material and have a high failure rate. I advise every body not buy these Ford cars unless you have enough time, money to spare.

I have already written a review for Ford Ikon here. How ever this also a review for their dealers Harpreet Ford. The misery of owning a ford is compounded by Harpreet Ford. In the last three years I have witnessed progressive deterioration of service quality to downright cheating now. It would take a while for new Harpreet Ford owners to notice the crap between the hype and show.

The last few services have not been carried out to completion. Even worse some body parts have been left loose and my AC less effective (Throw is low from one of the Vents) & the temperature gauge not showing correct reading. Apart from all this the fog lamps of this car stopped working after the service and the interior was in a shabby condition. No recent service in the last year has been complete without at least 2 trips to their service center. I have a strong suspicion based on facts and some sound reasoning that you will be asked to replace parts even before they become necessary.

The worst part is yet to come. My car was last serviced at Harpreet Ford Gurgaon centre on Jul 19, 2008 and paid Rs 9K. On Aug 28, 2008 after driving around 15 KMs, coolant was totally drained out within 40 days, I had to fill water in the coolant tank to reach my destination of another 25-30 KMs. After reaching destination, I called up ford road assistance to repair the coolant leakages. As advised, the car was towed to Harpreet Ford Moti Nagar and received a call from the service centre/president’s office at Chennai that the car requires a major repair as the head assembly need to be dismantled for diagnosis and the total amount shelled out was over Rs 42K. Also I was told that the repair work would not be covered under warranty as the vehicle was driven with out coolant & in overheated condition which could have led to consequential damages.

The vehicle was delivered to me on Sept 05, 2008 in a state of despair with the above defects mounted. Further, I was told I need not to bother at least another 40, 000/-KMs. A detailed complaints were made to the MD of Harpreet Ford, Mr Michael, president ford india ltd and various other departments including customer care but to no avail. When pointed out to the dealership the official was kind to point to me that they did a big favour to me by servicing my car and that was a big deal and started throwing allegation on me. Complaints to the service head Mr Bhatnagar and president’s office has been of no avail in the past and it is the same now. There is not even the courtesy of an apology from the top management. The reply received from the dealership was that the car before delivery was thoroughly inspected and also test driven by me for the entire job satisfaction which was a blatant lie.

On Oct 29, 2008 I called Ford road side assistance due to car break-down it was seen the coolant was in a totally drained condition and top up was done by the assistant of Ford road side assistance. The vehicle was not driven even 2000 KMS AGAIN THE COOLANT GOT DRIED UP. It is evident that the dealership is just minting money in the name service.


Buy a Ford car at your own risk.