I have owned many cars in the last 20 years. Starting from Maruti 800 in 1997, Chevrolet Spark-2008, Maruti ritz VDI-2011, Honda city I-vtec 2013, Honda Mobilio I-dtec 2015, WagonR VXI 2018, and Ford freestyle 1.2 T+ 2019 Jan. Of all these cars, I have found Ford freestyle to be the best combination of economy and performance. Have driven the FS for 2 years 20000 kms. The confidence one gets while driving the car is awesome. The safety features offered are from a class above. With TCS, ESP, ARP, EBD, and six airbags, u get a feeling of being in the tank.

OEM tyres of Goodyear do a great job. The car is an absolute beast slayer on twisty mountain roads. The confidence with which it takes corners is altogether at a different level. Even the fortuners and innovas cannot dare to come anywhere near this car. You can easily carve a corner at speed of 80+ without the tyres screeching and without applying any brakes. And all this while attaining a fuel efficiency of 18+. 
 

Now coming to the service cost. Ford does as promised on their website and normal service costs do not exceed the cost advertised.

- Nirmal

I own a ford fiesta mk7 ,2012 model .. it's style variant which is one below the titanium variant and it's having ford's dual clutch powershift gearbox... What i have to say is that You all might know Ford DPS6 or powershift dual clutch was a huge problem maker especially in the U.S and Australia alot of fiesta's and focus's had problem with the dual clutch but i have had no issues with it till today.  I mean yes to be honest it's a raw dry dual clutch automatic transmission i wont be good in city traffic, u won't get

the feel of a torque converter, sometimes it feels u want to push the accelerator a bit to get going,feels like the shudder but thats characteristic of dual clutchs iam just nitpicking it i felt that only 2 or 3 times its fine for most of us i had put on 40000kms on it .it hasn't run much but considering that i trash this car in the corner a bit enthusiastic driving and that's what the fiesta is all about in fact all ford cars are great when it comes to driving dynamics. What i love most is about the dynamics. Ford always has a blend of comfort and dynamics which makes it a family yet sporty car to drive for most of the people. I am a ford loving guy my dad had a ford Mondeo in Dubai . It was epic was so much love with that car . It's the first time i really was sad even my dad too. Since then i kind off had love for ford cars. Now i have a ford fiesta and iam happy with it.

Highly under rated performer :
2 year ownership review of ford freestyle 
#fordfreestyle

Need to buy a new car Phase

 Beginning of 2018 is when we started thinking seriously to buy a car , and the intial thought was to TD tata tiago the hot budget hatch, back then
since my maximum budget was 8 lakh and was looking for something strong and sturdy for the price and have heard some good reviews from one of my buddy who owned it so decided to go for a test drive .
Test drive car was petrol, and truly speaking wasnt impressed at all

by the interior fit and  quality especially the steering wheel controls and the power window buttons
i was TDing a petrol engine and not sure if it was because of a test drive car the engine wasnt refined and it was pretty loud ,nvh levels were bad . i felt very crunched inside the cabin may be due to my height so decided to drop  tiago from the list

Next up in the list was Grand I10 , and the showroom experience was entirely different from what it was in tata, as soon as we entered the showroom  sales advisor came in and asked about our requirements and budget and he recommended grand i10 sports variant with mindblowing cash discounts ???? There were hell lot of features for the amount you pay, was a vfm proposition if you see the build quality and features
so quickly went for a test drive , felt like it was a decent car but only draw back was the steering feedback and handling , coming after driving a polo for couple of years ,the bat was set a bit high as far as handling and dynamics were concerned.
It had all the safety features and blings like airbags , ebd , infotainment system with AA
so i almoast decided to go with i10

but things changed drastically when i saw an ad  
  next day  about a new car from ford it was a brownish coloured high GC hatchback with nice looks and looked like a pretty big car , and  it was ford freestyle  with ex showroom 5.59lks
.

 so contacted the nearest ford dealer which was fortune ford and booked a test drive next day , Sales executive came with a petrol variant and i went for the TD

things that striked me during the TD were
 • Very ligh short travel clutch
 • High seating postion due the GC may be 
 • Nice responsive steering wheel

All in all me and my wife loved the car especially the feel you get when you drive it , driving dynamics was top notch , i did go for a long distance TD :D

i was only sceptical about the maintenance cost as the little birds used to say that ford maintainence was at par with the germans , but the sales executive cleared the doubts and he told that gone are those days when ford was only an ameeron wala car , and he insisted me to go through https://www.fordservicepricepromise.com/ that really cleard all my doubts :) So i enquired  for a PDI before i make the payment and they agreed and took me to the stock yard in the outer limits of the city and i got a chance to choose my car  :) and i went for a Canyon ridge Titanium petrol variant :D

Just delivered!! : 

On sept 14 2018 , was the day the beauty was delivered to us and it coincided with our marriage anniversary as well, got the key from Mr.Naresh (sales executive from Fortune ford hyderabad ) And i did give a small gift as a token of appreciation for all the soeedy service he did for us
So finally we got our ford freestyle titanium Petrol variant after 4 months of extensive research on several cars .

Pros of the car
There isnt a perfect car , there will always be pros and cons and they are.  

1.The USP of freedtyle is its driving dynamics offcourse and it is comparable  with VW/Fiat
it will surely bring a smile on your face when you do a tight cornering :)

2.New 1.2 l dragon engine , 1.2l three cylinder engine is one of the   most powerful and refined  engine in the segment 

3.Back seat passenger comfort

Back seat is pretty spacious and have good thigh support and knee room, 3 passengers of average build can easily sit and travel comfortably and no complaints whatsoever

4 Driving Comfort

Peppy and enthusiastic drives on highways due to fords dna and top notch de ving dynamics is clearly evident  , i have the car in hyderabad and have done couple of long drives clocking 950+ kms one side to my hometown  Thalassery,Kannur , and i can clearly say that its  a no nonsense car.

5.Fuel Consumption:

Average mileage figures are pretty decent for a car of such weight (kerb weight is  1031kg) best figures i have got till date is 21kmpl using tankfull to tankfull calculation for a journey of 950kms. usual city mileage is around 13 in hyderabad traffic and highways average is around 19.
 

6. Annual maintenance cost: 
There is a misconceprion about ford vehicles , that the maintenance costs are sjy high and its very difficult to maintain a ford car , yesh its true that there was a time in the past when the maintainence cost was cery high , but now that has changed a lot and its pretty cheap now cheaper than the "major" brand 
i had two major service during these 2 years and a free checkup at 2500km

1. 10000km or 1year 
Total cost 1500
 
2. 20000km or 2 year
total cost 4000

maintainence cost details can be checked at  https://www.fordservicepricepromise.com/ amnd you dint have to pay anything more than that abd thats promise from ford to its customers.
The service exoerience at Fortune ford hyderabad and Malayalam Ford kannur were top notch :)

7.Safety 
Ford has given high importance to safety features,  TCS, EBD HLA,dual airbags(6 air bags available in Top variant) are available   Anti rollover protection (ARP)  is also available and this means that the chances of the car turning "turtle" is very less. 

Cons 

1. Interior could have been better , during  2018  it was pretty upscale and new but now comparatively its feeling   outdated 

2.Headlights , the power and throw of the headlights are pretty low  and its a nightmare to drive at nights especially if its raining

3.Suspension stiffness 
Since the ground clearance is high the suspension is set to be stiff , so driving through small potholes and humps may be felt and there is a thud sound 

4.Boot space
Boot space is  less when compared to other cars in the segment thats mainly due to the increased legroom in the backseat

5.Cruise control and arm rest 
Personally one of the biggest miss was cruise control , which is necessary for highway drives , and an armrest

these are the process s and cons i felt.

Long Drives till date

 • Hyderabad to Hampi
 • Hyderabad to Bangalore
 • Hyderabad to Kannur
 • Kannur to Kochi

All in all im pretry happy nad content with the purchase of ford freestyle and if anyone looking for a car with in 9lakh budget then this is one of the eligible candidate for a test drive 

this one is indeed an "Highly under rated performer "
#fordfreestyle

- Manas Chandran