What to do if your car doesn't start

A driver's worst nightmare is that time when his car won't start. Or, the engine dies exactly when he is negotiating a tricky crossing. It's even more worrisome if the driver is a lady (especially in India) and the sun has already set, or if the location is a lonely highway instead of the city. This is the time when one regrets not knowing a little more about how cars work.

Good news is, diagnosing why your car won't start isn't exactly rocket science. This guide, a little bit of common sense and a cool head might just be enough to get you back home.

Step 1: Understanding the Basics
Before you begin the process of troubleshooting, it is absolutely essential that you ensure your own as well as others' safety by pushing the dead car safely to the side of the road.

There are essentially 3 systems that start your engine up:

1. The Electricals: Powered initially by the battery, the electrical system runs your starter motor which turns over the engine and allows it to fire up. It also provides the spark to the spark plugs in a petrol engine (to ignite the fuel-air mixture). In modern engines, the electricals need to supply power to the electronic control module (ECM) as well. Once the engine is running, the alternator recharges the battery and also keeps the other electrical systems running.
2. The Fuel: Usually petrol or diesel, but alternate fuels like CNG and LPG are also used by a small percentage of owners. Since the car has stopped and it is an emergency, CNG / LPG-fueled cars should switch over to petrol. Thus, our troubleshooting sequence remains the same.
3. The Engine: The fuel, air and (in petrols) a high voltage electric charge come together to generate the motive force in a mechanical manner by the engine. Things rarely go wrong here, but if they do, you should be able to identify what happened.

In the next few posts, we shall progressively try to identify what is preventing your engine from running, and explain some quick repair methods. The ultimate solution for the mechanically-challenged individual is to call the manufacturer's helpline and / or have the car towed to a workshop. But before you do that (it can take an hour or more for roadside assistance to turn up), let's try to get you home safe.

 

Step 2: Checking the Electrical System

About Push Starts:

A push start may or may not work with the problems listed below. Do note that a push start won't get you anywhere if your battery is completely flat and the fuel delivery system gets no power. As an example, check this thread out. Also, not all cars can be push started; check your owner's manual for details.

The commonest culprit at the root of preventing your engine from starting up, or that caused it to die suddenly, is the electrical system. Turn on the ignition switch, but don't crank the starter. Are all the telltale lights on the dashboard coming on & fully illuminated?

If YES (all dashboard lights are on):

Determine if the battery has enough charge to be able to start the car. A quick way to check is to turn on the headlights and blow the horn. If the lights dim and the horn sounds hoarse, you have a nearly flat battery. It's push-starting or jump start cables to the rescue!

If there are absolutely NO telltale lights on the dashboard:

• A completely drained battery (did you leave your lights on last night?). Time to bring out those jump start cables and hook up to an obliging neighbour or friend's car.  A neat video:

• A loose connection at the battery terminal (check if the terminals are tight, or if there is excessive corrosion).

A blown main fuse. Check your owner's manual to locate the main fuse. Replace the fuse (if you have a spare) and try again.

Be prepared that the fuse might blow again, in which case there is a short circuit somewhere and you need to summon professional help.

If the starter motor is turning over, but is slower than normal:

• Your battery has low charge. You may start the car with a push-start or call for assistance from those jump start cables. No point in persistently trying to crank in the hope that the engine will fire because it usually doesn't, and the battery will run down completely.

If there is no noise from the starter at all:

• Some cars won't crank unless you depress the clutch pedal fully, or shift the transmission to 'neutral' or 'park' position. Silly mistakes happen to the best of us.
• If you do not hear a clicking sound from the starter solenoid (relay) when you attempt to crank the engine, you may have a defective starter solenoid, and the starter motor isn't getting any current at all.
• The starter motor cable may have come loose (no contact). Tighten and re-try to start the car.
• Your ignition switch is burnt out (older cars) or faulty.

If you hear an audible "click", but the motor doesn't turn over:

• The starter motor solenoid (relay) is actuating, but the Bendix gear is perhaps jammed up against the ring gear. Place the car in 3rd / 4th gear and push / rock the car backwards to release the Bendix from the ring gear. You'll hear an audible click as the car moves backwards a little, in case the Bendix has actually jammed against the ring gear (usually caused by broken/worn teeth in the Bendix or ring gear). Try starting the car again. Warning: DO NOT hold the key in "start" position for too long if you hear the click and the starter motor won't turn. It'll burn out the starter armature windings.
• A loose connection on the starter motor cable - not enough current getting through for the starter to turn.
• Starter motor brushes worn out.
• Check and tighten the contacts, and tap the starter motor body with a heavy stick or rod. Watch the following video, especially from the 1:28 point onward.

 

If the starter motor churns over normally, but the engine will not fire:

• A push-start won't help in this situation.
• Your central locking / security system may be intervening by cutting out power to the ECM. Reset the central locking system and try again.
• Some cars have a fuel cut-off inertia switch. If someone had rammed your parked car, it could have triggered the inertia switch to cut off the fuel supply. Check your owner's manual for details on resetting the inertia switch.
• For petrol engines : No spark at the plugs. The HT coil may have failed. For older distributor-type engines, there could be moisture in the distributor cap, or a fouled set of contact breaker points. For newer engines, OBD may be needed (i.e. hooking up a laptop to the car) to detect what is causing this. The spark plugs usually require special tools to remove and check, which may not be possible for the average motorist. Call for professional help.
• For diesel engines : Air in the fuel line. More about fuel systems later.
• For both, petrol and diesel engines : The engine isn't getting enough fuel.

The engine starts, but refuses to rev up or dies out after a few seconds:

• Check if there is fuel in the tank? Is there coolant in the radiator and is the engine temperature normal? Fuel flowing from tank to pipe into the engine?
• Electricals: Open up the fuse box. Take out the relevant relays / fuses for fuel injection and other vitals. Ensure that they aren't blown, clean contacts and reinstall.
• The fuel feed is erratic (such as with a choked fuel filter; more info in the next posts).

WARNING: Do not continue to run down the battery by repeatedly cranking the starter motor, if the engine turns over well but will not start. You don't want a dead battery over and above other issues.

tep 3. Part A: The PETROL Fuel System

Once you've made sure there are no gremlins in your electrical system, it's time to check whether the engine is receiving fuel.

• An empty tank does not run a car. However, the only way we think we can find out whether there is fuel in the tank is to depend on the fuel gauge. What if the fuel gauge has malfunctioned and is stuck at half-full? A quick solution is to open the filler cap and place your ear close to it. Ask someone to shake the car from side to side. The resultant sloshing sound inside gives a fairly good idea of whether there is sufficient fuel there. Applies to both, diesels and petrols. If you've been caught unawares with an empty tank, well, it's time to deploy / borrow a jerrycan.
• Once you have filled up, turn on the ignition and wait for a minute or two to allow the electric fuel pump to prime the fuel injection system / carburettor, before trying to crank the engine.
• If you do have fuel in the tank already, disconnect the fuel feed pipe in the engine and hold its tip inside the mouth of the jerrycan. Then, ask someone to turn on the ignition. This will cause the electric fuel pump to run and you should be able to see a steady stream of petrol filling the can up (at least 1 liter per minute).
• If you have no fuel coming out, the fuel pump inside the tank isn't working. It could be a blown fuse or relay (simple to replace a fuse, or tap the relay a few times and see if it comes back to life). On the other hand, if the fuel pump has failed, you need to tow the car to a service station and get a replacement.
• If fuel flow is erratic (intermittent or very slow flow), one of the fuel filters (either the coarse filter inside the tank or the fine filter inside the engine bay) is choked. Try shaking the rear end of the car from side to side to dislodge some of the muck from the in-tank filter, then take out the engine-side filter and tap out the dirt in it (fill with petrol, shake well, then tap gently on a hard surface with the "IN" side facing down).
• Also check the fuse / relay for the FI pump (for modern fuel-injected engines).
• For a carburetted engine, make sure that the engine isn't flooded with petrol, and that the choke isn't applied.

Step 3. Part B: The DIESEL Fuel System

It's more trouble to end up with an empty tank in a diesel car compared to a petrol car, because a diesel fuel system absolutely abhors air in the lines. Running on empty automatically means air has been sucked into the fuel lines, and one needs to bleed off air and prime the system.

Each type and model of diesel engine will be slightly different in how the bleeding is done. Almost all diesels (DI, IDI, CRDi) have a manual bleeding mechanism of some sort at the fuel filter. It's usually a lever (like some Jeeps), bulb (like the Safari) or a push-button (like the Scorpio) that is pumped repeatedly to push out air from the system.

If you are sure about there being enough fuel in the tank, you need to check whether a fuse for the in-tank (low pressure) pump has blown, whether the low pressure pump has gone kaput or if the filter inside the tank is clogged. The procedure is similar to what has been described for petrol engines in the post above.

Diesels also have this nasty habit of refusing to run when there's any water in the fuel. Unfortunately, petrol pumps have a nasty habit of selling you water-laden diesel in the monsoons (not completely their fault, but we need to blame someone, don't we?). Once that happens, the sedimenter bowl below the diesel filter fills up with water, a warning light shows up on the dashboard and the engine refuses to start / runs erratically / cuts out suddenly.

Here's how to drain water from the fuel filter of an Innova. The basics remain the same, but each car has its own required technique.

In rare instances, even with a tankful of diesel, the fuel system will draw in air and cut off the engine as a result. This can happen because of a leaking (damaged) fuel line, or (for avid off-roaders) if your car has tilted so sharply that the suction end of the electric fuel pump is not completely immersed in the diesel inside your tank. After the root cause is addressed (sealing a fuel line leak or getting the car back straight and leveled), the method of bleeding and priming the system remains the same as described above.

The adventurers among us have, on many occasions, found their diesel engines refusing to start at high altitudes in cold climates. Read these threads:
In most cases, if you've been caught unawares and cannot start your car at 14,000 ft and (-)5 degrees C, it's best to wait it out until the sun comes up and the weather is warmer.

Step 4: Knowing when to say "I Give Up!"

Apart from the electricals and fuel feed system, there are a thousand other things that could go wrong and prevent your engine from firing up. If the culprit is the engine itself, there isn't much that one can do on the roadside, and towing the car to a garage is the only way out. From a blown head gasket to a broken crankshaft, from fouled injectors to ECM failures, from seized pistons to snapped timing belts, anything can make an engine dead and leave you stranded. Of course, it's another matter that the engines of today are far more reliable and robust than those manufactured even 20 years ago, but catastrophic failures are still not unheard of. Some of the reasons may be poor compliance with maintenance schedules and / or use of sub-standard spare parts. Here's a word of warning:

If you hear strange / unusual noises coming from your engine when trying to restart it, or if your engine stopped running after making weird noises, do NOT attempt to restart. The same applies if you find smoke pouring out of the engine bay or tailpipe, or if the engine overheated and stopped.

Some other notable vehicle-specific threads about failure to start:

• Tata Indica.
• Hyundai Verna.
• Honda Civic.
• Skoda Octavia.
• Tata Manza.
• Ford Fiesta.

Jump Start Cables:

Having a pair of jump start cables around might help you, a neighbour or a friend. The cost is marginal and it's a good idea to park a set in your car or garage (Image Source : Ebay.com). A basic tool kit & spare fuses are other essentials, while a jerrycan and tow straps can come handy.




This Article have been sourced from various Team-BHP threads. Thanks to BHPians for shooting & sharing them.

Why you should avoid using "Premium" Diesel

 

It’s natural for most car lovers to get tempted in choosing premium diesel. After all, we love our car, so why not feed it with a diet of premium fuel like Xtra mile, Turbojet or Hi-speed? It’s human tendency to be swayed by deceptive marketing claims and the belief that a higher price usually means a superior product. Oil companies keep harping on their claims of better fuel efficiency & an increase in power from their premium range of fuels.
Do these fuels deliver on their promise? In one word, NO. Premium diesel is basically regular diesel with some cleaning additives thrown in. They do nothing to enhance the power or fuel economy of your car. Fact is, when the oil companies were pulled up by the MRTPC (Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission), they were unable to prove that premium fuels make good on any of their claims. Oil companies don’t even share the exact chemicals that are used to formulate premium diesel. It is noteworthy to mention that all of them source detergent-based additives manufactured by Afton Chemical (part of the NewMarket Corp).
Car manufacturers such as Maruti, Hyundai, Tata, Toyota, Ford, Skoda, Mercedes, BMW etc. strongly discourage the use of premium diesel in their cars. Makers of the national engines of India (Fiat 1.3L MJD & Nissan 1.5L DCi) do NOT recommend using premium diesel either.
Some car owners have reported excessive exhaust smoke after using premium diesel. A few others have complained of damage to components in the fuel delivery system, including the fuel injection pump and fuel injectors. Modern common-rail diesel engines operate within fine tolerances. Your motor was engineered to consume regular diesel only. In the worst case scenario, you might end up with damaged mechanicals due to premium diesel. In the best case, you won’t gain anything. With premium diesel, you have a lot to lose, and nothing to gain.
What should I do then? 
This is one of those situations where cheaper is actually better!
It’s very simple: Pure, regular diesel is what goes into your car. Purity of fuel is of utmost importance here. It’s generally recommended to fill up at company-owned & company-operated pumps. Once you find a reliable petrol pump selling unadulterated diesel, stick to it.
Premium Petrol?
The same logic applies to most petrol cars as well. Pure, regular petrol is the best choice. However, some high performance high-compression engines may require higher octane petrol. Therefore, if you have a BMW M5 or a 1 liter Superbike in your garage, they might run better on 97-octane petrol. Choose according to the guidelines in your owner’s manual.
Source:Team-BHP

How Mahindra developed XUV500. The true story

 

Bruce Lee, Russell Crowe in The Gladiator, Spiderman, a waterfall, combat helicopters and the cheetah are unlikely to ever be on the same storyboard, not even in a comic book.

Yet, they were all contenders for becoming the inspiration behind the Mahindra XUV 500.

A committee that comprised Mahindra & Mahindra President (automotive and farm sector) Pawan Goenka, Chief Executive (automotive division) Rajesh Jejurikar, chief executive (technology, product development and sourcing) Rajan Wadhera, chief executive (international operations) Pravin Shah and senior vice-president (marketing) Vivek Nayar was formed to select one of these that best symbolised power that you can feel.

 

Inset: Ramkripa Ananthan.

The men, sometime in early 2007, finally settled for the cheetah.The decision was conveyed to the style team led by Ramkripa Ananthan.Ananthan is one of the few women automobile stylists around. She has studied industrial design at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and has worked for Mahindra & Mahindra for 14 years - she was a part of the team that did the interiors of the Scorpio.

 Her job was to style the new sports utility vehicle or SUV around a  cheetah - in the grille, fenders, lights et cetera. Her first sketches were ready by mid-2007.Over the next four years, these went through several reiterations; the final result was the XUV 500 which Goenka calls the first all-Indian global SUV. "Developing a new product is not for the fainthearted," says he.

 The idea of a new SUV was born sometime in 2006, when Mahindra & Mahindra decided to go global.The Scorpio was doing well in India but was hardly the product for evolved markets abroad. It did sell overseas, not as an SUV but as a pickup.However, nobody knew where to begin.Ananthan remembers the Paris Auto Show of that year - she went to the stalls of other car makers like Isuzu and Kia to meet customers and get a sense of what they wanted in an SUV.


Then, Mahindra & Mahindra did a "needs and wants" survey of 1,500 customers the world over: Italy, Spain, South Africa, Australia and, of course, India. The learning was that customers wanted aggressive style and power. It was decided to capture this in the cheetah.A 100-day study to flesh out the product suggested that it should have a monocoque structure (instead of mounting the body on the chassis, here the two are integrated) for better handling, power of 140-150 horsepower and high fuel efficiency.

The project was then handed over to a team to make a business case: the costs, the possible volumes and revenue, and the return on investment. The report took three to four months to prepare, and was approved by the company's capex committee. Goenka refuses to divulge the return on investment projected by this team, but says it covers the cost of money - debt at 12-13 per cent and equity at a higher cost.

Ananthan and her team designed the new SUV all by themselves, the interiors as well as exteriors. They moved from sketches on paper to computers and finally to full-scale clay models. These clay models were shown to a group of teenagers, perhaps because they would become potential customers by the time the SUV was ready, and a group of "prosumers" - people like fashion designers and writers who can visualise trends that will emerge four or five years later - for feedback. "We have to live in the future," says Wadhera.

Right through, full secrecy was maintained. Even top Mahindra officers could not enter the design lab with camera cellphones - they had to deposit them outside. Prototypes were taken out on the road under camouflage and there were no badges on the grille or back. Some enthusiasts took pictures of these hooded machines and sent them to Business Standard Motoring.

With some informed guesswork, the Business Standard Motoring team was able to tell it was the new Mahindra SUV. In April this year, Nripjit Singh "Noni" Chawla, the former chief executive of Max Healthcare and now a reader, photographer and traveller, was invited by Mahindra & Mahindra to see the car. Chawla is an old enthusiast of Mahindra vehicles, hence the invitation.

He and some others were taken to a secret location where the SUV was kept in an enclosure."They allowed us to start the car but we couldn't drive it. They wanted my feedback," says Chawla.The same month, Mahindra & Mahindra decided to show the SUV to its dealers at the Westin in Pune (it is being manufactured at Chakan close by).

The SUV was taken in a container to the hotel; though there were over 150 guests, not a single photo or sketch leaked to the world outside.The next month, it was driven in containers to Goa for the sales and marketing teams of the company to see it. Again, nothing came out.

Goenka claims this is the first four-wheeler to be styled totally within India.In the Mahindra & Mahindra stables, the XUV 500 certainly is.The Armada, out of which grew the Bolero, was done in Japan, the Scorpio in the United Kingdom and the Xylo in Italy. For the Xylo, Mahindra & Mahindra vice-chairman & managing director Anand Mahindra had travelled with the design team to Italy; in the new SUV too, he closely monitored the style.

It was important, says Ananthan, to ensure that the new SUV belongs to the Mahindra family.It would thus have to include some design elements of the Scorpio. The real challenge was the rear seat: the Scorpio and the Xylo have adequate space in the third row to seat three people of good height; this gave the SUVs a box-like feel from behind. Contemporary design has moved to a sloping curve towards the rear. After much debate, it was decided to sacrifice the third-row's height advantage to get that curve.

By now, Mahindra & Mahindra had also decided that the new SUV would not be a replacement for the Scorpio but a whole new premium product. Jejurikar says this helped contain costs because it was originally meant to be in the same price band as the Scorpio (below Rs 10 lakh). The target for the price was set at 15 per cent to 20 per cent below SUVs made by multinational car-makers. The final price was Rs 10.8 lakh for the base model.

Srinivas Krishnan, the editor of Business Standard Motoring, says this is below the expected price tag of Rs 14 lakh (Rs 1.4 million).Is it strategic pricing? Jejurikar say it isn't; the company is making money at this price.

Also, a higher price would have left a segment open between the Scorpio and it, which rivals like the new Tata Safari could have moved into."The price of Rs 11 lakh (Rs 1.1 million) to Rs 12 lakh (Rs 1.2 million) is the tipping point where a buyer of a C-segment car like the Honda City may upgrade to an SUV; a higher price becomes forbidding," Jejurikar adds.

For the premium positioning, Wadhera and his team offered to pack in features that come in an SUV of Rs 22 lakh (Rs 2.2 million) to Rs 24 lakh (Rs 2.4 million). Wadhera lists 48 new features in the SUV that will "win the customer's wow".His team has applied for 31 patents on the SUV.

Almost 40 per cent of the SUV's cost is the electrical and electronic systems.Goenka says the harshness of the noise and vibration gave him several anxious moments, as did the fit and finish of the interiors."Till about a month before the launch, we weren't sure if we were there," says he.

The mHawk engine of the Scorpio was tweaked to improve the output from 120 horsepower to 140 horsepower and the fuel efficiency to 15.1 km to a litre. All told, Mahindra & Mahindra has spent Rs 850 crore (Rs 8.5 billion) on the project, which includes Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) on the upgrade of the engine and the transmission.

Is the product perfect? Krishnan, who test-drove the XUV 500, says the gearbox is notchy and not very precise.During the test drive, the steering began to vibrate when the speedometer crossed 110 km per hour.

Once the prototype was ready, it was put through three juries more than once: one was drawn from the development team, another from the other verticals of the company and the third from outside the company.Chawla, it is safe to assume, belonged to the third jury.

At the same time, 250 prototypes were driven 2.35 million km over two years in New Zealand, Austria, South Korea, Dubai (to check the effectiveness of the air-conditioner in extremely hot conditions), Sweden (for extremely cold conditions), China (it could be a market in the future), South Africa, the US and, of course, India.

In India, it was driven at Khardung La, the highest road in the world, and was tested for spin, turn and brakes on the tracks of the Mahindra Research Valley near Chennai. For almost two years, 125 people tasked to validate the prototypes lived in hotels, away from their families, and drove their machines day and night.

Instead of giving it a name like Bolero, Scorpio or Xylo, Goenka and his team decided to go with the alpha-numeric XUV 500. (Internally, they call it the Five O-O because O at the end of the name has proved lucky for the company in the past; double O could be doubly lucky, says Jejurikar).

It also gives the company the flexibility to build a family of SUVs around the name: a smaller variant can be called the XUV 400 and a larger variant the XUV 600. Also, the Mahindra name that was relegated to the background when the Scorpio was launched because it was a fuddy-duddy farm-sector brand at that time, has been given a pride of place this time round - the SUV is called the Mahindra XUV 500.

In the pre-launch social media campaign, Mahindra & Mahindra tried to create excitement about the product but didn't talk about its features and create expectations. Clearly, the Nano experience was playing on everybody's mind, where the focus had shifted to the features from the overall car experience. The television campaign that accompanied the launch had to be discontinued because of the huge bookings, says Jejurikar.

At the moment, Mahindra & Mahindra dealers are not taking fresh orders.The production lines in Chakan are fully booked till mid-January. Though almost 300 Mahindra & Mahindra employees have opted for the XUV 500 under the company car scheme, it has been decided to limit their quota to 25 a month.

  

Recently, 150-odd people from the Mahindra Research Valley were called to a Chennai hotel to celebrate the success of the XUV 500. Is some cash incentive likely to follow? "It's not yet decided," says Jejurikar, "though there was some small amount given out when the Xylo was launched." Till it's decided, the technicians will have to keep their fingers crossed.

Design Inspiration of the XUV500

The new norm in form

A beautiful automobile is one that evokes speed when standing still and one that triggers emotions when seen in action. Admit it. The XUV500 has the ability to turn heads. With its powerful build and feline grace, the cheetah-inspired XUV500 emerged from a careful study of the African wildcat of the same name.
The cheetah is the fastest animal on land, but that is not all. It is also an exceptional study in agility and balance. A study that we took to heart. And anyone who appreciates good design will see that we stuck to the initial inspiration, as the project progressed from the drawing board till it became a glass-n-metal wonder.

Exterior

A good design is nothing without attention to detail. While the aggression of the cheetah continues on the front end, it is the details that leave a lasting impression.

Observe the XUV500 up close and you will notice the slash-cut fog lamps, the paw-inspired door handles and the unique tattoos on the tail lamps - all of which speak volumes of individuality. The four-pack tail lamp units achieve a bejeweled look at the rear of the XUV500.

Bold curves and straight lines dominate the waistline, which tends to define the SUV stance. The aggressive front grille blends state-of-the-art aerodynamics with a large dose of inimitable character.

 

 

Interior

Cool and soothing ambient lighting, comfortable sofa seating, the aroma of rich leather and quality textures make up modern day lounges. Ditto with the XUV500 interiors. The centre console apes a cascading waterfall, and the instrument binnacle offers the driver all the information ever needed. A great deal of work went into making an acoustically correct cabin. After all what is a neat lounge without some quality music!

Of course, the XUV500 evolved further once the design was frozen. Now began the test of time – the new machine had to look contemporary as well as future-proof, when it finally launched.

The design team can breathe easy – the world has fallen in love with the well-formed, crisp and bold design that speaks the language of clarity.

 

Ford EcoSport : Road Test

Is the Ford EcoSport with its high and wide go-anywhere stance with the exterior package being clothed in SUV-style sheet metal and yet drives like a front wheel drive hatchback? We take it for a nice spin around Goa to give you a more in-depth analysis

 

 

 

Nothing better suggests the very concept and build of the newest Ford in India than the spanking EcoSport which is ready for a mid-June launch, more than a year and a half after we first saw a full size mock-up at the last Auto Expo. It hasn't always been to Ford's great strength in using its SUV-experience in the US to try and develop an SUV-ish vehicle for emerging markets and even though it did try once to come close with the Fusion, the smallish alter-hatch flattered only to be deceived on the pricing front. Mind you the Fusion was delightful but priced out of reach and this impacted and/or signified most moves Ford has made in India so far. But then this is not about Fusion or the past but about a new move forward and thus EcoSport.

First off the very basic aspect of the visual is the strong retention to the original concept and here Ford certainly has broken new ground for a car that has much riding on it. Never before did Ford ever launch an all-new car in India (well we could be forgiven for saying this but then this car is also made in Brazil) but this time round the timing and the basic proposition are spot-on, even though we do not as yet know the pricing. Additionally, the onus on the technology applied plus the all-new thought on downsized engines should pay off big (on operational costs) as well without skimping on the pleasure-to-drive aspect which is so fundamental whether it be an entry-level hatch or a big bore sports car!  

 

It is a proven fact the world over that everyone and his or her grandmother aspires to drive and own an SUV. If that weren't so why would Chidambaram and his cabinet buddies impose a blatantly arrogant tax on cars which are ideal to traverse broken down roads which the very same bunch have apparently not mended? But this is not the time to digress and yes there did always exist a sweet spot for small compact automobiles which could have that high and wide go-anywhere stance with the exterior package being clothed in SUV-style sheet metal and yet drive like a front wheel drive hatchback.

If anything Premier Automobiles found this spot but the Rio hasn't exactly found the sweet bit as yet! And therein lies the gap between it on one hand and the Renault Duster on the other and one has to see how Ford positions the EcoSport in this band or beyond it (yes they can do it as they have demonstrated so ably to their chagrin in the past!). Price positioning on value will be key because that may make or break this model which has been hyped for so long.

 

 

While Ford can rest easy till it makes the big move on pricing, let us concentrate on the hardware at hand and what it feels like in its real world deliverance. Sub-4 metre is the small car holy grail, especially given the tax-inducement in India and Ford's designers have worked to this paradigm measurement with great success and also very well disguised excess. It is all about having the right proportions without being overly muscular in some places and looking awry and ungainly in others but credit the Ford designers for doing a fabulous job on the visual aspect.

Employing Ford's kinetic design philosophy, if ever a car screams go-anywhere so stylishly then it has to be the EcoSport. From its large Aston-clone grille dominating the front end  to the excessively raked windscreen and sculpted sides plus that obviously wedgey glazed area culminating in a wrapped up rear windscreen, this is surely a finely turned out offering, stylish without being an overt dandy and looking substantial the way an SUV is perceived to be.

 

Add the short overhangs and plus the all-black wrapped around the car for the rest of the painted sheet metal to be based upon, the entire package looks appealingly strong. The wheel arches are finely pencilled as are the two character lines on the sides, with the headlamps and the tail lights being the front to end links for the crease at the waist line. To be true to the concept in so many ways when translated into series production is a commendable thing and Ford has done just that with the EcoSport.

Even with its high squat stance riding on ample 205/60 R16 tyres, the EcoSport means business but without sacrificing its aerodynamic efficiency. If anything the EcoSport shows the value of time spent doing ample CFD work and in the wind tunnel tweaking the exterior and also the underfloor area has resulted in it having one of the most finely tuned exteriors able to cut its way through the wind. An aerodynamic co-efficient of drag of just 0.371 marks the EcoSport as a most slippery performer, even though it might not appear overtly to be so!

 

Riding on a 2520mm wheelbase, the EcoSport is just a millimetre shy of nudging the 4-metre mark and that is of course sans its tailgate mounted spare wheel. And this spare mounted for all the world to see further adds to the go-anywhere perception of the vehicle. Mind you the tailgate which is hinged sideways has obviously been designed with countries which drive on the right hand side in mind, as it swivels open from right to left.

This obvious glitch aside as also the wiper and indicator stalk switches on the steering column for the right hand drive roads, everything else about the EcoSport falls naturally to hand. Open the doors to step in or out and the ease with which you do the deed highlights natural form to make things easy for kids, women and the old. It is, however, when you get into the cabin that you realise how compact this 'SUV' really is.

 

There is enough space for driver and front seat passenger with adjustability for the driver. The view forward from behind the wheel is expansive barring for that modern day bugbear - the thick chunky A-pillars which do create blind spots at certain angles. Being behind the wheel though is a very pleasing and comfortable aspect for the pilot.

A well-designed steering wheel with audio controls and brushed aluminium inserts sets the tone while the pronounced dashboard lifted straight from the Fiesta but with slight detail changes looks pretty much par for the course. The angled air con vents on the central panel as well as on the extremes of the dashboard have been made to be both functional and add to the visual delight, much the same as the rotary switch console for the climate control system.

Analogue instruments thankfully find favour in the EcoSport but there is a driver information display placed venally atop the dashboard which spews out real-time data should you need to keep tab on driving distances, mileage, etc. The quality of the materials employed is not flashy but functional and the fit and finish is impressive, from the door pads to the roof lining, from the form of the seats to the way the tactile bits feel reassuringly good.

There is an element of feel good about the front end of the cabin which has been carried over at the rear as well but only if you want to seat two in reasonable comfort! Mind you the wide stance one makes of the EcoSport from the outside disappears within thanks to average shoulder space which rules out comfortable seating for three.
 

If you want to see a paragon of space efficiency then look no further than the Honda Amaze but the EcoSport can only have a small child wedged between two adults and that too with none of them being comfortable in the least bit! I think that some of that design flourish on the exterior has been carved at the expense of the useable width in the car as if to reflect on the compact SUV theme!

However, there is ample leg and head room at the rear for two adults but then again the lack of a central armrest plus the glaring lack of grab rails on the ceiling do make us ask as to is this it or is it still WIP - work in progress? I asked one of the Ford boffins at the media drive about this and he also had a valid point - what to do if shoulder and head air bags were to be specified? I think the whole point of his argument was lost because those specifying the air bags would be the rarest of rare - in India that is, but those cursing Ford for not keeping grab rails would send across loud and clear signals, maybe using colourful colloquial language to ram home their point!
 

 

In favour though is the split rear seat which can help increase the meagre luggage space behind the rear seat. Ford suggests the EcoSport can gobble up 346-litres of luggage capacity which on the face of it is good but really lacking in the face of competition. Nevertheless, the compromise to be made in design and style elements plus also of course the SUV character style means that I for one could live with this sort of occupant and luggage space and I am sure that there are many like me who could do with a small personal mobility machine with exciting looks.

The good thing though is that it is not just about the visual drool appeal that has us excited but for sure what is under the hood and how that works to move the mass is the one key area where Ford has made the biggest advance to seduce the mind! And that too most emphatically ever in its second Indian foray beginning since the early 1990s.
 

So many speak about small engines being loaded with top-drawer physics to do the impossible but here we have a small sub-one-litre triple with turbocharging and direct injection plus a few smart yet logical thoughts punching above its weight. Mind you others have also made three-pot motors but here the thought is to make virtue out of a packaging solution even when you have the odds stacked up against you. I will not repeat what I have said about the new technological marvel that is the 999cc EcoBoost motor suffice to say that it works brilliantly in doing more with less!

Ford will be offering the EcoSport with three engine options which include the 999cc EcoBoost plus the 1.5-litre petrol and diesel engines which do duty in the Fiesta. All three engines come mated to the standard 5-speed manual gearbox also employed in the Fiesta though the 1.5-litre petrol can also be specified with the six-speed Ford PowerShift automatic transmission. We haven't had an opportunity to drive the larger engined EcoSports but then the paradigm shifter EcoBoost makes such talk redundant. It might not have four-wheel drive but even with front wheel drive Ford has equipped the EcoSport with enough tech to ensure that it apes an SUV in certain situations - Hill Launch Assist is one where it helps the driver make a start on an incline in utmost safety.
 

 

Before I move on to the actual driving assessment, a mention must be made about the structure and the suspension. The overall monocoque is a pretty robust yet well thought out piece of engineering which makes do with normal suspension aggregates (MacPherson struts up front and torsion beam set-up at the rear) to deliver a good balance of ride and handling. Special boron steel along with other grades of ultra-high-strength steel have been used to make the super-structure not just light but strong with high levels of impact resistance to dissipate crash forces away from occupants.

First things first and that is all about the way the three-pot motor has been mounted in the vehicle along with the clever out of sync thought to cancel the primary vibes which afflict most such triples. Having to make do without a balancer shaft necessitated many new innovative thoughts and all of them were in the direction of reducing NVH and that is one of the strong aspects of the drive experience - refined, relaxed and comfortable. How many can attribute this to the performance aspect I don't want to wade into suffice to state that to get to doing more from less has begun with exceedingly low levels of NVH from the design stage itself and this is a big strength of the EcoSport.

 

The engine fires up whirringly with none of that primary rocking and yet gets into a steady idle straightaway. Once on the move as you go up through the 'box, what strikes you is a seamless stream of torque which is thick yet not obtrusive, and all the while hinting that there is more to come should you need it. Of course there is a way to modulate your right foot on the loud pedal because this is where it can reward you big, both on performance and also on fuel efficiency and this lightness of foot has to be the way to getting more from less!

I like the surge of the engine when needing to overtake on tight Goan roads or on the highway where dropping a cog from fifth produced a good burst to move past long artics and then hold steady at around 2200 to 2400 rpm. This is the modern way of the petrol engined world, one which engineers have tried to make it ape a diesel without sacrificing the feel and refinement plus zest of a spark ignition offering.

I think that it rewards in very many ways and should one perfect the light-of-foot approach to driving then you will have the pleasure sans the pain. Speaking of which I was happy with the way the simple turbo spooled up quickly with barely any lag except of course if in time honoured Indian driving habits of lugging it from way too low engine speeds in too high a cog then the inevitable does result. So while Ford's engineers have revisited the basic tenets of the internal combustion engine, many a driver would do well to re-approach the way he or she drives to get the best out of this brilliant motor. Of course we haven't been able to put it through the test regime but overall the feel and the delivery mark it out as ultra capable. Just for the record, the ARAI test has pegged the EcoBoost-powered EcoSport at 18.9 kmpl.

The manual 5-speed gearbox is delightful in not just its cog swapping action but also in the feel and the short throws which provide a sporty edge to the pleasure. If that is not all, the surety of precise steering from the EPAS electrically assisted steering gear is another delightful detail - unobtrusive but highly effective. This also has the Pull-Drift Compensation system incorporated within to sense out road surfaces and deliver the correct steering inputs for better directional stability. The Active Nibble Control built into the steering system further cancels out vibrations and other details from spoiling the steering feel without cancelling the feedback to the driver. The EcoSport delights with its 10.65 metre turning circle making it a highly manoeuvrable animal in the urban environment.

Ride and handling is an area where the EcoSport has got a good balance going. Many a time I have heard many so-called proponents suggesting Ford makes the best driver-oriented cars only for them to come croppers when it comes to all-round family usage. The EcoSport is one car where the car delights with good manners in the handing department yet tops it without compromising on the ride element. For all round family usage this is critical and maybe Ford has heard this for long and acted on it to a degree. I made it a point to be driven while seated at the rear on the rutted Goa roads and I was impressed enough with the way the EcoSport rode the bumps and the craters yet remained composed without unsettling me in the back. Made me aware of the lack of grab rails though!

 

Another very important feel good detail on the car is the climate control system though it can take time to cool the rear. We had the top line Titanium trim version where it came with 16-inch alloys wrapped in MRF rubber, rear parking sensors, keyless entry, leather seats (would have much preferred good quality fabric stuff here for India) and steering wheel, push button start, a slew of air-bags and of course SYNC, the new gen connectivity platform that it has engineered with Microsoft. This is the first expression of this system in a Ford car in India and uses voice commands from the driver for activating music, making calls, etc. It is also hooked up to 108 helpline should it detect the air bags have been deployed or the fuel pump has been shut off, both cases indicating a mishap or such making quick rescue aid attempts possible.

I could go on and on about this delightful little gem but knowing Ford and the way it has worked in India so far, I would like to see it play off its price positioning for this vehicle and also to see how well it delivers in the real world in the long term. These are key indicators of which one would be answered by mid-June while the latter and more telling aspect would only be revealed some months down the line. Whatever be it though, the die has been cast. Small triples can never stay as they have been, it is the EcoBoost manner or nothing is the way forward.