Ford figo 1.4 diesel -a Trip to Srisailam. Review on Ford Figo

Okay, look into comments sections for my previous post for 1000 Km review, the site doen't provide to write mutiple reviews so can't help it.

Continuing from there, I thought I need to see this vehicle's real power and decided to go for a second long drive. The first long drive was to Nizambad from Hyderabad to attend a marriage and as the road was really very smooth, and any vehicle will have smooth ride and you would never get to know how comfortable is the new ford figo.

So, this week I thought lets go for some adventures tour as well as to visit the Lord shiva's temple in Srisailam. The Srisailam is really very good for weekend getaways from Hyderabad as it is around 230 KM from Hyd and also you can enjoy the scenic views through out the tour being a hill station.

Okay, as I decided very late on Saturday night to go for a long drive, we couldn't plan much for the tour. We started early morning at 5.30 am, my wife was very excited but I was really nervous because this a new vehicle and Srisailam has ghat roads and has lot of steep turns and also I never drove on ghat roads and I was always thinking in my mind that okay I have keep on left corner for steep turns and fully do a U turn and then slowly pull the vehicle uphill somehow.

So, anyways keeping that nervousness in mind, I started to leave Hyderabad.

The Srisailam road from Hyd has lot of patches and speed breaks alteast for around 80 km while leaving from hyd, and by seeing them I thought oh my god while returning back I need to very careful. Figo is not tall vehicle and gap between road and bumpers is somewhat less compared to other vehicles, so you need to be very careful there, and any sudden overdrive over speed breakers will definatly hit the bottom of the vehicle. On patches and at speed above 100kmph, the ride was very smooth no bumpy for rare seats and stock obsorbers worked very nice.

So, cursing slowly I reached the Dindi reservoir and this place will be good for first break after some 110 km's of travel. You can walk over there for some cool breeze and then move on.

After that, we started again our travel for around 40 kms where you will get diversion to achampeta and to srialam, we took the srisailam route and in between the way to srisailam and before munanor village we can visit very ancient uma maheshwaram temple. For getting there is a diversion off the highway and you need to ask locals for route information as I did the same. So, here the actual kick starts, the uma maheshwaram temple is on top of the first hill way to srisailam, and while getting uphill you can see the road going up hill. I Started to climb and I hit the first steep turn, very dangerous but with vey wide road you will not feel that danger. Out of my enthusiasm I was in the middle of the road, and I didn't maintain the momentum before hand, so for first steep turn I put the first gear and vehicle just pulled like a wild horse, then once the momentum is gain I put the second gear and easily pulled the vehicle up, Now comes the second steep turn toward right, this time I maintained the momentum because of experience gained from first steep turn and easily the vehicle was pulled using the second gear. The uphill for the temple was completed using third and second in most of the turns and with some experience gaining very turn. That's it, I reached the hill top and I was very happy in my heart becuase I drove my first ever uphill drive. This gave me good confident and also the Figo diesel showed it has lot of horse power in 2nd and 3rd provided you use 1st to reach alleast 12-20 kmph speed. One more point is the left turn least curvature radius is very good for figo as during steep left turn you need not go to the outer curvature and then do the left turn as most of the Innova's and other big vehicles do. This will make sure you are not in front of opposite vehicle during steep turn's.

After spending some good time here, we are back on Srisailam highway and started to munanur village. This the village from where the ghat road starts as well as you enter into dense forest, you will find lot of monkeys on the roads for some food that you throw out. The speed can be maintained around 80 kmph easily even though you find lot of turns but not soo steep.

The actual fun starts around 25-30 km's before srisailam. I was again thinking how I will manage the steep turns but was also confident that the vehicle can pull easily. There are around 4 to 5 very steep turns while uphill but I think everyone can manage them easily. I drove the vehicle on 2nd and 3rd most of the time and was using 4th for straght road. There was traffic which will slow you down during uphill you have come down to 2nd and 3rd, otherwise 3rd and 4th will easily pull the vehcile. One more point was the ground clearance, I was able to easily see the sideward, and front road easily and did not felt as if I was missing some view, I drove the Ritz for test drive and it was horrible that you can't take left turn in confident. Ritz's will defiantly have problems while taking left / right steep turns, the vehicle will clear but the driver will always have doubt at the margin.

One more point was while returning, It was night and I felt one problem as I was driving the vehicle. As the vehicle is not so tall, during night if any vehicle come s behind you with the high beam then it will be straight on drivers eyes as it gets reflected from the midddle mirror that we use to see the behind vehicle. This was because overall the middle mirror height and behind vehicles high beam lights's height was same, becuase of this I got irritated most of the time and gave way to vehicles coming from behind. May be I have to adjust the mirror somehow during night drives. And the regarding the high beam they are Ok, but will not give you confidant and also dim/dip that we use during night drive functionality is really confusing, most of the time you end up putting left/right signal and confuse the other vehicles.

So, long story said, overall Figo deisel engine power can't be underestimated. You will feel like the engine is very strong and rough while pulling the load and that will give you confidant for long drives. Even though roads was with patches but inside we didn't left any bumps. Steep turns while maintaining speed, 2nd and 3rd gear power provide you cruise 1st gear atleast above 15-20kmph are excellent. People will be surprised that I have also used the A/C while uphill and the vehicle didn't find much problems, off course during steep turn you need to switch off the A/C because you don’t want to loss momentum because of frequent gear change.

The mileage this time I got was again 18-19 with 70% of the journey A/C was on at level 1.