Ford to retain over 90 percent of its service network in India: Relief for Ford owners

We know that Ford has left the Indian market and they won’t be selling any new vehicles. However, there is some good news. In an interview with Autocar India, Ford revealed they will be retaining over 90 percent of the service network and they are still discussing for the rest of the 10 percent of dealers.

Currently, Ford has dealers in 258 cities and they will still be retaining the dealers in 240 cities which is a good thing. The majority of the dealerships have already signed the Dealer Service Agreement which means that customers would still be able to service their vehicles. However, dealerships that are in small cities will be closed.

An Autocar source said that Ford has locked in all the part prices for five years. This means that the cost of consumables and spare parts will not increase and it will stay constant for the next 5 years. Ford has already set up an inventory of components and they have stocked up the parts in Chennai, Delhi, Sanand(Gujrat), Mumbai and Kolkata. So, we can expect that there will be no shortage of spare parts for Ford vehicles.

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Ford might come back?

Earlier, there were rumours that Ford might come back with only CBU or Completely Built Units vehicles. Now, considering that Ford has decided to retain over 90 percent of their dealerships, it seems like Ford is keeping the door open for the future. So, when Ford thinks that the conditions are right, they might come back to the Indian market.

Ford India has already confirmed that they will be launching the Mustang again in the Indian market. Mustang is one of the best selling muscle sports cars in America. Even in India, it used to sell quite decently. Ford used to sell around 100 to 150 units annually. That is a decent number for a two-door sports car that cost more than Rs. 60 lakhs and is not really practical.

The manufacturer has also confirmed that they will be launching the Mustang Mach-E in the Indian market. The Mach-E is the first electric vehicle from Ford and is already on sale in the international market. As of now, the launch timeline is not confirmed by Ford.

Ecosport DPF issue resolved

The BS6 Ecosport with diesel engine faced a severe DPF issue. DPF stands for Diesel Particulate Filter and it is used to control Nitrous Oxide and Carbon Monoxide. A DPF warning used to pop up in the multi-information display so the customer would need to get it cleaned at Ford’s service centre. This became a big issue when even after cleaning the filter, the warning popped up again and again. This also happened on some brand new Ecosports. Ford even suspended deliveries of the BS6 Ecosports because of this issue, so that engineers could examine the issue thoroughly.

Ford finally addressed the issue and notified the customers to get their vehicle to the nearest service centres. The issue was because of poor combustion and Ford replaced the emission-reducing components of the exhaust system and also updated the Powertrain Control Module software. One way to clean the DPF is to run the vehicle at a consistent speed of 60 kmph for around 20 to 30 minutes. This would increase the temperature of the exhaust and will force out the particles that have clogged the exhaust. However, the issue is most of our cars are used in cities in which we do not hit such speeds often.

Via Autocar India

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