Force One (6+1)

Exteriors. Overall a good value for money package, the vehicle looks smarter in flesh as compared to the photos. First Indian vehicle to get the DRLs, which add to the attractive front fascia of the vehicle.  The fit & finish however, definitely needs to improve for a vehicle which costs 12L OTR. My car, for example, has uneven panel gaps on both sides of tail gate, with left side of tail gate almost touching the side wall and the right side showing a wide gap of almost an inch. The contours of the headlight units do not match with the contours of the body shell. The sealed (right) headlight unit had some sort of stains on its projector lens, which I showed to my dealers. They did offer to change the unit, but the new unit also had the same problems. The paint work is fairly good and is well complimented with chrome work. Both ORVMs are electrically adjustable, though have to be manually folded. Vehicle comes with all 5 good quality Alloy wheels nicely mated with 235/70 R16 Apollo tyres, which add to the masculine looks of the vehicle.

Interiors.  Interiors are extremely spacious, with best leg space in the segment in all the three rows and decent boot space behind third row. Steering wheel is comfortably placed with mounted audio and cruise controls. The car has dual ac with independent vents for each row, and dual controls on the front central console. Ac is quite effectivel for a large cabin of this size, though blower noise is slightly on the higher side. Instrument cluster is a decent job, with a host of lights, indications and readouts. The car comes with a 2 DIN JVC KW-XR816 audio system and four speakers. The audio system is fairly good and has an integrated Bluetooth for pairing with mobiles or other Bluetooth enabled devices.  There are a total of three 12V sockets in the car, two on the front console and one for the middle seat passengers. One of the front sockets houses a cigarette lighter and other has been left vacant for using 12 V appliances such as mobile charger etc. There are two ash trays, one on the front console and other next to the central seat charging point. Check all these before delivery, my vehicle has been delivered without the front ash tray and the sales as well as the servicing team of the dealer have been unsuccessful to solve the mystery of the missing panel ever since. Irresponsible attitude, since it'll be your money, not theirs. The door lock pods are the vertical kind and could have been better, as all four pods are of different length, even after tightening them (definitely a no no for a vehicle of this class). Independent ceiling lamps for all 3 rows, with the rear 2 lamps having option of activation through door switch. Puddle lamps on all 4 doors with red lights, which I personally feel, would have been more effective if they were normal white lamps. Gear shift throw is rather long and so is the clutch lever travel. A dead pedal has been provided, a nice feature for long journeys, where you could take your foot off the clutch pedal.

Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox.   Engine performance is a strength of this car and was definitely a major reason for me selecting this SUV. I must admit that I was more inclined towards TATA Safari earlier and had been awaiting launch of Safari Storme for quite some time. I have driven Safari Dicor 2.2 VTT also but this car definitely has much better engine response and extremely well controlled NVH levels. The overall economy, that I have been able to muster through city and highway drives is a healthy 12 Kmph, and I'm sure it would improve further as I have only clocked about 1900 kms so far. Gearbox mates well with the engine and vehicle accelerates effortlessly to three digit speeds. At the same time, city handling is also quite convenient, with especially third gear providing decent range from 20 Kmph to more than 65 Kms or maybe even more (I've been a little conservative in order to allow a healthy run-in for the vehicle). The gear lever though, as I already mentioned has very long throws, and gear shifting doesn't give a very well planted feeling. First gear in my car would bounce back on its own, as the car used to roll forward. The situation has improved a bit after first servicing, and I am hopeful that gears would give a better feel as the gearbox settles-in and both car and I get better used to each other.

Ride Quality & Handling.  Ride quality is once again a strong point of this vehicle with very smooth ride and good handling on all sorts of roads and a little bit of offraoding that I have subjected the vehicle to, so far. Body roll is probably the least in the class, and ride comfort for the passengers of all three rows, one of the best. Suspension does a good job of gobbling imperfections and surface irregularities of Indian roads. I was a bit apprehensive about lack of ABS/EBFD for a vehicle of such large dimensions, owing to its inertia at higher speeds, but I am pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of the LCRV system, and the confident stance the vehicle maintains during braking at high speeds. I have faced issues with power steering, however, which tends to become hard after prolonged drive as the day temperatures rise beyond 45 deg C. I had to take the vehicle back to dealer two days after delivery for this problem, and then twice again after that. They have flushed the power steering fluid twice and refilled it. The response is slightly better, but the problem is not entirely gone. The company definitely needs to look into this aspect, and maybe need to switch over to a better fluid or re-route the oil lines in engine compartment. I would request fellow F1 owners also to give me feedback on this aspect.

 Final Words.  It is definitely a good package with potential to capture better market share, provided the company remains vigilant in ensuring that all the checks and balances, that have been formulated are followed in comlete sincerity. This does not appear to be happening as of now. My vehicle was handed over to me with 54 Kms on odo, and sales guy explaining to me regarding how each vehicle is extensively driven to weed out all problems before final delivery of the vehicle. That, however, did not appear to be the case, as after I took the charge of the vehicle, I had to return twice to the dealer for various problems, which definitely would have been noticed and rectified, if the PDI would have been carried out with even 30% sincerity. Still, the vehicle has been delivered with missing bits which I am desperately trying to obtain now. The people at the company need to listen to the market and need to open communication and feedback channels with their customers and potential customers, if they are serious about their product. Any link for this is missing from the Force One site as of now.

 Areas of improvement. Fit and finish, Need for providing more options for colour of interiors, quality control, better servicing network, Need to establish a consumer feedback system for product improvement, Need to better educate sales and servicing team as they tend to consider every customer as naive and at times give ridiculous inputs, which only lowers the confidence of an informed customer.

 

 

Very Spacious, Excellent Engine Response, Good Ride Quality, Very Low NVH Levels, All 5 AlloysFit and Finish of Exteriors and Interiors, Practically non-existent PDI, Uneven Panel Gaps