Jan

26

Ford Malaysia recently organized a defensive driving course called Ford Driving Skills For Life for its customers. I’ve always wanted to attend such courses to learn more advanced driving knowledge so I registered for it immediately. More official reports can be viewed from the links below but as usual, my article is an expressions from a participant’s point of view.

Ford Malaysia – Ford Driving Skills For Life
Paultan – Ford’s Driving Skills For Life kicks off in Malaysia
Motor Trader – Ford contributes to road safety

The reason I’m writing this article is to share the lessons learned throughout the course. If you are not interested on the practical part of the course and is only interested on the theory, or if you would like to start downloading the theory files while reading the article, please skip to the bottom of this article and continue reading after starting the download.

Ford Driving Skills For Life (17th Dec 2011)

Registration was RM50 as a way to filter in only owners who are both really interested and able to attend the event. There were 2 sessions (morning and afternoon) for that particular Saturday (17th Dec 2011) and I chose the afternoon session. I must say that the directions given to the venue (MAEPS, MARDI, Serdang) was pretty bad. Many went lost before reaching MAEPS and also within the MAEPS compound including myself. A point to take note by the organizer.

We (the afternoon batch) started off with lunch. While lunching, the morning batch was receiving their certificate of completion and also having the group photo session. After lunch we started off with theory in the briefing room by Harvinder Singh (Driven 8TV co-host). Besides being a funny guy, his resume is really impressive! (refer to the Ford DSFL Level 1 Basic Skills Slides PDF).

Theory

I know that you can read so I will not repeat the information from the Ford DSFL Level 1 Slides. The theory touches on topics such as seating position, steering method, understeed and oversteer, safety features on your Ford, taking care of your tyres and also a description of the practical exercises that we will perform after the theory.

What I learned that was not in the slides was the seat belt height recommendation. I can’t remember if I can adjust the seat belt height in my previous Proton Satria but I am able to in my current Focus. He mentioned that from his experience most accident victims who survive suffer cuts on their neck as a result from having their seat belts too high. It makes sense why we never thought of it because we won’t find anything wrong with the seat belt height until we met an accident, when our body lunges forward. So if your car has the seat belt height adjustment feature, set it so that the seat belt land on your shoulder comfortably. Too high will result in cut on your neck and too low will result in your arms being locked, or in worse case, dislocated.

Practical Exercise 1 – Slalom Drills

After the theory presentation we were separated into 3 groups, each with their own instructors, we ended up having Ching Eu Earn, a very cool guy. The reason for this is to save time, with 3 practical exercises and 3 groups, we all can start simultaneously and switch with other group once we’re done. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve never attended such courses, so everything that I did that day was new to me. My group started off with the slalom drills.

In more advanced driving technique, the weight distribution of your car and understanding them is very important. From there you will understand the behaviour of your car and how you adapt to it. As with understeer and oversteer where the weight is being thrown to the back or front. Slalom drills will throw the weight to the sides, left and right. From this exercise I have a higher appreciation on how the Focus handles such situation with relative ease without losing much control.

Practical Exercise 2 – Skid Control

While we were performing slalom we couldn’t stop noticing the group who is performing the skid control exercise. From our distance it was like those cars in the movies that screeches like mad which resulted in tyre smoke and skid marks. It was very generous of Ford Malaysia to supply us with 2 Fiestas for this exercise, 1 without ESP and 1 with ESP. We were told that the black patch at the skidding area was poured with oil, to induce skidding.

We did the first try with the manual Fiesta, I haven’t driven any manual car for almost 2 years, so it was quite awkward. We did 2 runs for the first try with the instructor sitting on the front passenger seat. For the first run we traveled at 60kph and we did an abrupt left turn to induce understeer, you will feel that even when the steering was turned left the car is still going forward. To rectify this situation you will need to lift your foot from the accelerator pedal and the car will slowly turn to the left. For the second run we traveled at 60kph and make a slow left turn, the instructor will then suddenly pull the handbrake to induce oversteer. To rectify this you will need to turn to the opposite direction, right in this case and floor the accelerator pedal.

For the 2nd try we did it in a dual clutch (PowerShift) Fiesta with ESP. We did the same 2 runs as in the 1st try and I can instantly feel the difference. The ESP is able to brake a single tyre to rectify understeering or oversteering which is not possible for a driver (unless we have 4 brake pedals!). You can really feel the ESP struggles to keep you alive. Like what Mr Lee, Head of Sales, Sime Darby Auto ConneXion said “It takes out all the fun, but keep you alive”.

Practical Exercise 3 – Braking Technique

This exercise was something that I always wanted to do myself, to test the ABS/ESP while driving in the rain, but didn’t because it will be really stupid if I ended up having an accident. Like in the slalom, we drove our own car in this braking exercise, so we can really know how the ABS/ESP feels like during hard braking. We did multiple runs of straight braking and also maneuvering while braking. Really nice.

Conclusion

For something that I would pay RM500 for, this was definitely a great experience and value for money. We learned something that we will never learn unless we attend a similar course. Mr Lee also hinted that there will be a Level 2 course in 2012. Let’s hope that it works out as well as this one.

FORD. Drive Safe.

Course Materials

Ford DSFL Level 1 Basic Skills Slides
Ford DFSL Video – 9-3 Hand Position
Ford DFSL Video – Cross Steer
Ford DFSL Video – ABS
Ford DFSL Video – ESP

Picture Gallery

Ford Driving Skills For Life – 17th Dec 2011

 

Aug

6

I’ve been owning a Ford Focus TDCi for more than a year now which is my second car. My first car was a year 1999 Proton Satria 1.3L and I’ve driven it for almost 9 years, I bought it pre-owned at 2 years old and I can really say that this Ford Focus is a real proper car. If you are not familiar with this car, it is the second diesel passenger car in Malaysian market after the BMW 320d, and a much affordable one at below RM130k. The 320d is around RM250k if you’re curiuos, a good 100k difference!

Recently I’ve been invited to a Fuel Efficiency Challenge from Ford Malaysia or more accurate, Sime Darby AutoConnexion who is the sole Ford distributor in Malaysia. Having listed Banjaran Hot Springs Retreat which worth RM2100 per night and Hard Rock Hotel Penang, I quickly became interested. I invited my girlfriend to join as the limit is 2 person per car at RM300 per person, is definitely worth it!

There are already a few press coverage regarding this challenge as listed below, however, I’m writing this from a customer’s perspective :

Ford Malaysia : All Participants of the ‘Ford Focus TDCi Drive Challenge 2011′ Exceed 1,000km Target

PaulTan.Org : Ford Focus TDCi: 1,365.6 km done on one tank of diesel!

Motor Trader : 1,250 kms on one tank of fuel!

Cars Bikes Trucks : Fuel efficient Ford Focus

 Day 1

We met up at Shell NKVE for flagoff and were told that there would be 5 customer cars and 4 cars for the media. I also made to understand that the media would parked their cars at SDAC (Sime Darby AutoConnexion) PJ and then drove to Shell NKVE with cars supplied by SDAC.

We started the event by filling up each car with diesel sponsored by co-sponsor Shell, then we arranged the cars in 2 columns. It was followed by briefing by the organizer SDAC on the basic safety and rules and regulation of the challenge. We were given GPS device, Ford souvenirs, lots of snacks and fire extinguisher for each participating car! After that was the flagging-off by both SDAC and Shell and off to Banjaran Hotspring Retreat in Tambun, Ipoh we go!

I’ve already did some research on how to reduce fuel consumption so I did some preparation beforehand like inflate all 4 tires with the correct pressure, remove unnecessary weight (I’ve considered removing the spare tire but didn’t because we will be travelling quite a distance, roughly over a 1000km!) , try to drive at a stable speed (I started off at 70-80 km/h), shutting off the aircon, lowering down the windows when driving below 50km/h, etc.

We started driving towards Banjaran Hotspring at around 70-80 km/h with the aircon off but since I cannot stand the heat (it was around 35 degree Celsius outside), I turned on the aircon for 1km every 20km travelled.

We reached Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat at around 5pm and quickly check in our villa. There were 2 types of villas, water villas and the garden villas. We got the latter. I can seriously say that this is the best accommodation I’ve stayed in, it is a very big villa for 2 person with our own living area, huge bedroom, own natural hotspring jacuzzi and own swimming pool. At one point while I’m trying to get online I was trying to trace the network cable from bottom of the table to where the other end is so that I can plug it into my notebook, as I traced up it ended connecting to the phone, it was an IP phone! We had fine dining with the organizers (SDAC) and other participants and an impromtu photo taking session before we end the night.

 Day 2

We started our second day with the complimentary spa and breakfast and then took a walk around the resort, it was really relaxing. We then need to check-out around noon time and wear the Ford’s t-shirt for a group photo shoot. This time, we are heading to Flemington, Taiping for lunch!

After lunch we had a long drive to a Thai restaurant in Alor Setar, Dee Dee Thai Restaurant for dinner. After that we head to Hard Rock Hotel Penang, it was almost 10pm when we reached. We checked in and had a walk nearby and then to Hard Rock before calling it a day. It was really hard rocking in Hard Rock, I went almost crazy when they played Sweet Child O’ Mine live!

 Day 3

We had breakfast at the hotel in the morning and then had to prepare to check-out as we have a long way ahead of us. The organizers had a special announcement before leaving Hard Rock that they have decided to give extra cash prizes as an incentive for us to break the 1000km per fuel tank mark, it was well received! We then head to Unique Seafood Restaurant, Ipoh for lunch, this restaurant is very near to where the Banjaran Hotspring was in our first day.

It was our last stop before heading to our final destination, SDAC PJ where the announcement of winners and prize giving ceremony will be held. I felt that the added cash prizes suddenly motivated every participants to be competitive as I felt everyone started to drive slow! I’m driving quite fast at 80-90km/h as I noticed that driving at this speed will keep the rev low and stable at 1.7k rpm.

Alas, before reaching SDAC PJ I took a longer route to record a personal best of more than 1000km travelled in a tank, I reached SDAC PJ having travelled 1002.7km with 217km left according to the trip meter making an estimated total of 1219.7km per full tank of diesel. Very impressive! For those who are curious, this car is having a 53L tank. The results were announced and I got second place, 0.1km behind the first winner. Very competitive indeed but I already felt a winner even when I was chosen to be part of this challenge, the prize was only a bonus.

Conclusion

It began as a surprise when I was chosen as 1 of the participants of this challenge and it also ended with a surprise with me driving my own car breaching the 1000km mark in a single tank of diesel. So it really proves the efficiency of this Ford Focus TDCi. Ford is the fastest growing brand for the first half of 2011 in Malaysia and I hope they will organize similar events to engage and even reward their customers directly.

You can view some pics from the event by clicking here.

Go Ford!

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