Great discussion here, good points from various perspectives, and very near to our own dilemma at present, as we consider replacing the 18-year-old Marshal 4x4...
I'm a fairly pragmatic guy and honestly often wonder whether if we lived just an hour south, outside the snow-belt, if I'd bother owning a 4x4. Yes, maintenance has cost us more with the 4x4 (in the six extra cross-joints, the extra driveshaft yoke)... yes, the FE / performance is also less due to weight mainly. 4x2 does give buyers a lot more options.
But we do not live an hour south, and we are a family, and winters like this one see snow almost constantly, and we're on a low budget, about all the choice we've got is the Bolero LX 4x4 (a bit of a pain on account of having to retrofit A/C, and being special order only, and having a quite rough suspension); And the Gurka 5-door Explorer (a bit of a pain on account of spare-parts supply; Being so rare, I've never even seen one, though it's there in the company literature).
About two decades ago you could get the Armada / Armada Grand which had factory-fitted A/C and P/S, the latter also with the rather strong 2.5L Peugeot, a highway-worthy 5-speed, efficient and trouble-free manual-select Borg-Warner transfer case, and power windows. That's the sort of thing I'd like to be able to buy new at reasonable price in 2019. I guess the S4 Scorpio would be the closest thing.
As far as serious offroading goes, my general thought is that if it's going to take longer to get someplace in a car than it would on foot, it really makes more sense to just walk (unless trying to get a hundred or more kilos of camping gear to a favorite site... but how many of us have ever actually done that / realistically will ever do that???). I realize it's a sport, with its fun-factor. And people often are willing to spend more for that sport.
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Originally Posted by sdg4wheels I am pretty sure everyone feels WOW and gaze at the machine in amazement once they see a proper off road vehicle tackling ROADS (which is not there). But then again the mind wins over the heart for most of the people to put their hard earned money into a machine which will be seldom used.....Hope that mass people come to realise the true potential of a 4X4 someday. India is all about masses and people like us constitute a meagre percentile in the realm of things. |
In general "out there" margins tend to be small on most products and profit comes in volume in this context. But “true potential” for doing what, exactly??? Just a few offroad events? In the U.S. a majority of 4x4 SUV owners never actually use the 4x4... one of the biggest maintenance issues there is rust & dried-out grease & seals in unused hubs/axles. SUV's there were/are the sexier alternative to mini-vans, but in “real life” seldom more useful for most owners.
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Originally Posted by fine69 I disagree. There are 4x4s starting from as low as 8-9 lakhs and go all the way upto 30-35 lakhs (mainstream 4x4s only), what more would a consumer want? I personally think that if one wishes to own a proper 4x4 or even AWDs (without low range) then its a great time to be in India.
Want a Jeep - get the Thar, Want a cheap offroader for weekends - Get a used Thar or used Gypsy, Want a relatively cheap 4x4 that can do daily duties, highway runs as well as weekend offroading - Get any from the long list of.....Scorpio, Storme, VCross etc. Have more money - Get the Fortuner or Endeavour or MUX or Pajero Sport Some more - Go crazy with 4x4 aftermarket mods that can make these vehicles unbreakable (well, almost)
Offroading is also used a little loosely. If one wishes to do a 3-4 week Ladakh trip then they don't really need a heavy 4x4 with low range. In fact Duster would be a great vehicle given its ride quality for a terrain like Ladakh's. AWDs like Duster/Compass are superb vehicles for a regular Joe who would only need AWD for their road trips. |
You don't need AWD or 4x4 even for Ladakh unless you're getting well off the beaten path. Even in Spiti, where roads are much worse, commercial taxi-wallahs use Sumo Gold / Spacio / Traveler more than anything. Ground clearance is the main thing.
Thar/Gypsy are 3-door, not very family-friendly.
Older pre-owned Scorpio/Storme is probably going to be a maintenance headache, and the risk of the expensive electronically-actuated 4x4 selector motor/circuit going bad is fairly high.
The rest mentioned are just too pricey for us.
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Originally Posted by silverado ...it remains a dream to own one and justify that ownership. How many people who own a 4WD use it as their only car? Lot of people have discussed about JIMNY. There was and still is a lot of excitement around it.It would have got more people in to 4WD scene I believe.... there is simply no Demand for 4wd vehicles to make business case for companies to develop them. |
We have one as our only car, and it works well in our context, but we almost never have to do highway travel, and I do my own maintenance/repair usually.
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Originally Posted by RaviK "Why get a maintenance heavy, tyre eating, low performance vehicle when the regular one does the work 9 out of 10 times, the cost factor doesn't work out". And he was right ! IIRC there were very few 4*4s, in all the Mahindras around us. |
Yes, he was right, excepting those who more often “need” one. And the bit about tyre wear - “live” front axles do maintain alignment much better than IFS, as I think BlackPearl noted. Performance did take a big hit comparing 4x4/4x2's back in the days of 60bhp Commanders, but with modern vehicles there's enough power to spare that it's not really an issue.
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Originally Posted by 2himanshu liked Scorpio S10 and wanted a 4wd (we do a lot of cycling expeditions at distant places) but dealer refused and tried to persuade us by giving some lame reasons (they had 2wd in stock), we had to settle as we were in hurry. The second time my friend wanted an XUV500 AWD and we had to literally arm wrestle the dealer to get it .
I will also like to add that some minivan like Tempo Traveller should give an AWD option that would be great for guys who like to go on long expeditions, it is surely more comfortable than SUVs. |
This is the thing... doesn't seem to be much of a marketing push. Which is fine if people really don't need it, and kind of bad if they actually intend to use four-wheel traction.
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Originally Posted by pedrolourenco Without supply how do you get demand. There is no data published about the queries for a 4WD variant. Also a lot of people want a 4WD but don't ask because they know that it is not available. No one is asking for development. We are just asking them to sell stuff they have already developed. |
I don't know how many here would know that in Japan there were 4wd variants of the Maruti 800, the Omni van, the Suzuki Carry (friend in Canada has a 25-year-old one). I guess the whole certification process here is expensive and doesn't pay back if the sales are small. quote=gkveda;4548772]
I will give a perspective from end user. We are middle class country. We value our hard earned money and will like to put the money on a vehicle that is used for utility purpose and "Need" and not "pleasure".
...With the above mindset, we (read Urban and plain land citizens)do not have a reason to go for off-roading. Therefore, we think 4*4 is NOT a NECESSITY.
Coming to Hill-side people, they find off-roading and hill climb/descent as their part of life NEED and NOT as Pleasure AT ALL. Hence, if we see the stats, major sale of the 4*4 would be around in hilly areas.[/quote]
Right.
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Originally Posted by GTO I'm going to take a contrarian view. 4x4s & AWDs constitute perhaps 0.1% of car sales in India. Despite that, we have a good number of options, spanning across budgets. When I got into offroading, there were broadly 2 options = Classic or Gypsy. Both impossible for daily use. Today, you have a lot more. |
You must've been into it pretty early, GTO... the Commander 5-door was there at least as far back as the mid-90's... Armada NGCS was disc-brake, A/C, P/S from year 1999.
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Originally Posted by BlackPearl 2. Suzuki should have launched the Jimny in India. Maruti can sell everything in India. If the barebones Gypsy with its back-breaking ride quality could sell so many, I am sure there would be a lot of takers for the Jimny. |
They couldn't sell the Grand Vitara much.
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Originally Posted by pedrolourenco Going by the number of threads and posts on TBHP, it's quite clear that 4x4 Offroading is quite popular and increasing day by day. But when it comes to buying a 4x4 vehicle there doesn't seem to be much choice in India. Some may argue that there are plenty of choices but if you look carefully, most options are the expensive (30L & above SUV's) which the majority of us cannot afford and even if we can afford, we are unlikely to take those vehicles off-roading.
Now some will say that there is no market for these vehicles so manufacturers wont launch. Well if you don't sell them how do you expect people to buy. |
I mean, it's kind of crazy that the Bolero LX is supposed to be “government only” sale... when so many normal people have/need/want them in the hills. I confess that the absence of marketing seems very strange. Maybe M&M wants to move people to higher variants (with EMI or whatever), which they do make more profit on.
-Eric