[man_and_machine]

XUV is the David amongst the Goliaths (The big T and the Fords etc). This is a turning point for the UV market. Again it always take an Indian brand to break the glass house to force products more affordable. Show how you can leverage local supply chain to generate more value for a given $ value. Reliability might be a concern, but then even the Vento fried its owner last week! so, i would really wait for a couple of years before branding the XUV into any slot. I am not a big fan on Mahindra, but I believe a good show deserves a good applause irrespective of who is playing, a mastero or a beginner !

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by raj_5004

Secondly, how can we postpone the poll? Every month or so, one or the other car launches happen. If we keep postponing the poll to judge every car's reliability, then the poll would never happen!

Who said anything about postponing the poll? Please re read Mahesh's suggestion.

[maheshramaling]

Originally Posted by raj_5004

While voting for the car, reliability was not taken into consideration & rightly so. Most of the cars in the poll are new & we cant wait for ownership reports to come in & judge the reliability of each car.

Originally Posted by raj_5004

Secondly, how can we postpone the poll? Every month or so, one or the other car launches happen. If we keep postponing the poll to judge every car's reliability, then the poll would never happen!

I never suggested to postpone the poll. It would be good to go through my suggestion again.

Originally Posted by man_and_machine

Reliability might be a concern, but then even the Vento fried its owner last week! so, i would really wait for a couple of years before branding the XUV into any slot. I am not a big fan on Mahindra, but I believe a good show deserves a good applause irrespective of who is playing, a mastero or a beginner !

If reliability or overall performance is not considered - what else are we considering - just the looks & cost tag of a packed machine which has loads of features (which seems to be not working most often!)??

Is that right?? With this criteria - Guess - Nano should be always the COTY (not saying Nano is not a reliable machine)!!

[saurabhdadhichi]

Received just now mail regarding XUV500. Great to see auto industry is recognising TeamBhp as an important voice of consumer.

[shortbread]

Which of those trophies have been gifted by Tbhp?!!

[ghodlur]

Its good to know that M&M has acknowledged Team BHP's choice of XUV as the car of the year.

As Mahesh had suggested that the polling needs to be done not in Dec but somewhere in the last week of jan or first week of Feb which gives ample time for BHPians to gather informations about the newly launched cars from ownership/Mods test drive threads and vote accordingly.

Although the XUV was a VFM buy in the segment, a game changer but it did come with its own share of niggles however few they might be. Also it was not a Pan India launch.

[raj_5004]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Who said anything about postponing the poll? Please re read Mahesh's suggestion.

Originally Posted by maheshramaling

I never suggested to postpone the poll. It would be good to go through my suggestion again.

My comment was in reference to this statement -

Originally Posted by maheshramaling

I personally felt - TBHP has given this award to XUV 5OO - very early, without knowing what it delivers & we seem to have got biased basis it's fresh looks (though I hate the XUV looks ).


Alternatively - we should have run such polls in March 2012 for all the cars which got launched between Jan and Dec 2011.

What I mean by postpone is that, even if we have the poll in March, there maybe some other cars which have been launched in February or March & it would be too early to add them in the poll & likewise it would happen in every month of the year.

If reliability or overall performance is not considered - what else are we considering - just the looks & cost tag of a packed machine which has loads of features (which seems to be not working most often!)??

Is that right?? With this criteria - Guess - Nano should be always the COTY (not saying Nano is not a reliable machine)!!

We cant comment on what's right or wrong but again reliability is a very subjective factor to debate on. Classic example is the Aria - some members are very very happy that they bought the Aria while others are banging their head in frustration... we have a whole thread on that. Same is the case with the XUV. Its not that all members are facing issues with the XUV. Also, which car is 100% reliable? If we go into that depth, then guess we can add only Toyotas in the list!

When I voted, I looked at which car stood out from the competition, which was the game changer in the segment... and I believe the XUV has truly redefined it's segment.

[maheshramaling]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Its good to know that M&M has acknowledged Team BHP's choice of XUV as the car of the year.

As Mahesh had suggested that the polling needs to be done not in Dec but somewhere in the last week of jan or first week of Feb which gives ample time for BHPians to gather informations about the newly launched cars from ownership/Mods test drive threads and vote accordingly.

Although the XUV was a VFM buy in the segment, a game changer but it did come with its own share of niggles however few they might be. Also it was not a Pan India launch.

If our voice is acknowledged in a good way - it's fantastic but we need to make it much stronger by having better process to evaluate & award COTY. That's the only submission I have.

Originally Posted by raj_5004

My comment was in reference to this statement -



What I mean by postpone is that, even if we have the poll in March, there maybe some other cars which have been launched in February or March & it would be too early to add them in the poll & likewise it would happen in every month of the year.

Let me repeat my suggestion - so that it's not being perceived wrongly. We should evaluate cars which were launched between Jan '11 and Dec '11 in Feb or March 2012 - so that we get to see the vehicles performance & not go only with a perception. To clarify further - cars which get launched between Jan to Mar 2012 - will be considered as part of Feb or March 2013 review, likewise every year. Hope it clarifies.

Originally Posted by raj_5004

We cant comment on what's right or wrong but again reliability is a very subjective factor to debate on. Classic example is the Aria - some members are very very happy that they bought the Aria while others are banging their head in frustration... we have a whole thread on that. Same is the case with the XUV. Its not that all members are facing issues with the XUV. Also, which car is 100% reliable? If we go into that depth, then guess we can add only Toyotas in the list!

When I voted, I looked at which car stood out from the competition, which was the game changer in the segment... and I believe the XUV has truly redefined it's segment.

I am not saying that XUV is a bad car (though it has issues & I do not like this car, personally) & I fully agree with you that no other vehicle is 100% perfect. To add; Car's are man made machines - so it will definitely have errors including Toyota's. Just that the error % varies by respective company's QC.

All - I am saying is that we should have a better process to evaluate & judge COTY. I hope that's a fair thing.

[ACM]

Originally Posted by maheshramaling

All I am saying that giving out a award to a car which has been just a month or less on-road is simply unfair to the rest of the cars which are tried & tested for longer duration. If we can decide in such a short duration - my guess is it's just by looks & price tag. I can bet - many who voted for this car wouldn't have even driven this car...so this means perception based voting.

I am not saying that the car which is being awarded by this process will have issues but rather saying what if issues crop up after we award a un-tested (thoroughly) car?? Isn't it better to award the right car after doing a thorough performance review? And all you know - it could be XUV again.

So - my view is that our's should just not be a democratic voting process but a well thought out process which makes sure that the right car is awarded which is tried & tested.

Actually (as you mention as well) most likely even if we were to do the survey about now (end of Feb) the results are most likely to be the same.

Frankly this one is a democratic (or rather popular TBHP selection) award. I believe the Oscars (voting by academy members) and Filmfare (Partial jury partial public/reader votes) too are similar as in it takes into account the specialist bank of association members. That Said the Oscars too though declared in Feb the nominations are sent out in dec and have to be returned (received) back in Jan itself - so that is less than a extra month at the most.

The fact remains that cars would require a much longer test period to get the initial consumer reports on the quality and that is by itself a different parameter. People may inspite of issues with quality (partially reported for the XUV on various threads) still feel it deserves the top voted due to the sheer Value it presents (in this case - the parameter that wins the top vote could be different next year). I believe it has not really won on looks which was a hit or a miss depending on who you are.

JD Power is known to be the leading organization for product quality out here for the automobile industry and it would not really make sense emulating them - they do a very exhaustive survey (compared to just voting (not rating) like in our case) with actual buyers to arrive at their results. That said wish more people in India actually bothered to look at the JD Power results and that they did an even better job.

Yet as Amitoj suggests your point of view too has it's merit - "Why not award the cars of 2011 in say Apr 2012 after each has a fair run in the market" - Suggest you put that up in the suggestions thread as mentioned by him.

Irrespective congratulations to XUV 500 for 2011.

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by raj_5004

We cant comment on what's right or wrong but again reliability is a very subjective factor to debate on. Classic example is the Aria - some members are very very happy that they bought the Aria while others are banging their head in frustration... we have a whole thread on that. Same is the case with the XUV. Its not that all members are facing issues with the XUV. Also, which car is 100% reliable? If we go into that depth, then guess we can add only Toyotas in the list!

I'd agree with looks being subjective, but reliability to a large extent can be determined by the number of owners that are not happy with the product. Of course for every product there will be some who would have no issues but thats not what determines reliability. A low failure rate does.

[man_and_machine]

Originally Posted by maheshramaling

If reliability or overall performance is not considered - what else are we considering - just the looks & cost tag of a packed machine which has loads of features (which seems to be not working most often!)??
l

No I meant is too early to decide on reliability and over all performance. There are hardly vehicles on the road and ownership reviews are yet to come, let not jump the gun and give it due time. XUV is shipping in batches, and its not a book- pay - deliver model yet, its a limited release with tweaks done in each batch. Lets wait for the General availability.

[architect]

Originally Posted by man_and_machine

No I meant is too early to decide on reliability and over all performance. There are hardly vehicles on the road and ownership reviews are yet to come, let not jump the gun and give it due time.

Originally Posted by maheshramaling

If our voice is acknowledged in a good way - it's fantastic but we need to make it much stronger by having better process to evaluate & award COTY. That's the only submission I have.

I do not think any car of the year can be judged by overall reliability parameters. It is usually about the package that the product is vis-a-vis its sticker price. The only way to judge reliability is to extrapolate the brand (M&M seems to have somehow raised its confidence in people).

[maheshramaling]

Originally Posted by architect

I do not think any car of the year can be judged by overall reliability parameters. It is usually about the package that the product is vis-a-vis its sticker price. The only way to judge reliability is to extrapolate the brand (M&M seems to have somehow raised its confidence in people).

I think performance is being wrongly perceived by some. Let me explain; Reliability is a long term perforamance and typically we know that only after few years. Whereas, I am talking about perforamance of the vehicle on the road by good number of owners for at-least 2 to 3 months before we could judge a car & award something like COTY.

BTW - thanks for your post which re-confirms my concern (& validates my argument for a better process) that many voted to XUV 5OO because of it's looks + package + price tag!!!

Mods - listening?