Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   The Indian Car Scene (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/)

-   -   Tata Vista - Highly Underrated MJD hatchback compared to Swift ?! (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/117037-tata-vista-highly-underrated-mjd-hatchback-compared-swift-7.html)

You're right. I meant to type slightly lower (just 15%) not higher.

You're however, very right on one count, which is that purely financially speaking, certain cars are best bought new and sold at great resale and certain cars are best bought used. Examples of the former are Toyotas and Swifts and examples of the latter are Accord V6, Palio 1.6, Cedia, Linea T-Jet and Enfield Bullets.

resale really is a big kicker. I realised it the hard way when i tried selling the car in 2010. One of my best friends who had bought a swift LDi at 5.something in 2007 ended up selling it for 4.something
Me , who decided to buy an indica for 4.5L ( and i had not decided to sell it in the short term initially, but circumstances almost forced me to), could not get anything above 2.5. So decided to keep it. If you factor in the cost of services and the swift turned out to be the vastly cheaper car.

The new Swift has an irritating lip in the loading bay at the rear. It has reasonable ingress and egress but no seat height adjuster for the front passenger. I also don't appreciate that they don't even give consumers a split folding rear seat! And most irritatingly there is no AT version either.
The Vista on the other hand offers a lot of stuff and easy ingress and egress too. Good car the Vista overall.

I personally know a friend who has waited for almost 5 months for a ZDi when the dealer called him to tell him that he will have to wait for another 6 months (almost 1 year!), thats when he changed the booking to VDi.

He is ready to live with a cheaper variant but will buy only a Swift. There are many others out there who are like him. Can you say this about the Vista?

There are no hassles when buying a Vista. Hassles usually start after that. As i said, we cannot compare the after sales service of TATA & Maruti. Nobody can say its overrated just because THEY have had a good experience.

In that case, I have had an excellent customer support with FIAT, so does that mean FIAT has got a GREAT A.S.S. just because I got a good response?

Why do a company give out discounts & freebies? Because their car is not selling well. Why would Maruti give out discounts on a car which has a 6-8 months waiting period & customers are fighting for it?

Nobody is a saint buddy.

Tomorrow if Vista starts selling 10k units a month, even TATA would hike prices of the Vista & stop all discounts & freebies. Its a typical "buy if you want, else there are others" attitude which is common among all manufacturers.

There are better options available too. Ultimately it boils down to personal preferences. I would never ever buy a Vista for that matter.

P.S.: I have nothing against Vista or anyting for Swift. I own neither & will never buy any of these two for various reasons.

One point is worth considering that Swift definitely has got that great resale value for which people are willing to pay the extra price.
Yes it is bit overpriced compared to a Punto,Vista or the non multijets.

Original price + running cost - resale value = Swift is still the king.

This how it works for most people.

Comparing resale prices of Indica tdi with a Swift MJD may not be fair. Given that Vista is relatively a recent introduction (~3yr), we should be seeing some earlier (old version) Vistas in the Used market now and may need to wait for some more time to asses the resale value going forward. At the risk of sounding selfish, I am optimistic about the resale value of Vistas (recent versions).
-----

While Swift is a proven (read - improved) vehicle with ~4yr headstart in India, Vista is going thru the cycle and "may" get there eventually. How I wish my Vista QJD has Swift's gearshift and handling :). Swift and Vista are catering to different segments of the market/customers now (more gyaan on this elsewhere in this thread), they will become real competition to each other only when Vista keeps the improvement rate "up" and "non-linear", depends on whether TML has the "d'zire" :D. So far, so good - all is well for the customer.

Coming to the topic being discussed, I feel Vista is just fine (not under-rated or otherwise). It is the typical customer who refuses to venture beyond the mass/market trend/opinion and in the process losing out on his needs (VFM, features, space etc.), he may get what he wants (handling, good(?) A.S.S. resale value etc.).

I think the Vista as a family car is a myth, I can't imagine women and kids choosing it over a Swift. Most kids love the Swift's looks and most women would pick a Maruti(or if they can afford it, a VW), over a Tata any day. The Vista simply isn't appealing, the interiors are practically the same layout you saw 10 years ago on the Indica, maybe a different shade.

The Tata brand is a downer, and Vista is a long way from desirable, it seems Tata is ok with that. The Swift is here to stay and Vista won't be a challenger in the foreseeable future.

By Family Car, it was meant to indicate a car that suits a small family. As a relatively cheaper, more spacious (and now with a bigger boot), better equipped vehicle (except for the ACC) when compared to the Swift, the Vista does score pretty well. Particularly when one considers that they both have the same engine, and Tata has used Fiat's gearbox. No long throws, wide gates and ridiculously rubbery, shaking gearshift to contend with either.

For a family, hard ride = bad ride. Plush, wafting ride = good ride. This works pretty well in the city, and on the highways and twisties - up to reasonable speeds. And you know who determines what speeds are reasonable in a family car.

As far as the layout goes, the instrument cluster is mounted in the centre, presumably to aid the speed-control mentioned earlier. The steering to seat to pedals ergonomics are much better, and gear shift is not distant either. Power window controls are on the doors, and not foot-operated at the rear. I don't understand how this can be considered to be the "same layout you saw 10 years ago on the Indica".

Desirability is subjective. A colleague detests the Swift, comparing it to a toad. I like the Vista - it makes more practical sense, but then TATA QC and A.S.S. do throw a spanner in the works.

The comparison was between the Swift and the Vista - you start out with the Indica and then rave about the Vista. Families are not buying Vistas if they were, customers would be facing a waiting period like the Swift. Fiat's gearbox is one more reason not to buy the Vista.

I am sure the centre mounted console is not there for speed-control, that sounds far fetched. The design element is mostly seen in cut price cars and most drivers would prefer to glance down rather than look sideways to see speed,rpm or warning lights. The ride is hardly a deal breaker, can't think of many people who tick off a car just because of a harsh ride.

The layout of the dashboard is the same as the Indica of ten years ago, I don't know about foot operated window, haven't seen them in operation, its just hyperbole. The post was about the Swift looks and perception, like I said before the Vista can't hold a candle to it. Features alone dont sell a product, desirability is that final push needed.

I read through my post again, but I don't see where I started out with the Indica or raved about the Vista. Indica + Vista sales are 10k-ish, so some families obviously are buying them.

What's wrong with the Fiat gearbox? Please do elaborate.

The wit is lost, apparently. I'm sure the centre mounted console is a cost saving measure. My point was to refute your claim that the Vista has the same layout as the Indica. Ride quality is a deal breaker for some, but I'm not here to start an argument - was just stating a generally held perception. Families tend to prefer a comfortable car over a stiffer, better handling one.

They hyperbole was precisely to highlight the point that the layout of the Vista interiors are far different from the Indica. Including the dashboard.

And if the Vista couldn't hold a candle to the Swift, we wouldn't have this thread in the first place. I agree that if the Vista were a poor product, it would not sell regardless of the features. :D

For every person who likes the looks of the Swift, I have met another who does compare it to toads. One person, a Swift owner, even compared it to Asha Parekh! Every person who has bought the Swift has not necessarily bought it for its looks. Some people have bought it for the package it is.

I bought a Palio MJD over the Swift for various reasons (unreasonable waiting period being the biggest one and atleast 15% higher OTR price and worse back seat being the others). Resale value was not a concern as I have had already done 82,000 km in less than four years and I am nowhere beyond 50% of my ownership period yet. Had the Vista and Figo been present in the market at that time, there would have been serious contenders for me. A best-selling car does not always tick the right boxes for everyone.

A lot of people are buying the Vista by recognising its strengths. It is now upto Tata to ensure that the perceived poorer ownership experience is not true. This will push up the resale value in any case.

The key part is that its Indica+Vista sales, majority of that will be the cabs, Vista is quite a rare sight and I don't know anyone who considered 1 recently. The car is not in the Swift league in terms of looks and perception, the rest of the features and lower pricing put the Vista in the reckoning sometimes. The Swift is a success story and the Vista is an also ran.

The ergonomics are quite unchanged, the Vista is crude in many areas, truck legacy is quite a hard thing for TML to overcome. Maybe in another 10 years they may capture mindspace, but seeing the Aria I am not too certain about their capabilities. I am talking about the rough edges here, not the features list.

The Fiat gearbox is definitely not a benchmark, it may be better than whatever Tata used earlier, its not a reason to buy the car. Practically any of the competition will have better shift quality.

Yes. But then there is the fact that best selling car clicks with greater number of people than.the others.

It is actually bit difficult to analyse at times why one product out performs the others and why some fail to leave a mark.
It would surely be an interesting situation if both cars belonged to brands of equal significance.
Say Swift belonged to Honda and Vista belonged to Toyota, maybe the brand value ifself would have pushed the Vista bit more than what Tata can.

But again the image created by the car matters.
Say Swift is a family hatchback which is perceived to have the sporty ingredients.
Vista is a family hatchback that has some of its roots attached to commercial market.
So obviously Swift enjoys the upmarket image.

P.S. Tata Safari still has got so many fans inspite of its flaws,niggles,manufacturer and age.
Because Safari itself has become a cult brand for various reason. So has Swift.

As we will not be able to get the separate figures for Indica/Vista and Taxi/Pvt buyers which will give a clear picture of Vista's market reception, we also won't be able to get the figures for people who really wanted to buy Swift but chose Ritz, Polo, Punto, i20, Fabia and of course, Vista for the sole reason of long waiting period. I am quite sure if Swift didn't entail long waiting periods, the sales of other hatchbacks would have been much lower. You can observe that thing in 'I booked my car' thread where so many T-BHPians confirm that they wanted to go for Swift but didn't due to long waiting period.

Well!!
To add afew more stuff on the swift


(1) the gear is a pure drivers delight (I drove my brothers ETIOS Liva and went crazy trying the hard gear and the funny reverse mechanism) It is comparing chalk and cheese. so we can leave alone the Vista:Shockked:

(2) the Ride is hard in the Vista and not very kind on your back for long rides unlike the SWift
(3) Swift is too good in cornering and tight turns-- Believe me it is. Try turning a Vista along a curve whilst you are at above 50 and tell me the aftermath.

(4) the engine is decently good after 30K and NVH is pretty low except for traffic noise --we cannot expect that horns will not be heard inside the cabin.

(5) It may be over rated but definitely not overhyped. I think .

Cheers
Prasad