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-   -   Renault Fluence price slashed! Advantage edition launched @ 11.99 lakhs (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/119137-renault-fluence-price-slashed-advantage-edition-launched-11-99-lakhs.html)

Mod Note: Team-BHP's Renault Fluence Review has been uploaded at this link. Please continue the discussion on the review thread. Thanks!




The Renault Fluence is simply unable to move off showroom floors. It's 6 month sales average has been a mere 139 units, including a low point of 102 sales in January 2012. Segment leader, the Toyota Corolla Altis, manages about 7 - 8 times higher deliveries. The Fluence has been a victim of poor strategy, market positioning & understanding of the Indian customer. Remember that, at the time of initial launch, the diesel Fluence didn't get so much as climate control, leather seats or a USB port for your iPod! All the features went to the Fluence Petrol Automatic, at a time when the market had already sworn off petrol-guzzling automatics.

Just a handful of days back, Renault launched the Fluence with an upgraded engine @ Rs. 15 lakh : Thread Link.

Now, in an attempt to clear up dead stock at the factory & dealer levels, Renault introduces the Fluence Advantage Edition at a slashed price tag of Rs. 11.99 lakhs (ex-showroom Delhi). This effectively means that Renault has discounted the Fluence by over 1.5 lakh rupees (as is usually the case with market duds).

The Advantage variant is the same stripped down version, with few features on the inside. However, if you were looking at a rugged workhorse, it might be worth a test-drive.

The company insists that this offer is for a limited period only. We don't buy that; if this variant actually manages to gain some traction in the market, Renault may just as well regularise it.

Related Threads:

- Renault Fluence Official Review

- Fluence Engine Upgrade

Excellent pricing. They need to sustain on this pricing. Else I don't see any
future for this product. They need to price it below Altis/Cruze just for the reasons for lower displacement engine.

Renaults needs to learn how a 1.4 D4D sells with T-badge and reliability
inspite of 1.4L engine.

Seems like the price slash is only on diesel. Any idea on the removed features? But if this offer is on unsold (that is, already assembled) cars, what sense does it make to remove the features?

Above all, were there enough features in the diesel variant to remove any? :-D

Another one bites the dust... as Freddie Mercury & Co sang all those years ago.:D
I really wonder how these global majors get their price/strategy so horribly wrong? Like giving all those features to the petrol AT.
Honda, Ford, Renault... the list keeps growing.

Perhaps this was one worry with the prospective buyers when manufacturers launch overpriced cars; they look round the corner for discounts on the way.
Further, buyers fear indecisiveness in the part of manufacturers to continue or discontinue such low volume cars with question marks on spare availability puts skids on sales.Such discounts or reductions won't help much, either.

The advantage edition still has the older tune of engine/turbo, and has bad turbo lag it seems.

As for comparisons against the Altis D4-D, its quite unfair IMO. Renault has poor brand image/recall in India, Toyota is high on quality pedestal worldwide.
Also, toyota has way more dealerships and city reach than Renault, so one can't expect they can sell the same number even if they were selling Altis D4-D itself!

BTW, Altis itself had hit a bottom of 250-odd cars a few months back, so I actually don't find its performance that great - segment leading but far from performance of Civic in its heydays, for example.

It's sad to see car-manufacturers resorting to price-corrections and price-slashes, just to get the product selling. At times, price-corrections don't go down too well with the general car-buying public, and often, a negative effect may be observed.

Let's hope the Fluence doesn't go down that road, and begins to sell like it should, for the brilliant product that it is.

Better late than never! good move by Renault. Excellent pricing.
IMO its a brilliant all round european sedan with great looks.

Hope it will provide a sales boost. We need these international cars and a healthy competition in Indian market.

This is much better in terms of pricing, Renault have been pricing their car above the usual Honda/Toyota levels without the widespread network and market awareness. So people would end up asking, what are they getting extra, with this price reduction they are now probably in the competitive zone to get some numbers.

Goes on to prove, not pricing the product right is making it dud from the start. Do not understand why the folks do not learn this and eventually bank on price reductions in future. This experimentation is painful for existing owners in the short term, and makes new buyers stay away from the product for sometime, as they have a hunch that the price will eventually be dropped.

Good going Renault. I hope this learning curve extends to the Duster as well!!

Good move, considering the engine and the features, this is the price it should have been launched at in the first place.

But what Renault *really* need to do is - badge this car also as a Nissan, and price it even a Lac lower. It would be consistent with their branding strategy - Renault brand commands a premium over Nissan - and the car would be flying off the shelf at that price much like Nissan Sunny.

If a car was over-priced to start with, I don't see what's wrong in correcting it eventually. As they say, better late than never. I was very pleased with the 1.5 lakh rupee cut on the Honda Jazz, and will be happy on the day that Tata positions the Aria properly (minimum 2 lakh rupee cut).

It's a buyer's market out there. Over-priced products simply won't sell this side of 20 lakhs. More power to us!

GTO,
This Advantage version which has the price cut; does it come with the same recently updated diesel mill?

From a genuine customer's point of view, it certainly is a good thing. :)

But unfortunately, how often have cars succeeded after price cuts? I'm not sure. The Jazz is one car that you could say, failed due to external factors, even after price-reduction. But the Fusion is another car that comes to mind too.

A brilliant product that was priced very wrongly. And then failed to make an impact even after price-reductions, despite it being a wonderfully appointed product.

It even came with a diesel engine later, and that didn't help sales either.

The Figo on the other hand, did really well, and and its success could be attributed to the correct pricing right from the start of its production here.

The Fluence though, has plenty of potential. I think it's one of the most beautiful cars today. I'd love to see it do well now, after the price-correction.

How difficult is it to launch with an "introductory" low price? You can always increase the price gradually attributing it to "increased input cost". Maruti does this time and again with all their models. Is this patented by Maruti so that others cannot do it? I know Mahindra did it with XUV.

I guess these guys are struck to their "management text books" where they still think the so called early adapters will buy the overpriced products and then they can get in the next bunch at a slightly lower price and so on.

After a period of time, people start start attaching price increase/decrease to the manufacturer. Now, everyone believes that Maruti launches it at low price and a price hike is imminent in the next few months.