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Old 7th June 2012, 12:40   #31
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

I will attribute the waiting period to the greed on the part of Car companies to a certain extend as well . Where as Few are genuine given the price point they were selling at ( 20 lakhs + ) & they mis calculated demand due to price point some what But there Are few who are just riding the Diesel wave .

As for piling up of inventories goes, those are business risk the companies need to be account for in long run in the market . they cannot hide behind the uncertain business environment every time. I just fail to understand that when i know clearly that there is a demand for particular engine variant why would i lunch more products with same variant in market until i have filled the previous demand in market . More so when i cannot produce above a certain numbers of that engine.

Add to that dealers Also play a Part by hyping the waiting periods on few cars . Hyping a product does wonders in India.

And than Lastly let us accept it, " herd;s Mentality" plays a major part in decision making when it comes to car buying . I am sure there are many on this forum itself who bought a particular car thinking about what neighbor own.
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Old 7th June 2012, 12:58   #32
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

Quote:
Originally Posted by SupratikDebnath View Post
That is precisely what the reason is! Thanks for explaining it vividly. I believe it also acts as a mouth to mouth promotion, and we fall for stuff in good demand.
I hope you meant word of mouth!

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Originally Posted by smartcat View Post
What does this mean? This means although the manufacturers are giving new orders to the component suppliers, they are squeezing them badly on the margin front. These guys are facing issues like rising steel costs & 10 - 12% bank loan interest rates. Where will they get money to invest in their business? Auto companies cannot have it both ways - squeeze the auto component guys on the margin front and then expect them to invest in new capacities at the same pace as the auto manufacturers.
I agree. And it is not as if they are doing this by controlling prices. It seems that diesel vehicles are subsidising production of petrol cars these days. Case in point, lets take the Swift. The zDi version is 7.95L while the zXi is somewhere around 6.4L. And this is before discounts on the zXi, of course no discounts on the diesel mill. A difference of 1.5L for a similarly specced version!
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Old 7th June 2012, 13:22   #33
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Re: Maruti Ertiga : Official Review

The long queue for some of the models can be attributed to customers playing safe with a 'tried and tested' product which may not be wrong in the first place since in our industry -

1. there have been so many vehicles which were either over priced when launched (read Versa) or had issues with build quality and engineering (earlier Indicas) or had certain weak spots when launched (read pathetic drum brakes in Venture)

2. even when the vehicles were brilliant (read Skodas, VWs, Fiats) their dealer network are sparse or the service levels are much to be desired. Also they are not familiar brands to the masses at large

3. our people have had the experience of waiting for long periods from the early days (of Ambys and Bajajs) due to artificial scarcity and all those practices such as paying premiums etc to jump the queue (which we are all very famous for anyways) that it becomes an absolutely normal exercise which may be unheard of anywhere else

This makes one go back to the good ol Alto / i10 / Swift / City / Activa / Hero Honda because they know what they are going to get.


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Originally Posted by supremeBaleno View Post
I ain't buying a bike/car which requires me to line up at 6AM and grab a token to get a regular service done. And ofcourse better not to say anything about the attitude of the sales folk at Honda. So the next auto-gear bike would be a Wego in all probability for us. My FIL has an Activa which I use occasionally and I frankly do not see anything extra-ordinary in it for me to wait months for it.
We need to break away from such a mould, and this is exactly what one should do - that is find a good alternative and go for it.

If one is looking for alternatives-

Diesel hatch - Beat / Figo / Vista / Liva / Punto

Sedan - alternatives - Manza / Verito / Etios / Linea

MUVs - Xylo / Tavera

The choice would depend upon various factors like reach of these companies, requirement and of course personal preferences.

At least not wait endlessly at the mercy of a manufacturer for God sake!
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Old 7th June 2012, 15:51   #34
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

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Originally Posted by selfdrive View Post
I hope you meant word of mouth!
Yeah, definitely! I still do not know what the hell I was thinking.
Sometimes these typos are so funny.
Mouth to mouth promotion!!
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Old 8th June 2012, 12:41   #35
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

Here is the letter received regarding 9 months delay for Ertiga. I am posting this as requested by some members here.
Attached Thumbnails
Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?-ertiga-9-months.jpg  

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Old 8th June 2012, 12:53   #36
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

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Originally Posted by .sushilkumar
Lastly let us accept it, " herd;s Mentality" plays a major part in decision making when it comes to car buying . I am sure there are many on this forum itself who bought a particular car thinking about what neighbor own.
You are confusing 2 different syndromes. Buying what the neighbour buys is the "keeping up with the joneses" syndrome, which is more about envying the neighbour and trying to catch up to what he owns.

Quote:
Originally Posted by coolclouds
Here is the letter received regarding 9 months delay for Ertiga. I am posting this as requested by some members here.
Lovely. Official acceptance of 9-month waiting period. Will they pay running bank rate interest on the booking amount ?
I seriously hope that in the coming months some other manufacturer(s) comes up with a similar 7-seater car and then they can keep Eritgas stacked in their yards in Gurgaon or wherever.

When it is known to MSIL that they do not have the capacity to make engines for the existing range itself, it is clearly pointless to come up with another car that mainly uses the same engine and then start another long waiting list. And the product/marketing guys dont have an excuse here.

Last edited by supremeBaleno : 8th June 2012 at 12:56.
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Old 8th June 2012, 14:33   #37
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

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Originally Posted by supremeBaleno View Post

Lovely. Official acceptance of 9-month waiting period. Will they pay running bank rate interest on the booking amount ?
Actually this is the reason why they take very less booking amount for such models, so that the customers don't think it is necessary to demand interest. For my Swift ZDi which I booked in March, my delivery date as of now is December this year (9 months). They charged me 10k as booking amount. Some dealers charge as low as 5k also here.

Then again, I think the dealers play a role to some extent in this waiting period saga. Some dealers have high-demand vehicles readily available after some premium amount is paid, and some make us wait eternally. On this forum, I have seen people from other cities claiming they got the new Swift in 1-2 weeks, while some like me have to wait for 9 months. I guess this also has to do with how much arm-twisting power the dealer has with Maruti, to be able to decide how many vehicles are allotted to specific dealers/cities. The whole waiting period system is not uniform or transparent, if you ask me.

Quote:
When it is known to MSIL that they do not have the capacity to make engines for the existing range itself, it is clearly pointless to come up with another car that mainly uses the same engine and then start another long waiting list. And the product/marketing guys dont have an excuse here.
+1 ! Well said, supremeBaleno . When they were unable to meet demand of Swift diesel itself, what was the need to launch another diesel model which has a 10 month waiting period from day 1?
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Old 8th June 2012, 15:24   #38
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

I too fail to understand why OEM's continue to use the delay tactics!

MSIL for one is definetely riding the wave because of the brand image. 9 months waiting period for a car?? Unless the car is completely hand made and designed to my specs, I will never accept this!

Many of you have mentioned that the delay is mainly caused because the OEM cannot predict the market and hence they did not invest in the assembly line. Let me put in a few points here:

Most of the modern manufacturing facilities have a very flexible production management. They can produce multiple variants or models on a single assembly line. Petrol prices have gone up, so demand has gone down for petrol cars. But this means the demand increases for diesel cars. So for a player like MSIL, the diesel cars fall into the replacement segment for the OEM and not completely into the growth segment! For example, quite a few petrol swifts will be converted to diesels. So can't they be made on the same assembly line? So where is the question of additional investments?

What I feel is that MSIL is playing stubborn in not investing in new lines for their additional growth as a whole. Maybe they are using order backlog as a means of advertisement! Maybe they are using order backlog for increasing their share value or getting additional loans! We will never know, would we?
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Old 8th June 2012, 17:54   #39
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

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Originally Posted by supremeBaleno View Post
When it is known to MSIL that they do not have the capacity to make engines for the existing range itself, it is clearly pointless to come up with another car that mainly uses the same engine and then start another long waiting list. And the product/marketing guys dont have an excuse here.
exactly What i pointed out in few posts above. they are already struggling with famed DDIS engine and they still release new models with same engines. What is the point !!!!!!!!!!

all i can think of is to keep the hype going around the brand . it works wonders in typical indian house hold.
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Old 19th June 2012, 12:09   #40
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

Finally Maruti ramped up the production of swift,good news to Swift lovers.
Saw add in Today's Times of India.
Article Window

Last edited by balechaparka : 19th June 2012 at 12:10.
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Old 19th June 2012, 12:45   #41
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

In a nice twist to the whole waiting-period scenario, looks like the customers have now adopted a waiting-period to buy cars, leaving manufacturers and dealers with piled up inventory (as mentioned in another thread). Good, since 2 can play this game.

If fuel-prices are raised again or an additional tax is added on diesel cars, these guys can pile up their oh-so-much-in-demand cars in their yards and sit on their fat waiting lists.
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Old 19th June 2012, 13:23   #42
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Re: Maruti Ertiga : Official Review

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Originally Posted by smartcat View Post
What does this mean? This means although the manufacturers are giving new orders to the component suppliers, they are squeezing them badly on the margin front. These guys are facing issues like rising steel costs & 10 - 12% bank loan interest rates. Where will they get money to invest in their business? Auto companies cannot have it both ways - squeeze the auto component guys on the margin front and then expect them to invest in new capacities at the same pace as the auto manufacturers.
Great perspective ! From a banker's point of view , these same auto component guys are not likely to get any funding for expansion of capacity or even if they get , they will get it at very high rates. That kills the efficiency of the supply chain and thus the pile up of the backlog !
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Old 19th June 2012, 14:10   #43
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

Even the Nano isn't available off the shelf anymore! I think in these days of uncertaintly about the fuel prices and the government's policy on diesel cars and other issues, most companies would like to operate lean, i.e. cut down on inventories at dealers' and at factories.

With petrol prices seemingly 'deregulated' and escalating at alarming levels, the petrol cars cannot be sold profitably, so by cutting down on inventories the companies may still be able to push them through to those who still want to buy them.

With diesel prices waiting to explode and/or diesel cars looking at hefty taxes, the market for diesel vehicles too is shaky at best.
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Old 19th June 2012, 15:55   #44
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ajman28
I too fail to understand why OEM's continue to use the delay tactics!

MSIL for one is definetely riding the wave because of the brand image. 9 months waiting period for a car?? Unless the car is completely hand made and designed to my specs, I will never accept this!

?
Maruti or Morgan? Take your pick!

Seems like the bad old monopoly days are here again eh?
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Old 19th June 2012, 17:20   #45
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Re: Waiting period for newly launched cars- WHY?

Quote:
Originally Posted by supremeBaleno View Post
In a nice twist to the whole waiting-period scenario, looks like the customers have now adopted a waiting-period to buy cars, leaving manufacturers and dealers with piled up inventory (as mentioned in another thread). Good, since 2 can play this game.

If fuel-prices are raised again or an additional tax is added on diesel cars, these guys can pile up their oh-so-much-in-demand cars in their yards and sit on their fat waiting lists.
+1 to that. Am glad to see manufacturers sitting on huge piles of inventory. Time to get some reality checks and become more customer friendly, by reducing waiting period and improving service levels.
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