[DieselDon]

Originally Posted by wilful

Wow!! That sure looks handsome! Just checked that link.
Is this hybrid version selling in India? Interesting specs - AT too.
I agree with you - why can't they phase out the current Manza bring this design? I'm sure it would generate a lot more interest.

Unfortunately, It is just a concept (as far as I know). Did hear sometime ago that it might start selling in the UK first though.
Just booked a Rapid after waiting for any New moves by Tata. (Wanted to be Be Indian & Buy Indian - but could not help)

[Debcha]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

The point is that this forum sometimes takes a distinct anti Tata tone by making frivolous statements - which just add no value. That should be discouraged. Because the malaise Tata is suffering from, some manufacturers are even more pinned to bed by it, which of course is not highlighted with as much enthusiasm.

I guess Indian product bashing is in vogue - many of us take the distinct pride in taking down an Indian product while tom-toming a "Phoren" one.

While I have now moved to a French one - The 5 1/2 years of ownership of Tata Safari was blissful. Not only did I have no major hassle, this vehicle had been instrumental in saving the skin of me & my family.

By no means am I saying that Tata Motors as a company has arrived or has no further improvements to make, but so has the orthers like Suzuki, Honda & Toyata - who had to call back their cars for modifications. Everyone learns from experience & I guess TML is expected to do so.

[anjan_c2007]

The article from Business Standard of 14/07/2012 says that Tata will take the competition head-on. Right they are, but they need to do a lot of homework in the image building and marketing departments, apart from setting right product apprehensions and quality niggles that have taken a toll and /or got their products under-rated in the market.
Whenever someone wants to buy a Tata car and comes to me to seek my opinion for buying a "B" or lower "C" segment car, I support their liking for Tata cars but for the quality niggles. However, their solid build quality ( TATA STEEL all over ) in the respective class is something the Japanese and Koreans cannot emulate.



Only hope things will get better at Tata Motors!

[Latheesh]

What they need is:

1) New design language - they need to come out of that family look they are trying in each and every products

2) Drastic improvement in manufacturing practices - Difficult

3) Better SCM practices

[chennai-indian]

Originally Posted by rrsteer

The point is that this forum sometimes takes a distinct anti Tata tone by making frivolous statements - which just add no value. That should be discouraged. Because the malaise Tata is suffering from, some manufacturers are even more pinned to bed by it, which of course is not highlighted with as much enthusiasm.

Absolutely agree. I have driven Tata cars (Vista and Manza) and believe me, the quality, fit and finish have hugely improved off late. The issue more is the perception of low quality that Tata suffers from and of course the very real issue of pathetic service and dealer experience.

[safari_lover]

1. Faster product development process and frequent updates. In the past year or so every other manufacturer has launched a new or refreshed product. But TaMo has been absolutely lull.

2. Better marketing of their new launches. There's no buzz/advertisement for their newly launched products. For ex. the Venture UV looked a potential threat to Eco/Omni when unveiled at the Auto Expo. But few know if it's launched and still fewer know if it's available in their city.

[Mindgrinder]

been reading this thread from page 1, let me share my experience with Tata and why i did not choose it over my fiat linea. Although dealer was pretty reluctant to sell me Linea and was trying to sell it in one single color (bossa nova white) and i wanted tuscan wine.

I test drove both Manza and Linea, my dad just loved Manza for its sofa like amby seat he was hell bent on getting Manza for its low price and Sofa like rear seats, even though he owns a city this car was being chosen for me and this was a diesel which he planned would be used by his driver on long drives so rear seat comfort mattered. So i took the Manza for a spin and what a bad steering it had dead! (i used to drive Santro and Punto before that) the steering was even worse than my Xing. The clutch was light though and turbo lag was quite evident, when the showroom guy closed the boot of Manza it did not even close in one go, he had to really bang it really hard to close it, but i should accept it had oodles of space.

Now i test drove the linea and woah the gear ratios were tuned better less turbo lag, steering is just brilliant, switches, sterring controls, interiors are way better than Manza and seemed that they can last plus the design is timeless. Tata had blue screen of stereo with crappy wihte monochrome thing looked really cheap compared to Fiat with Orange backlit and Black text.

so as per me Tata made a cheap car image in front of me, and Fiat even though just around 1.5 lakh costlier gave a more premium feel this is what tata misses, the customer connection.

What they can do is create a pseudo premium brand under Tata's umbrella without telling it's Tata motors for example there Voltas brand of AC's. Like Fiat has chrysler, Volkswagen has Skoda and Audi, many ppl still do not know Skoda belongs to Volkswagen umbrella.

Mahindra was able to achieve it because they took the market with least competition the affordable SUV and they kept quality with lots of features and competitive prices, Mahindra marketing is way stronger than Tata's plus they knew India needs SUV. Look at Storme review in non official review thread, it is a brilliant car but lacks lot of features and finishes if Tata adds those it will beat XUV hands down as XUV is a soft roader.

[RS_DEL]

Let me digress just a wee bit here but in a related direction.

When the jewel in the TML crown i.e. JLR turned in a sterling performance post the TML take over, it was more due to the foresight of the existing JLR management which was in place prior to the TML takeover than any nuggets of wisdom that the TML brass forced down the collective gullets of the JLR chaps like a quinine ki goli. The focus on product development and quality which resulted in the consequent JD Power rankings , IS the mindset that TML needs to adopt.

The present management of TML seems singularly incapable of doing just that. The ideal solution seems to be to bring in key people from JLR and give them absolute power to make changes. It is only blood letting and change that can provide TML the ability to redeem and e-establish itself.

[Holyghost]

Originally Posted by Mindgrinder

so as per me Tata made a cheap car image in front of me, and Fiat even though just around 1.5 lakh costlier gave a more premium feel this is what tata misses, the customer connection.

I found this quote quite interesting. Really thought provoking.

Will people buy the Manza if it provided the same quality and luxury feel at a 1L+ increase in price? Let's say the price difference comes down to <40K difference between a Linea and a Manza with same quality of interiors.

Personally I think I might still go with Fiat since the price difference is less.

[carwatcher]

I think this thread throws more light in what was going on in TML sometime back.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ml#post2500058

I never understand how much Indian one becomes after buying Tata cars and using Tata Namak - Desh ka Namak. TML could also use the line "More Indian per Car". Mind you the Indica was designed in Italy. I am more than 100% sure the Indian who is buying Tata car is definitely using Phoren made Mobile as most of the Indian mobiles are not upto the mark and are actually made in China. Why bring emotions in every matter and TML is surely taking the advantage of this mentality to the fullest.
Tata Motors are exceptionally good in making brilliant Ads, bling, beautiful alloy wheels, copying some nice shades from their partners/competitors, thats all. It was surely working for them but as they say "you can't fool all the people all the time". I have first hand witnessed the dealer attitude and sales experience of Tata while buying my T-Jet and I have decided never to visit any Tata showroom leave alone buying a Tata product.

I would also like to mention that when Indica was launched, the general public was full of pride and media and public was just madly in love with the car, but what Tata delivered in return, a half-baked product with full of niggles. Now can anyone tell me that if now public bashes Tata, is it due to Tata's fault or someone else's. Isn't the same public trusts Titan and Tanishq brands blindly. Tata (and public and media) repeated same story with Nano with Billions of rupees worth free publicity and now Aria. TML simply don't realise that it takes generations to correct any mistake especially in auto-sector.
I don't see any fault of general public. The same Indian public is going ga-ga over XUV which is also desi product and which is not even 90% niggle free but look at M&M's sincere attitude to transform themselves to international levels. Even if they replace (not repair) most of the parts of their XUVs for free for customer's benefit, I am sure they would even at a profit if they compare it with the savings in advertising and free publicity and repeat customers.
I for one support TMLs strategy in holding the launch of Storme as it doesn't have exciting looks as XUV and if launched half-baked, would further dent Safari and TML's image. Not to mention they need to spend a huge sum to make people even notice the launch.
Wake up Tata and smell the coffee (or Tata Tea - jaago re)

[nipun dhingra]

I am an owner of 2008 indica vista. I was apprehensive about the tata quality at first but decided to give it a go primary due to the MJD engine and secondly there was hardly any option other than swift at that time. Now after owning the car for 4 years this is my feedback:
1. The cost control everywhere does hurts in the long run. There have been numerous failures of window switches, power windows, ac compressor replacement twice, bad quality plastics and repetitive small niggles. I dont think that any customer is ready to visit the service centre every second month to rectify the niggles.

2. Their customer feed back is restricted to only being rated on a scale of 1-5. I have not seen any improvement in the attitude of the *** after cribbing for 4 years with the call centre guys.

3. Because of my experience with vista I decided against buying a Aria and settled with XUV instead and i really thank tata for killing my confidence in the tata brand otherwise I would be stuck with a 15 lac unreliable car instead of my 13 lac NIGGLE FREE (so far) XUV.

But being an indian my suggestions to tata would be :
1. Try to be VFM and not cheap.
2. Increase the prices of your products but provide best plastics and trouble free components.
3. Improve your *** by learning from mahindra' commitment For their XUV.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by Debcha

I guess Indian product bashing is in vogue - many of us take the distinct pride in taking down an Indian product while tom-toming a "Phoren" one..

Is it so? How come Maruti is so popular? Or Hyundai, which has made India as the small car manufacturing base, and exports to Europe? Or Renault, which is going to export the duster manufactured in India.
There exist factories in India, selling cars to the most demanding markets in the world. Many high quality products are designed in India. A lot of cutting edge VLSI design is done in India.

Coming to vehicle quality now a lot of people assume, that a low quality car means everybody who owns the car will have issues. But that is not the case. Quality is usually measured in issues/100 cars.
A member called Zenx did a poll
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...lity-poll.html

ITs a public poll
85 owners responded. Thats a big number. Its a public poll
21.5% reported major issues with the vehicle. Thats 21 out of 100.
48 people, i.e. more than half said minor niggles.

19 out of 85 said no issues.
I know atleast 5 of those people(whose vehicles were new at that time), who are now literally weeping. Their vehicles spend more time at service center than at their homes.
It does no matter who is at fault, the service center, or Tata QC. For a customer its all Tata.
And if you think people would lap up anything "phoren", Land Rover jokes existed much before Tata bought them. So bad quality is bad quality, whether in India or Britain. You are also free to check out threads criticizing Mercedes for poor electronics. So yes, people bash phoren also.
But then, why look at numbers. Just use the words "Indian", "Phoren", "bashing", "patriotism" etc., in a post, create an emotional strawman and win the argument, its easier than looking at hard data, which actually takes time eh?

[Debcha]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Just use the words "Indian", "Phoren", "bashing", "patriotism" etc., in a post, create an emotional strawman and win the argument, its easier than looking at hard data, which actually takes time eh?

Agree with you 100%. My only observation about people in India (including myself) has been that we generally tend to be less forgiving to our products & are also willing to pay less for the same. The Japs & the Americans do give the extra leeway to their own, which is sad from our perspective. Most of us would not be agreeable to give the same price to an Indian car on a like to like basis. Even for the XUV, many buy it because it is cheaper than the Endeavour or the Fortuner.

[getsurya]

Market share? only when:

1- Tata does not treat it's customers as 'Guinea pigs'
2- Tata takes both 'Sales' and 'Service' seriously
3- Tata corrects the Business strategy of 'Selling economical cars' but recovers the monies with spares & service later
4- Tata listens to its 'Customers and Corrects' the products
5- Tata values the new normal of the 'Auto mindset' of an average Indian

[Sanjunair5]

For me this question begs a deeper analysis beyond Tata's well know QC issue. This is not a car lover’s question, but more of an equity analyst’s question. This is a question I would like to answer for myself when I am contemplating investing in Tata Motors. And at this time I have only questions with every question leading to more questions!
• Does Tata Motors have a 5 year, 10 year vision? # 1 in India, Asia? I don’t know. Companies display concepts at trade shows, leader give interviews, use other mass communication mediums to convey this. Tata has been regularly demonstrating concepts and unfortunately I haven’t seen any make into production. To the extent that nowadays concepts from Tata do not interest me so much.
• Tata’s product portfolio is aging and they need to do something very fast. I do not understand Tata’s product strategy. They make everything and do not have a niche that is their stronghold. If we look around all the major manufacturers have niche. Tata should have had more products in the SUV or small car segments. They had Safari when very few could spell SUV in India and one would almost have expected them to come up with a Safari Jr. or a Safari Sr. But instead we have Duster and XUVs lapping up the market. Indica has been around for a decade and a half. And in that time Maruti and Hyundai have launched small cars after small cars. What is stopping Tata from expanding their small car portfolio? I am sure that will sell more than Aria. A lot has been said about Aria, hence not getting into it. I would love to see a Duster sized compact 5 seater SUV or a premium hatch from Tata.
• What is Tata doing to build a Tata car brand in passenger cars? I could be less than accurate here. But this is what I feel. Tata has been lethargic about building a Tata passenger car brand. Tata clearly wants the taxi/cab market and this clearly conflicts with the brand expectation of an average car buyer. They need to create different brand associations for residential and commercial markets so that an average residential car buyer feels good about having bought a Tata. Owners please do not take any offence. And slogging old war horses with more acronyms (XL, CS etc.) only worsens it.
• Management Team. I think they have a strong leadership team in Ratan Tata, Subodh Bhargava, Ravi Kant all industry veterans who really ‘know’. This is something that as an investor I will be comfortable with.
• Tata’s market strategy. This though tightly linked to the first three bullets, it begs a separate discussion. With the who’s who of the automobile world fighting out in India how does Tata plan to win its customer? From what I can see it is a home grown VFM car manufacturer, with that patriotic hint and leveraging Tata’s reputation. This is good except that 10 years from now it may not connect with a today’s 15 year old preparing to buy his first car. This is difficult and I am sure Tata Motors knows this.
• Balance sheet. Do they have enough reserves, how is their dividend track record, how does their margins look like compared to peers and competitors? I didn’t do much research as I am not planning to invest. This would tell me how the company’s fundamentals are. How sustainable their current practices are. From whatever I know it is pretty sound, though the last few quarters have been pretty rough, right? More informed people can comment on it.
Overall I feel Tata Motors is a sound company and they will climb back up. I say this because I feel they have a leadership team that recognizes these challenges and is taking measures to set it right. It is not easy to transform a truck maker into a world class car manufacturer. I have made several assumptions in making up this inference, but if I were indeed planning to invest instead of assuming I will find out facts. That said the only concern I have is where is their next big market hit?