[shortbread]

Originally Posted by akileshsri

No. Mahindra has been making engines in-house rather than importing like others. In fact where Mahindra scores better than Tata is in do-it-yourself attitude. This is seen in the Scorpio project, W201 and m-Hawk project. Tata's prowess is manufacturing, and Mahindra's is product development. M-Hawk is NOT IMPORTED. It is designed by Mahindra in consultation with AVL, Austria.

The 2.2 diesel uses an engine block designed by AVL from who sold the rights for the design to three companies Tata, Mahindra and Honda.

[akileshsri]

AVL is a consultant which helps OEMs by providing software and hardware packages required for engine simulations and testing. The block design, as such, will be designed in-house in consultation with AVL. In fact, not just Mahindra or Tata or Honda, but even BMW does the same thing.

[Sridhar K]

While it is good that Ratan is acknowledging the problem, they need to understand that a value of the car is also determined by ownership experience over a period of time and not just the quality of the product that comes out of the factory. While they had made major improvements in product development with Manza/Vista and Aria but cost of service, frequency of visits to the service station that is required, the experience at the service center itself all contributes to the degradation of brand value.

TML is rapidly loosing the VFM quotient which was the USP for them.

A few examples
1) A few days back I visited MPL Ford in Chennai where they had a board with the annual maintenance cost comparison of Figo with Vista and Swift. Per that chart, Vista is 1.5 times costlier to maintain than Figo. Cost wise, Figo Titanium is cheaper than Vista Vx but Titanium as air bags which Vx does not.

2) The worst case in point. For TCS employees, the corporate discount on Manza and Vista is Rs 7500 whereas Ford is giving a whopping Rs Thirty odd thousands for the same TCS employee.

3) The old Indica. With the advent of common rails, the Indica eV2 is much costlier to maintain than DLS (N/A) version. If you see every new Indica in Chennai, it is still the DLS and not the eV2. With BS4, slowly DLS will be phased out. Another example is the a/c switches on the same Indica. Earlier you could get a lever for less than Rs 100 if the switch goes kaput but not you have to change the entire assembly which is costly

My friends Indica DLS (not eV2) 20k service cost was 3.8k with an transmission oil change. Figos, Swift service charge at 20k are cheaper

4) TML by recommending Synthetic on Manza/Vista is increasing the service cost manifolds. For. e.g. for Manza, the recommended oil is Mobil 1 which is typically 4K for every service interval while for FIATs serviced by the same Tata it is Selenia which is ~ Rs 2600 for every oil change. Selenia is recommended for Manza too but the TASS only have Castrol edge/Mobil 1.

5) Increasing the cost of their cars is fine but without corresponding improvements in reliability, it is a recipe for disaster.

TML seems penny wise but pound foolish. With the amount of money spent by them on warranty replacement on power window switches, suspension bushes in Manza/Vista, they could have paid more for better quality switches. More than the pennies saved in getting them sourced from cheaper places, they are loosing out on reliability quotient which crores spent on advertising is not going to get them.

[arjab]

Just read a superb interview of Ratan Tata given to Hormazd-Editor of Autocar India in its September-2012 Anniversary Issue.

Amongst a wide range of issues discussed, one paragraph which really struck me and which brought out how passionate Mr. Tata is about cars, and i quote :

"Another dissapointment I can't get away from is the relative lack of passion I see in the company today in the passenger car area. I might be little long winded on this subject, but I've always felt that cars are emotive products that strike you with their design and overall driving experience. They are enchanting things that make you feel special.
A car is not a coffee making machine, it's a total experience. The market does not take whatever you give them, so unless you have atleast one or two people in the company who have that passion, the desire for perfection, and truly see what an ideal customer wants, you just have another car company. The automotive business won't allow you to sustain yourself by being just another company. You have to be driven by passion to give a driving experience, you have to be attractive to your customer, it's a bit of a romance"

I have never heard any owner of a car company speak with so much emotion and feelings about cars , and it literally brought tears to this Petrolhead's eyes who always wanted a pure Indian car company, to break into the global rank of world automakers , manufacturing some truly desirable cars. Cars which you will want to own, Cars that you will want to drive, Cars that you will want to take out and drive them by the scruff of its neck when you have that bad day in office and com back smiling, Cars that will make you smile, will let you steal that backward glance once you have parked it in your garage!

If Hyundai can do it why not Tata Motors? Come on TML !

[teamveevee]

Originally Posted by arjab

I have never heard any owner of a car company speak with so much emotion and feelings about cars ,

At the same time...if he knew the people managing Cars division is not passionate about cars, as the Chairman, he should have initiated some changes there? The PV division is with out a proper head for some time now. One thing i am sure is, even this statement is not enough to motivate the current upper management in PV division. Let us hope this will give confidence to the new MD to initiate major changes in PV division, that is in need of a turnaround..

[Ajitsingh208]

Ratan Tata spoke well, however, look at the image. It was a brand new Manza which was delivered y'day. The new owner took it to the temple & after Puja it refused to start. And I saw this car because I took delivery of my Tata Safari day before y'day and had to take it to the workshop as Beading on driver side door had come out & Indicators haven't been working. Apparently Tata assembly guys forgot to put the Flasher Relay.
I have purely gone for Safari over others because I love it in-spite of knowing that it'll take me to TASS a lot.
But would I recommend someone to buy a Tata Car-- NO.

[directinjection]

Originally Posted by Ajitsingh208

Ratan Tata spoke well, however, look at the image. It was a brand new Manza which was delivered y'day. The new owner took it to the temple & after Puja it refused to start.

Were you able to find out why it didn't start? It could well be a case of there not being enough fuel in the tank! Most dealers are quite miserly in that respect.

[directinjection]

Originally Posted by arjab

I have never heard any owner of a car company speak with so much emotion and feelings about cars , and it literally brought tears to this Petrolhead's eyes who always wanted a pure Indian car company, to break into the global rank of world automakers , manufacturing some truly desirable cars. Cars which you will want to own, Cars that you will want to drive, Cars that you will want to take out and drive them by the scruff of its neck when you have that bad day in office and com back smiling, Cars that will make you smile, will let you steal that backward glance once you have parked it in your garage! If Hyundai can do it why not Tata Motors? Come on TML !

Well said arjab! Exactly my feelings too!

[Ajitsingh208]

Originally Posted by directinjection

Were you able to find out why it didn't start? It could well be a case of there not being enough fuel in the tank! Most dealers are quite miserly in that respect.

There was some problem with the battery, it died & from what I heard the owner had called Crossroads who diagnosed it as some faulty sensors.
Well this car was replaced by a white one.
The dealer said that the battery has very less charging when a car is delivered and a customer is supposed to drive the car around to ensure that it gets charged. Shouldn't a new battery be given fully charged? If not then they should mention it explicitly at the time of delivery.

[gops2009]

There are multiple threads in this forum and elsewhere, which talks about vehicles manufactured by Indian manufacturers being sub-standard, with questionable reliability, bitter customer experiences, callous attitude or ineptness of service centers and so on. I want to understand what people in this community think of Indian manufacturers -

When broaching this topic I have especially Mahindra and Tata in mind, while Tata’s foray into the passenger car segment started with the Tata Sierra and Tata Estate, Mahindra began this journey with the Armada. IMO, the two have made a lot of progress over the decade in absolute terms. They have incorporated their learnings as well as market feedback- there is no denying that ,and let us face it, Toyota or Honda or Renault were not any better off twenty years into their foray in passenger car either, what they had was a demanding customer base, who would not tolerate nonsense, this fueled an attitude and a culture with a bent to attain and sustain perfection, and a constant need to innovate, driven by the changing customer requirements and statutory laws stipulated in different markets they sold into.

The Indian manufacturers also have these qualities or attributes to some measure and face the same set of challenges plus a few more being late starters and the policies and infrastructure challenges. They have made, a slow start but surely they have begun moving towards preparing to make the globe their market place. Tata with Nano made the world sit up with the concept today popularly known as ‘Frugal Engineering’ while this ( frugal engineering) has been there in our rural areas for several decades now .Tata’s did India proud by putting us on the automotive global map- it told the world India can build cars and how!! .

But are we ,as customers/consumers doing our bit to ensure that a Tata or a Mahindra is egged on to run head to head with a Toyota? Or are we taking the easy path of being arm chair critics, ? How can the car loving community in India help waking up our own auto giants – It is time to debate and maybe collate ideas

Mods: Hope I have posted this in the right sub-forum , else please help move this to the relevant forum

[rlvl]

Answering your question first: Yes: Indian car manufacturers do have a future.
Let's take a look at our two main manufacturers: Tata and Mahindra.
Tata secured up it's future in the automotive world not just by unveiling the Nano to the world, but by buying up JLR. The expertise , the design philosophy of those two great companies will filter down the ranks and begin showing up in the Tata cars soon.
Mahindra's acquisition of ssangyong too was a good move to get the know-how of making higher end vehicles.
Both the companies have upped the quality and finish of their interiors in their latest offerings (Aria and XUV 500) and will only get better. Their offerings have always been great value for money propositions and will remain so. So, yeah.. 10~15 years down the line, Tata and Mahindra will very much be around!

[shankar.balan]

I think we are trying very hard indeed and will certainly be around for a long time to come.
We just need to ensure that we keep our minds open to new learnings and do our best to provide consistent value to consumers on a sustained engagement basis.

We will move ahead, thats for sure. Whether we will actually 'lead' the industry, that's a big question...

[Car_Freak_911]

As rlvl said, even I feel that Tata's acquisition of the JLR and Mahindra's acquisition of Ssanyong itself secures its future in the automotive industry. Both Tata and Mahindra would obviously try to bring the quality of their products to the level of products of JLR and ssanyong to keep up with the demands in market and that too at a cheaper price. Also they have emerged recently and take customer feedback positively. This would obviously lead to more people buying them and better future of the company. We can see this in Bajaj too. After Bajaj's partnership with ktm, we can see that they have also started manufacturing bikes that have become a serious competition to ktm in the market because of them being cheaper than their counterparts but delivering almost equal performance.

So yes, they do have a good future.

[av8er]

Yes they definitely have a future.

I have a Tata Indigo CS Dicor with 70k on the odo and I have not faced any major issues with the vehicle. Honestly when I bought the vehicle I was not happy with it as I wanted a bigger car but then due to financial constraints I went in for this car as it was the need of the hour and I wanted a sedan and if you ask me if I will go for Tata again a Definite YES.

I have also had a good experience with Mahindra though the vehicle here is the proven workhorse the Commander DP and it served the purpose we had got it for.

They are in the learning curve and I really feel we should give them a chance. Look at Hyundai they were rebuked and written of the in the 70s but today they are slowly climbing to the top. I have been to South Korea and believe me 75% of the vehicles including buses and trucks there are Hyundai. Talk to a Korean and he will tell you that Hyundai's are the best vehicle followed by Kia, Ssangyong or RSM. You hardly find a Japanese vehicle although they are more fans of the German ones. No wonder they are economy is soo stable.

Personal opinion but as Indians we should not let them down.

[narayan]

The patriotism card will never work in India unlike how it helped the Chinese/Korean or Japs. Let's face it - we as a nation are a highly unpatriotic lot with our "diversity". That makes it even more challenging because your home market isn't going to support you with high sales which will fuel further R&D and better products. Between the 2 , M&M seems to have done a much better job on multiple parameters while TML still tries to play the "Tata trusted brand" card which will not cut much ice very soon. With due respect to Ratan Tata, I wonder why he couldn't stem the rot in TML himself during his long tenure ?