[balajird]

Sir, now that the Ford Fusion is sharing many of its components including Engine with the Fiesta, do we still see it to be expensive to maintain?
I agree with you on Fusion, i still fail to understand why it is not getting its due recognition.

[rajtheindian]

Originally Posted by Dillu-TVM

Yes, i had never seen this vehicle on the road.It was there in a Malayalam Movie named "harikrishnans" strrring Mammooty and Mohanlal. It think that vehicle had an Isuzu 2.0 ltr diesel engine, but not sure..

Yes was a mega flop
I found it is mentioned in the below forum
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...light-day.html

This was based on the OLD Renault Espace went out of production in 1991
more details
Renault Espace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[mithun]

Most of these cars failed because they came from cos which the common folks have no trust.

[Gilead]

Nice writeup Sawyer. I am curious to know what kind of propoganda Maruti and Hyundai ran against the Palio. I was not that into cars at that time and I missed the context.

I will buy a Fusion like car if it were to be offered by Hyundai or Toyota.

[jaaz]

Taxis: well, they prefer any car from any manufacturer that offers them a discount. Explains why so many taxis are indigos and indigo xls. the petrol variants of these models JUST dont sell. tata gives a large discount + cng kit. taxi operators flock to buy - quote from Frankmehta.

Well, Worldwide, Mercedes Benz is known as Taxi Car. It doesn't mean that Mercedes is a poorly built Car. Taxi people see value for money and the back seat comfort of the Customers.

In the Gulf people prefer Mercedes over BMW, just because it can be repaired anywhere unlike BMW, which goes with lot of electronic gadgetary. But BMW is a Driver's Car. And most of the Chauffer driven cars are Benz.

[McLaren Rulez]

Worlwide is different from India. The taxi driver must get back the money he used to buy the taxi. Few of us here would pay a huge sum and travel in a Merc everytime. So at the end of the day, cheap efficient reliable cars are taxis here. Nothing wrong with that either as we are, simply put, not the richest country in the world (yet).

[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by Gilead

Nice writeup Sawyer. I am curious to know what kind of propoganda Maruti and Hyundai ran against the Palio. I was not that into cars at that time and I missed the context.

For one, on the FE, what they did was fully exploited the lower FE of the cars by putting out a much bigger difference with their small cars than what existed in reality. In addition, I think, but am not sure, that there was an odo calibration error made by Fiat that made the FE look a little worse than what it actually was - it was corrected later, but by that time a lot of damage had been done. Finally, the market was persuaded to compare the car with the Zen/Santro for price points, whereas it was a car that was better built and finished than these. Fiat should perhaps have not dropped the Uno as soon as the Palio came in, the Uno could have taken the competition head on, while Palio established a new market segment.

[Nanolover]

Mods: I searched for this topic coudnt find one. Kindly merge if already there. These are all my personal opinions and no offence to any owners. Sorry for the tounge in cheek remarks.


With all the latest models flooding our shores, it would perhaps be the right time to go down memory lane to identify those duds in our nascent auto market. These are all my personal choices and i will update them once i have time
The list hereby. (to be continued...)

1. Maruti 1000

Launched at the start of the 90's it was THE car for Maruti. Here was a stylish, contemporary and sleek sedan from the country's leading manufacturer more known for its humble 800 and the omni. In one sweep it made all the sedans then available like the contessa, 118ne, ambassador all look as exciting as Doordarshan's parliamentary news. It was THE car to be seen in and it became an instant hit. But then people began to drive it and very quickly found out that beneath the space age shape body beat a heart of pure arthritis. The 1000 cc engine put out a pathetic 46hp, wheezed and struggled to pull the car at the speed its shape held promise. Worse still if the aircon was switched on. And that the aircon would cool only well in Siberia added to the disgusted sweaty look on the owners face as even dinky 800s flew past him. Thankfully Maruti updated it midlife with the new 1300cc engine and renamed it the Esteem. The 1000 was left to die a slow death, but for sure it won't be missed.

2. Tata Sierra/Estate

Buoyed by its success in the LCV segment, optimism was the new word in TATA. The empire had to spread horizontally and make itself a household name in all corners of India. For that it had to enter the automotive segment. But to jump straight from trucks to cars was a big leap of faith that even TATA did not wanna risk. So someone suggested bridge products, like SUVs, people carriers to learn the ropes and finesse of car manufacturing before somersaulting headlong into the mass production swimming pool. Sounded great, but it wasn't as we shall soon see.

The first products to wheeze along was the Tata Estate (the tata mobile was there but it was biblically agricultural). On the face of it was brilliant. It was the perfect car for the great big Indian family with enough space for all the auntijis and unclejis. It had unheard of luxury features at that time, power steering, central locking, power windows ( very much the fashion statement then),Mercedes lookalike seats and a refined diesel engine. A huge estate car that if you squinted a bit, looked like the Mercedes Benz estate. Looked promising, but alas it all started to fall apart pretty soon.

It wasn't as much as just one problem, but a list so huge and so unfathomable that it literally broke the back of TATA's service department and tarnished the reputation of this and for that matter the Sierra's for ever. Even to this day the image of TATAs as high maintenance vehicles are due in part because of these. The engine though smooth and refined, was prone to drinking oil, coolant loss, smoking, starting problems what not. The electrics were even worse with dentist drill sounding and awfully slow power windows, blown fuses and if at all the powered accessories did work, the under spec alternator drained the battery so it won't start again. Fantastic.

And then we come to the biggest problem of them all-the weight. The truck making ethos ensured that the car weighed as much as the moon and proved too much for the tiny 1948 cc engine. Opening the doors (the poor plastic handles didn't help much) felt like opening the doors to a bank vault. This weight took its effect on the suspension and the tires with the front ones gobbled up at an alarming rate! All this ensured that you spend more days in the garage than on the road and when word of mouth got around, people deserted it in droves.

Quite sad then, that these were the vehicles I dreamed of owning when I was a child. Even to this day a well maintained one can still turn heads (but finding them is like looking for penguins in Rajasthan). Sad, a brilliant concept but let down by horrible execution. But in hindsight, TATA wouldn't have been what it is today without these learning curves. Lucky I was not part of that curve.

[Samurai]

I can think of Standard 2000 and Sipani Dolphin which were much bigger flops than M1000 and Sierra/Estate.

[dhanushs]

Sam Strom, 1st gen Indica(Though they bettered it)

[amitoj]

Ford Escort anyone?
And the Daewoo Cielo. I remember drooling over it whenever its ad used to air.

[dot]

Maruti Suzuki Zen Classic. The one which looks like Hitler, with odd round head lights and lots and lots of unnecessary chrome.

Will add if some more model/variants comes in mind.

[condor]

Looks like the discussion is about models that flopped. A lemon is typically a single unit that has so many problems that it is not fit for use, cant be repaired and must be scrapped..

eg. of a lemon is Varun Roy's Sumo.

[SR-71]

Premier 110 NE & 118 NE, Zen D, Daewoo Matiz (which did take a new avatar in form of Spark)

[Nanolover]

1. Fiat Uno
   Perfect Car ( sort of but her it was 96 and back then anything would look like Cameron Diaz on our 800 full roads) perfect size, perfect price.Sounds too good to be true?
   Unfortunately so it was. The story of Fiat in India is of missed opportunities. The spoon of success was at the tip of their mouth but unfortunately it disappered without a trace.

First of all they decided to tie up with PAL and set up shop in Kurla. Worse, they let PAL run the show. Labour trouble was waiting in the wings, Kurla went into lockout and customer confidence and patience soon started evaporating. Many couldnt wait any longer, cancelled and rightfully demanded their refund which PAL didnt bother paying anyway. Fiat wanted to step in and save the sinking boat but alas, PAL was in a long drawn and protracted battle with it other partner- Puegot!
Perfect recipe for a bollywood flick. The few cars that did emerge from the cash strapped PAL were available in a wide variety of colours-red or white!


That is not to say there werent faults with the product. The italinas in all their logic thought to power the indian uno with their acclaimed1.0 FIRE engine. Perfect ! They thought...good small engine for a nation obssesed with Fuel efficency. Somewhere along the way they forgot the need for an equally strong a/c to fend off the blast furnace indian summer. The orignal system they had designed wouldnt cool at all and so they had to retro engineer a system that could work. Well retro engineering never works and they lost valuable time and the intial lot of unos didnt even have A/c.


The new one had a huge Sanden compressor which sounded like a siren when on, was mounted on the cylinder head so it vibrated like a truck. Worse, in a mystery lost in time, Fiat had equipped the engine with the Weber carburateur that was NOT designed to take on an A/C ( unlike marutis mikuni). It was a single choke affair, had no a/c idle speed circuit, so the idle rpm had to be kept high to compensate for the a/c –the sideeffects of which were pathetic fuel consumption with a/c on and drivability /flat spot issues.


I shall go on..the initial ones didnt even have a temprature gauge, so the only sign of overheating ( for sure..because the wiring was done by apes) were a feeble light ( if it worked) and smoke from the bonnet. Lack of spares, their high cost,electrical issues,pathetic service attitude all gradually killed off the petrol version. FIAT steppd in finally with cash, more colours and better still improved the product with the mikuni carb ( it should have had this in the first place). But the damage had been done and it was too late to save it.


To be continued....