[ghodlur]

Why is this sudden self realization to be more quality concious than quantity from Hyunadai. AFAIK they were producing quality cars atleast in India when they established. Did the quality take a beating down the years coz I dont reading too many Hyundai recalls. In fact when the call for quantity came in (after the sucesss of i10 & i20's) they did the expansion to meet the demand.

Instead Hyundai should focus on the quality of the dealership and after sales+ spares cost. If they upped the ante here, quantity will automatically follow. They are still lurkingly behind the industry top 2 majors.

[nettooran]

I drive an i20 , but do sometimes shuffle between my Fathers Getz and in-laws santro. All three Hyundais have given us a very satisfying experience. The Getz is one car that specially needs a special mention here. It was by far the most comfortable drive I have had. The engine is well refined, the gears are butter smooth and the ride is a class above. Hyundai is a definite alternative to maruthi for those who are looking for a solid service backup too.

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Why is this sudden self realization to be more quality concious than quantity from Hyunadai. AFAIK they were producing quality cars atleast in India when they established.
Instead Hyundai should focus on the quality of the dealership and after sales+ spares cost. If they upped the ante here, quantity will automatically follow. They are still lurkingly behind the industry top 2 majors.

Good point that you have raised sir. But the improvement in quality is done not keeping India as the priority but Europe and US of A as the priority! They are gearing up to take on the German giants, mainly the VW Golf category.

[vishwas]

Hyundai always seemed to care a lot about quality - in visits to the service center, it is suggested that anything below 8 on 10 rating was considered bad. The main customer service is good and responsive - an e-mail to cr@hmil.net always elicits a response by e-mail and a call later from the servicing dealer. I have had some issues with quality - the infamous i20 steering rattle noise, certain parts losing their chrome or vinyl lining (points to quality issues at their vendors). Hyundai has been good at responding to these under warranty maintenance. The service center tries to slack off sometimes, but an e-mail to Hyundai brings their attention back to the problem. As others have pointed out the equipment and trim are much better than comparable cars. However they definitely have a problem with pricing their replacement parts - the MRP on a rear window wiper (not including the motor assembly) is Rs 2200+, A leather wrapped/chrome topped gear knob is Rs 1400, the ABS cable harness is Rs 2500. The i20 Asta is so loaded with electric motors, that it is scary to imagine paying MRP and replacing parts with quality issues in future years. So any visible/measurable improvement in overall quality and more importantly component quality is welcome.

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by A350XWB

... And with millions of recalls till now and counting, I don't think Toyota has the quality they had years ago. Again, this is my personal opinion. Toyota themselves created the situation for others to dig at them, right?

Originally Posted by ghodlur

Did the quality take a beating down the years coz I dont reading too many Hyundai recalls. In fact when the call for quantity came in (after the sucesss of i10 & i20's) they did the expansion to meet the demand.

Let me give a different perspective to you all to chew on. This is without getting into the direct debate on Hyundai's quality of vehicles as such.

Some time back I was meeting some of the top Hyundai officials in India as a part of a contingent. It was the evening snacks and general meet and greet time. The discussion veered pff towards the recalls that were happening just then from Toyota the world over and Tata in India (IIRC, it was the Nano issue). The guests also wanted to know on whether we should see more of recalls in India also as that seems to add a halo around the manufacturer in certain ways for being honest.

One of the Hyundai guys there suddenly asked, what is the general perception about recalls amongst the car buying junta? Then he further stressed on the media and its take on recalls. His point was people do not like hearing about mass recalls and it shakes their faith on the manufacturer. Media further adds grist to the mill by talking incessantly about it all day long and only focussing on the numbers like people affected, the loss the company will incur and such. He was pretty categorical that they at Hyundai do not think recalls are the way to go as thats an absolute loss making proposition for the manufacturer.

The takeaway from that discussion for me was that unless regulations force them to do so (like it happened with Toyota on the stuck accelerator issue) manufactureres or at least Hyundai for sure does not believe in recalls and in a country like India that will never happen from Hyundai stable for sure.

Now does recalls not happening from Hyundai when others around them are doing so for one set of faults or the other sounds like a big thing? I am not sure. It may be just by design. I recall, just after Subbu left, we came across a recurring set of reports on transmission failure in brand new Hyundais with 20000 to 40000 on their clocks. Did we see any recalls? No. But such sudden catastrophic failures probably pointed to a batch of defective products. How Hyundai dealt with it? Probably, on a case to case basis they addressed those. It got burried in time. Had they issued a recall instead to check on the entire batch they would have left a recallable incident for the future.

So on Hyundai's anointment to greatness (and I have no issues with their canonization ) if we also bring in the point about they being recall free as compared to others I would just suggest we think again. It may just be a case of shrewd business logic wherein Hyundai had no such qualms but others like Tatas and Toyotas felt compelled to do a recall as they felt they were answerable to their customers.

[ghodlur]

Originally Posted by Zappo

He was pretty categorical that they at Hyundai do not think recalls are the way to go as thats an absolute loss making proposition for the manufacturer

So Hyundai believes that being not transparent about the issues is a step to achieve better quality

The takeaway from that discussion for me was that unless regulations force them to do so (like it happened with Toyota on the stuck accelerator issue) manufactureres or at least Hyundai for sure does not believe in recalls and in a country like India that will never happen from Hyundai stable for sure

I guess Indian context does require the auto manufacturers to be more pro active as far as recall are concerned or for that matter anything related to the quality of the vehicle being produced. I am not sure if there is any laid down regulations for the same.

we came across a recurring set of reports on transmission failure in brand new Hyundais with 20000 to 40000 on their clocks.
Probably, on a case to case basis they addressed those. It got burried in time. Had they issued a recall instead to check on the entire batch they would have left a recallable incident for the future

Maybe the numbers may not be large for the case to case basis resolve but if the numbers would have been > 1L cars would they have still stuck to same logic.

but others like Tatas and Toyotas felt compelled to do a recall as they felt they were answerable to their customers

I am sure Hyundai is too answerable to the Indian customers for the products they sell. If not then however great the focus is on quality they are not going to be the market leaders.

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by Zappo

Let me give a different perspective to you all to chew on.
It may just be a case of shrewd business logic wherein Hyundai had no such qualms but others like Tatas and Toyotas felt compelled to do a recall as they felt they were answerable to their customers.

Zappo, the points listed by you are very valid. But let me assure you that not a single manufacturer, let it be Toyota, Hyundai or any other for that matter does not act, if the law of the land is not stringent enough. In the US, even Hyundai has made recalls. The legal implications, if a problem crops up and causes damage in a place like US is a nightmare for the manufacturer. But in a country like ours, where law has one of the least value, it's difficult to make manufacturers accountable for their mistakes. There are some who take proactive measures, but some just want to wait and see.
For example, there has been numerous complaints regarding insufficient braking of L/V versions of Swift and nobody seems to bother.
A reputed two-wheeler manufacturer in India released one of their new models with 24 open issues in the issue list; some serious, some minor.
A reputed CV manufacturer in India specifically told the supplier to electronically (randomly after the warranty expired) disable the glowplug so that they can cash in on the revenue from spares eventhough the actual plug was found to far exceeded the working time required by the manufacturer.
Small insider secrets, but things like this happen with every manufacturer. I don't think anybody is a saint in the industry.

[praveen_n]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

There is still no company which can touch Toyota for reliability.

beg to differ here. The new corollas are no comparison to the olders ones in terms of quality.In dubai I had read news about couple of toyota SUV's (new ones) on which the Cruise control got stuck while at speeds of 130 and above .. Toyota has gone down a lot on reliability where as koreans are improving.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by GTO

In my books, Hyundai is already equal to / beating the Japanese & Europeans. Thus, if the company states that its focus is on quality over quantity, I'm going to believe them. Look at the track record!

Don't know if I have missed something but the rise of Hyundai has not come at the loss of sales for either the Germans or the Japanese or even the Americans. GM is getting stronger now, Volkswagen is on course of becoming the largest automobile maker, Toyota is still the largest automobile maker. Yes Hyundai sales have increased in USA but at the cost of smaller players. The only thing that has changed is that these manufacturers now don't dismiss but consider Hyundai as a threat. Obviously, they won't be standing still while Hyundai improves. The quality just doesn't mean plastics, they still lack the depth of engineering the others have.

Originally Posted by GTO

The dynamics & handling definitely need improvement. But 99 / 100 customers prefer soft suspensions + light, lifeless steerings. While the Verna is a boat at speed, the i20 certainly isn't. For their respective segments, the i10 & Eon don't have bad road manners either.

Well the above statement may hold true for India but not where I am currently, Europe. You cannot see the whole world with a single goggle and assume that everything works the same everywhere.

Originally Posted by GTO

Funny you say that when 1/2 the world is going crazy over Samsung smartphones. I'm using a Galaxy S and IMHO the quality is excellent. It's over a year and the stock battery is still holding up good, while the screen is sharp. I never thought I'd say this, but yes, I love my Samsung phone. Whatever bugs I've seen are due to Android or due to my hacking the phone (to make it work on Reliance CDMA).

Either ways, let's not go off-topic by any more posts on cell phones. You can quote me on the Android thread

Will take this on the Android thread but my point is that you will soon see the same world running after an LG phone because it now comes with a better processor, more ram and a better screen. With Android, my phone is better than yours because its got a gazillion core processor. As a perspective, the processor and GPU design comes from ARM (they only fabricate) and the software comes from google. The only opportunity they have for innovation is in creating a skin over Android and probably making it better and everyone worth is software salt knows that they do a miserable job of it. Their software is buggy and inefficient at best. The reason why most of the Junta is running custom roms and what not to make their phones work properly. Before Android started the hardware race(just like in PC's), no body cared what processor or gpu or how much RAM was inside as long as the phone worked well even thought it may have the latest and the greatest hardware inside.
As a parallel what Hyundai is doing is making cars with great plastics inside but when it comes to real engineering finesse they still rank below most of the big one's. i20 may be better built than Punto or Swift but the latter have fewer or none of the serious issues associated with Hyundai (Steering and A/C) the tangibles and the intangibles like handling and ride quality.

[Technocrat]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Don't know if I have missed something but the rise of Hyundai has not come at the loss of sales for either the Germans or the Japanese or even the Americans. GM is getting stronger now, Volkswagen is on course of becoming the largest automobile maker, Toyota is still the largest automobile maker. Yes Hyundai sales have increased in USA but at the cost of smaller players. The only thing that has changed is that these manufacturers now don't dismiss but consider Hyundai as a threat. Obviously, they won't be standing still while Hyundai improves. The quality just doesn't mean plastics, they still lack the depth of engineering the others have.

Here is an old Chart for you to view, you can read more Here

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Well the above statement may hold true for India but not where I am currently, Europe. You cannot see the whole world with a single goggle and assume that everything works the same everywhere.

Exactly & that's why you should not consider just Europe either. In US, people are satisfied with the ride quality of Hyundai cars.

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Will take this on the Android thread but my point is that you will soon see the same world running after an LG phone because it now comes with a better processor, more ram and a better screen.

That would have happened irrespective of the maker because its a Google Phone.

[extreme_torque]

While I appreciate you posting all the graphs and details, you cannot expect the market leaders to increase their sales yoy as someone else who has just started seeing its sales rise. As an aside take the example of Maruti and Renault in India and the graphs will paint almost the same picture.

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by A350XWB

But in a country like ours, where law has one of the least value, it's difficult to make manufacturers accountable for their mistakes. There are some who take proactive measures, but some just want to wait and see.

Very true. And thats why I said that the takeaway for me was that uless the law mandates so the manufacturers in our country or at least Hyundai will never probably get into a recall for sure. Maybe the ones like Tata, Honda and others who did recall some batches (even Maruti has a record for a recall) did so proactively Hyundai for sure has never done so proactively or otherwise. However, that may again not mean much since they may very well argue that they never had the need to.

Thats why I said, better leave that point of who did a recall (and hence proved to be a failure) out of this discussion since that may not really be a correct parameter in this debate. Hyundai's 'no recalls' record may be read either ways.

[A350XWB]

Originally Posted by Zappo

Thats why I said, better leave that point of who did a recall (and hence proved to be a failure) out of this discussion since that may not really be a correct parameter in this debate. Hyundai's 'no recalls' record may be read either ways.

Totally agreed. Some people see a recall as good, proactive measure and others find a recall disturbing. In a market like ours, which is still maturing, where rules and customer awareness are evolving, a recall can be a hit or miss. For me, a recall is a good thing; I made a mistake, let me correct it. Too many recalls give the feeling; my quality control processes are not functioning properly and lots of issues are let out into the field. For the manufacturer and the customer, problems arising in the field are far more costly than the ones found inside the production.
Quality focus should be such that the least number of defects escape to the field. For me, if Hyundai focuses on this, I would be happy. But in India, I would like to see a time when rules (or law) is able to hold a manufacturer responsible for their actions. (For example, my friend had a bicycle accident in Swiss. When the police arrived at the scene, they inspected the cycle to see if a defect in the equipment caused the accident. It was a rented bike and they wanted to see if there was a negligence on the part of the person who rented it out. In India, I don't think we can imagine something like this, atleast in the current time)

[mempheS.D]

Only if words were horses!

The current generation of i10s, 20s, 30s... so on and so forth are definitely a step up in quality in comparison to the Accents. I agree with that.

When I say quality - I mean the sturdiness of the vehicle and all of its comprising components. The interiors come later although they are very important.

Hyundai has got everything right in India - dealers, service network, brand name at par with Maruti. Does that suffice in terms of quality of the vehicles they make? NO! For that matter, Maruti too needs lessons on "quality". Having an authorized service station within 20kms no matter where you are in this whole wide country does not translate into quality.

When I say quality - I talk in terms of quality that comes with the vehicle no matter what model you choose. Per se, Toyota, Honda, Mistubishi, Nissan etc. etc. I'll spare the Europeans for now as that may trigger a tangential debate on this thread!

So, when the Toyota chairman says that the one competitor that they need to watch out for in their RVMS is HYUNDAI. He's damn right! But, that "quality" or perception of quality does not trickle down to the end customer instantly. One can't just buy a "QUALITY enforcing machine" to imbibe quality in the products that the machine manufactures.

If Hyundai really means what they say, good for them. Or should I say BETTER? Because they are doing exceptionally good these days.

But they still haven't won a customer in me. Blame my ignorance towards their brand. When I was in the market looking for a car, I was forecfully pushed into a Hyundai showroom and forcefully look at their models. All I could do was sarcastically critique all their models except the SONATA. If there was no ground to criticize, I would intentionally concoct one for the heck of it. The sales guy was just puzzled and hid away. He probably thought a HYUNDAI ran over my feet recently that I hated it so much. That's just me. And I am no specialist to judge Hyundai. But I am pretty sure that there are many others like me and HYUNDAI has a long way to go before they "earn" respect from like-minded people, if there are any.

About 5 years ago, I critiqued Samsung phones and even worse people who owned Samsung phones! Since two weeks, I am the owner of a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and I must say I am proud - so far. I do agree that Korean ingenuity is for real.

If my perception about Samsung could change, I am hopeful that Hyundai's would too! But I would kick myself for that just like I did when I swiped my card for the Note 2. Facts are facts though. (On a side note, I will not want to describe how and where I got kicked when I showed off my new Samsung to some friends who have fallen prey to my Samsung critique. )

Hyundai owners - please don't add me to your "shoot at sight" list. Like I said, I'm no specialist. It's just my viewpoint. This is probably my longest post ever on TBHP but I think the length justifies the reason for my rant.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Don't know if I have missed something but the rise of Hyundai has not come at the loss of sales for either the Germans or the Japanese or even the Americans.

Well the above statement may hold true for India but not where I am currently, Europe.

Two examples in India : For every 1 person who buys a 7 lakh Polo, 3-4 buy an i20 (direct competitors). The less said about the Fabia & Punto's ratios, the better.

Have you seen what the Fluidic Verna did to the C2 segment? Not only has the Vento never seen the volumes it did earlier, but even the Honda City was brutally injured by the Verna. Hyundai is selling all the Vernas it can make and some diesel variants have a waiting of 6 months. You'd probably see 6,000+ sales units a month if it weren't for production limitations.

And on your comment for European cars, the VW CEO himself will disagree with you. He's known to consider Hyundai as strong a competitor as Toyota (and that's saying a lot!). Look up his words online.

In the USA, Hyundai is selling all it can build, and is extremely constrained by production (read = no one expected their sales to rise so high). Not only that, they are completely cutting back on cheap fleet sales and have the lowest inventory levels of mass market manufacturers. In the last 10 years, Hyundai has become the No.2 foreign car maker in USA (from pretty much a position at the bottom of the pile). September 2012 was a record month for Hyundai.

For Europe, this just about sums it up:

Hyundai’s mix of value, reliability, and longer-than-average new-car warranties has helped it more than double global deliveries since 2004, beating VW’s 60 percent growth, according to researcher IHS Automotive (IHS). Hyundai and Kia increased their total European market share last year to 5.1 percent from 4.5 percent, putting them ahead of Toyota Motor (TM), Daimler’s (DAI) Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo, and making the Korean brands bigger in the region than the combined share of Honda Motor (HMC), Mazda Motor, Mitsubishi Motors, and Suzuki Motor, which together controlled just 4.2 percent of the European car market. Volkswagen dominates the region with a 23.3 percent share, including 12.4 percent for the VW brand.

Link 1

Link 2

The only thing holding Hyundai back right now is their limited production capacity : Link

You cannot see the whole world with a single goggle and assume that everything works the same everywhere.

You clearly have a thing against Hyundai. No offence, but I think your perspective needs an update. Fact is, the world is changing and Hyundai is now a super-power in the automotive world. Don't take my word for it, just refer to hard numbers or ask Hyundai's competitors

As a parallel what Hyundai is doing is making cars with great plastics inside but when it comes to real engineering finesse they still rank below most of the big one's.

After having tested the i20 over 4 days, I completely disagree. The i20 is one of the best-engineered hatchbacks in India. Refer to my official review for more details.

but the latter have fewer or none of the serious issues associated with Hyundai (Steering and A/C)

The rattling steering & air-con were both fixed in recalls. That's a lot better than the Europeans that suffer from either one or a combination of the following : Niggles, breakdowns, shoddy interiors, poor fit & finish, awful ergonomics, under-powered and / or 3-cylinder diesels etc. Breakdowns are more common with the Europeans and that's certainly "more serious" an issue than a rattling steering wheel.

Truth is, Hyundai's reliability is easily on par with the Japanese today.

handling

I don't think you understand Hyundai's positioning : They are NOT targeting those wanting razor-sharp handling. The mass market cares two hoots about handling & high speed behaviour. Hyundai is clearly giving the market what it wants with cars that are great looking, easy to drive, high on quality, reliable, spacious and loaded with equipment. Clearly, Hyundai's performance in international markets indicates the successful positioning is hardly limited to Indian customers only.

A car that is superior at <100 kph in the city (90% of our time) is a far better choice than one that's competent only at 120 kph (<10% of driving time). As I stated earlier, I'd rather drive the Sunny around in Mumbai than the heavy C220.

Even as an enthusiast, I'll tell you this : I would buy an i20 diesel over a Polo, Fabia or Punto. Look up my Nissan Sunny thread and you'll see that the European hatchbacks weren't even on the consideration list. If that's the situation for an enthusiast, who's going to argue with the masses??!!

Not going to take this thread off-topic by discussing Samsung / Android any further. Suffice to say, they've taken the world by Storme and have won many fans (yours truly included).