[swiftdiesel]

Originally Posted by sahakar

Maruti has no competition. They will rule the roads forever in India till safety doesn't become a paramount concern for Indians.

Cheers

Interesting. Would love to hear you throw some light on that statement. So basically, when safety becomes paramount in India people will walk away from Maruti Suzuki cars?

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by swiftdiesel

Interesting. Would love to hear you throw some light on that statement. So basically, when safety becomes paramount in India people will walk away from Maruti Suzuki cars?

When safety becomes paramount Maruti will start offering airbags for all variants, and then people will buy Maruti.
But why would safety become paramount for Indian buyers....? That is the bigger question.

[sahakar]

Originally Posted by swiftdiesel

Interesting. Would love to hear you throw some light on that statement. So basically, when safety becomes paramount in India people will walk away from Maruti Suzuki cars?

Yup thats what I feel. One of the reason small cars don't sell in the US. They are not considered safe at all although they maybe better now than before. Maruti's small cars being their niche, they would definitely be among the least safe cars around especially the India specific ones like the Alto.

I seriously doubt there is any way anybody would survive a crash in a Maruti Alto. Once we Indians stop believing in Karma and realize a safer car can up your chances of saving yourself during a crash, that's when most of Maruti's India specific unsafe cars like the Alto can stop selling.

Or when the government put in some basic safety standards that each car should meet, that's when Altos of the world would not be really pass those standards and will have to be retired.

I guess still years to go before anything like this happens.

Cheers

Originally Posted by tsk1979

When safety becomes paramount Maruti will start offering airbags for all variants, and then people will buy Maruti.
But why would safety become paramount for Indian buyers....? That is the bigger question.

I would love to see the day when safety becomes paramount for us Indians. But don't see that happening any day soon. Only if its imposed by the government, then maybe

Simple things like the way we drive and all, are total antithesis to safety. This bloody Karma thing is what makes us daredevils on the road.

Cheers

[carboy]

Originally Posted by sahakar

Maruti has no competition. They will rule the roads forever in India till safety doesn't become a paramount concern for Indians.

Who will rule the roads once safety becomes a concern for Indians?

[rajeshsundaram]

Originally Posted by sahakar

I seriously doubt there is any way anybody would survive a crash in a Maruti Alto.

I'd say we survived a crash. At a T-Junction near Kanchipuram highway, My Alto collided on a swift @ 100kmph which suddenly crossed the road without noticing us from right to left . Luckily no one was injured except few superficial scratches.

The point here is, Alto is not a safe car. Had that swift collided on my alto, I'd not be writing this post now.



One of the reason was - the driver of that swift was an old man who is a acting-driver, and not tall enough to look through the other side of the left door! So he did not notice me coming towards him and missed my pass-signals.

On my side, I made a mistake thinking that he has seen my pass-thru signal, and he is waiting for me to pass. Rats! I should have slowed down instead of opting to pass across.

Take GTO's advice (from the other thread) and ensure you reduce 50% of the speed when reaching T-Junctions / passing through small towns.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by sahakar

Maruti has no competition. They will rule the roads forever in India till safety doesn't become a paramount concern for Indians.

Originally Posted by sahakar

One of the reason small cars don't sell in the US. They are not considered safe at all although they maybe better now than before.

That sounds like the same 'logical and unbiased attitude' that the folks in US had for anything non-American during the seventies!

When you refer to Maruti, are you meaning any small car sold in India? If not, please throw some light on how the Alto is less safer than a Nano or Eon or another car in the same segment. Please don't compare the safety of Alto with a Corolla or a Civic since the target audience is different.

For an average Indian customer who buys Nano/Alto/Eon at the current price point, the other alternative for him would be a two-wheeler. I feel Alto to be far more secure than a two-wheeler even in its current avatar.

As for your statement that you need big cars to be safe, that is precisely where the Engineering and design improvements guarantee better safety with smaller cars. From a practical perspective, for someone who travels within an Indian city everyday for work/business, Alto might prove safer than a Rolls Royce since the latter would not fit into more than 80% of the roads and hence would stay at home while you travel by some other means (an autorickshaw perhaps? ) to run your errands. With Alto, you can atleast have the safety that it offers since that can squeeze in everywhere.

Maruti's small cars being their niche, they would definitely be among the least safe cars around especially the India specific ones like the Alto.

Are you trying to say that a Dzire/SX4 is less safer than a Chevy Beat just because former is made by Maruti whose niche is small cars while Chevy's niche is something else?

Just for the statistics, Maruti sells more Swift twins than the Altos every month. So it would be unfair to brand them as someone who sells just Altos.

I seriously doubt there is any way anybody would survive a crash in a Maruti Alto. Once we Indians stop believing in Karma and realize a safer car can up your chances of saving yourself during a crash, that's when most of Maruti's India specific unsafe cars like the Alto can stop selling.

It really depends on the speed at which you crash. Between someone going at 35kmph (speed limit in Indian cities) in a small car like Alto and someone else going at 110-120kmph (freeway speed limit in US) in a Chevy Cruze, I would bet my money on the guy in Alto in case of an accident.

Do you really think being in a bigger car guarantees you safety? If so, you wouldn't see such high mortality rates in the US freeways!

I see the safety kit as a way to protect yourself from idiots on the road and not the justification to be another rash-driving idiot who thinks he is immortal just because his car has an ABS and air bags.

[NYMEX]

Refreshed Nano with CNG. According to Rohin Nagrani of BSM, the refreshed Nano has new bumpers, tail lights, rear glass and yes a openable hatch. And, if it also comes with the much speculated 3cylinder petrol engine, it can address a much broader customer base. I, for one, am waiting for this 3cyl Nano!

Right now it seems the inventory of nanos exceeds 25000 at Sanand palnt of Tata Motors. That's approximately 12 months inventory @2100 per month. The internal roads and the stockyard of the plant is full of nanos and the inventory does not show signs of reducing!

[romeomidhun]

Originally Posted by sahakar

Maruti has no competition. They will rule the roads forever in India till safety doesn't become a paramount concern for Indians.

Do you have any idea about the safety features available in the lower models of cars like Nano, Eon, Santro, i10, Indica, Beat and Spark? Please share your knowledge.

[durgaprasan]

Hi,
I think what Mr.Sahakar is suggesting is that a large proportion of Maruti's sales is from a segment where safety is not the priority. I agree completely. Indian car buyers are slowly becoming mature, as reflected in more and more people insisting on airbags and abs being essential features in their cars, as i can see from this forum itself. I am a maruti owner, which i bought as my first car, just after learning to drive. They are good cars if you know their limitations. Thats why they sell so well. But when i bought my second car, I was put off by Maruti's callousness towards safety. I realised that swift diesel didnt even have airbags in any version (2010), and ABS in top version only, which was more expensive than Skoda Fabia, which i eventually bought. The same was the case when i scouted around to change my alto for a bigger car for my wife, the Ritz petrol with safety features being vastly inferior to its competition in terms of value for money. Most swifts and ritzs in calicut are the regular cars, without essential safety features, which makes them cheaper than say a Nissan micra or Renault Pulse or Skoda Fabia or Fiat Punto.

My Fabia overturned after a bad accident due to sudden animal crossing on wet road. The vehicle turned turtle, but there was no injury to us except a couple of minor lacerations due to window glass shattering. We cooly opened the doors in upside down position and walked out. I shudder to imagine what would have happened in a maruti. My own vehicle buying philosophy has changed after 6 years of driving, from a so called mileage centric mentality to a safety centric mentality. So there is merit in what Mr. Sahakar says. Maruti may still be number one if safety laws are enforced, but it will not be without a considerable shift in their thinking. A safe Maruti is usually more expensive than its competitors, something that can be verified even now.

Durga prasan

[anachronix]

Originally Posted by rajeshsundaram

I'd say we survived a crash. At a T-Junction near Kanchipuram highway, My Alto collided on a swift @ 100kmph which suddenly crossed the road without noticing us from right to left . Luckily no one was injured except few superficial scratches.

If your Alto hit the Swift at 100KM/H, your car would end up in much worse shape than this. This Alto crash test was conducted at 30MPH which is close to 45KMH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIMmULqo4Ys

And the Swift would have looked something like this. The side crash test conducted at 50KM/H!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW5otlyiTiU

[rajeshsundaram]

Originally Posted by anachronix

If your Alto hit the Swift at 100KM/H, your car would end up in much worse shape than this. This Alto crash test was conducted at 30MPH which is close to 45KMH!

I agree. I think, though I was driving at 100kmph, as I applied brakes the speed must have come down thus reducing the damage. After seeing the video, it is a bit scary to think of the hit at 100kmph.

[aim120]

From the picture of your car and the video of the alto crash test,my guess is that prior to the impact of car to the swift, your alto slowed down drastically by your braking.

In the video the alto is crashing against a solid object,where as in your case the swift absorbed some of the energy by crumpling and the swift would have also spun around dissipating the energy.

[rangarx]

I think, with all due respect to Mahindras, Storme is a better vehicle than XUV. But again, nothing sells luike bling in India in SUV segment.

Manza and Vista are good products. However, the paint sheen thogh excellent in the new vehicle, seems to fade off faster. The bumper joints are looking bad with some gaps not proportionately complementing the ungainly big front bumpers (atleast to me). Design flaw perhaps; perhaps not.

The interiors gather and retain dust in these competent twins.

You need to change the design and appearance of your cars Tata, except Nano, Storme and Aria.

I'm waiting for Fiat's performance next year. Till then, not gonna utter a single word on it.

[SujAce]

Great stats and graphical representations!!! Great Job!!!

Another disaster month for most mfrs, after a slightly better festive season.

With the government planning to increase diesel prices soon (a higher rate for private vehicles and lower rate for commercial ones), diesel vehicles will also start feeling the heat soon.

All we can say is "all the best to the manufacturers"

Sad to see Hyundai sales going down, after being the best possible mfr to challenge Maruti.

Mfrs like HM-Mitsu really need to re-think their marketing plans.

[JediKnight]

The sales numbers show how important rural/semi-rural/B-town India is from sales point of view. I dont think the fairness cream using urban metro sexual will go close to the Bolero as personal transport. Even Alto 800 is seen as "low status" in urban areas.