[IndianGuardian]

Originally Posted by Motored Mindset

I strongly suggest you add a Poll to this thread, so that we could better understand the preferences of T-Bhp-ians in terms of manufacturer websites.

Thanks for the tip. Poll created. I made one error though. I put Renault and Ferrari in the same option box. Any way to edit this?

[Eminenttismo]

I like Chevy's new USAish Website, but for our broadband speeds, it gets irritating. But it provides a lot of info and is very innovative. I suppose Fiat and Chevy have almost same design like images slideshow on page etc. But Chevy Website is really Heavy, takes time to load.

[KarthikK]

Personally I like the BMW website a lot . It is simple, uncluttered, easy to navigate and free of intensive graphics or animations. At the same a prospective buyer can get all the information he/she needs about their cars, 360 degree views, accesories, add-ons, technical data and the technologies BMW boasts of.

I like Fiat's new site too- they have made it similar to their UK site. I just hope they don't get hacked again. That has happened one too many times recently.
Ford's site is good too, but their front page is currently full of the Ecosport in all views, boxes and buttons. Advertising the new launch is ok, but it can get pretty annoying if a customer wants to look at some other car.
Overall, the BMW site gets my vote for the best car website.

Toyota's site was probably designed for 14" CRT monitors of the 1990s, and their website design clearly shows that. All the information is compressed in tiny, unreadable font squeezed into the centre of the screen, with large area unused around it. Bad layout planning and design, and this one gets my vote for the worst site.

[MHG]

Originally Posted by oxyzen

It is very much there.
Quote - Request a quote - Figo Diesel (4.96-6.17) Ex showroom Bangalore.

Oh! The embedded flash in which the content is displayed takes a LONG time to load (on a slow internet connection here). After leaving the page open for a minute it finally displayed. But still, I agree that they are better than almost every other manufacturer. While there is room for improvement, my vote goes to them

[vinya_jag]

Voted for the Ford website, not that I own a ford.

Fiat - Has the best pics (Their cars look awesome, is that why?), but personally, the long pages, which nobody would care to get to the bottom, and a few bugs, made me vote for the Ford
Honda - Old kind
Maruti - Too many things in it, not their mistake though
Hyundai - Some of the local bicycle manufacturers have better sites
Chevrolet - Slow
Tata - Can they make one for cars alone?
Toyota - Saturated Image on the home page, wrong kind of Ads
VW - Excellent images, takes some time to preload, Could have been my favorite too. Just that I hadn't seen this website before voting.
Mahindra - Had to go searching for cars. Looks like a Public sector website
Skoda - Was under maintenance when I looked for it, and it was not in English. Had to make out that it was under maintenance by looking at the URL
Nissan - Slow and some low resolution images on the home page

[InControl]

Fiat India has the best website.
All the variants mentioned with their price and features wins it for me.

[puchoo]

I dont have a favorite , being in an industry where making websites is a daily event , it becomes difficult to narrow down to one given the restrictions and conditions under which they are made.

I will say however that one of the better redesigns that i have seen in the recent past has been Fiat.

Ford has a few technical and navigational errors which rules it out. Chevrolet has a new design and it follows the same long page format as fiat , however Chevrolet is more conventional in its language than Fiat - also if nothing else Fiat trumps it by having the "IP identification which then lists prices as per the city you are logging in automatically right on the homepage

Skoda is pretty clean as well but there are just too many errors too frequently which keep coming up.

[hellmet]

Not to hijack a car-related thread, but Honda's 2 wheeler website kind of pisses me off. I can't believe in this day and age somebody would design the whole website on Flash. All of it! On mobile, the website is as good as useless. Aah, the customer buys anyway, so who cares!

They should take a leaf from TVS's website that has a neat looking set of web pages and even videos load without Flash (uploaded in HTML5 format to YouTube).

[IndianGuardian]

Originally Posted by hellmet

Not to hijack a car-related thread, but [url="http://www.honda2wheelersindia.com/"]On mobile, the website is as good as useless. Aah, the customer buys anyway, so who cares!

They should take a leaf from TVS's website that has a neat looking set of web pages and even videos load without Flash (uploaded in HTML5 format to YouTube).

Truly shocking having the whole website in Flash. Also makes Analytics so much more difficult. I think having your videos on YouTube and then embedding is one of the best strategies one can have. You get reach, social interaction, works as intended etc. I have seen lots of websites using their own video service and this makes things so difficult such as videos taking a long time to load, less flexibility, some software missing messages etc.

[sadsack]

I did a search on the Team-Bhp website to see if this topic has been discussed, but I did not find any thread. It is possible that I have used the wrong key words and if that is the case I leave it entirely to the discretion of the moderators to either remove this post or add to whichever thread there may have been a discussion of this sort.

I am putting this in the two wheeler section because the websites that I will bring to your notice are mostly two wheeler related but there are some four wheeler manufacturers too who are guilty of the same.

We all know that Kawasaki's India website is under construction and therefore we don't get any information there. A friend of mine wanted to purchase a Ninja 650 here in Hyderabad. Kawasaki now has its own showroom in the city. Yet he had to purchase his motorcycle from a KTM branded showroom since the Kawasaki showroom did not have a motorcycle on display and when asked the salesperson did not know if he could take a booking for one. So my friend went to the KTM showroom and the salesman there told him that all Kawasaki motors upto 650cc will be sold only in the KTM branded showrooms and serviced by them only!!!! Only the higher capacity ones will be sold from the Kawasaki showroom. I guess the next thing that will be told is that all Kawasaki's which are less than 650cc will be branded KTM.

Then there is the case of Eider Motors of Hyderabad. When their website went up it was full of bloopers, there are still some there enough to make you have a good laugh. But that is besides the point. Eider Motors also has appointed dealers (you will find photos of Eider products in the showrooms in the relevant thread regarding Eider) but the funny part is that the Eider website have a head which says "locate dealers" and when you press on the link, you don't get any names. Just Dial shows one delivers results that show one showroom in Hyderabad. I went to the dealer but was told that they could not sell the products since they did not get a clearance. I was even told that the clearance was pending due to the location of the headlight on their retro-scooter Leora. Its been three months now, still there are no sales.

Another Hyderabad based company, FAB motors which has the franchise for making and selling the cruiser models of Regal Raptors. You cannot find anything on the website which is of relevance. A couple of weeks ago, a fire accident burnt down the Regal Raptors showroom and their entire stock apparently. Interestingly neither Eider nor FAB have a manufacturing facility.
On team-bhp website itself I have seen a thread on one Krisaki Motorcycles, which don't seem to be available anywhere.

Baja Auto still shows some models like the Pulsar 135 LS which some dealers claim is not made any more while some say it is made to order but they won't take the order. Nobody seems to know if the Pulsar 200 NS is still available though it is there on the website. The Boxer 150 M never went onto the website and was withdrawn. It also shows the Ninja 300 and the Ninja 650 R, while the new Ninja 650 does not have an R appended to it.

Hero's website shows all kinds of motorcycles some of which I have not seen at all either in their showrooms or on the roads. The Achiever comes to mind immediately. The TVS Motor has only recently been cleaned up, otherwise it showed everything from the Ind-Suzuki AX100 to the Apache RTR. Even now it shows the Max 4R (the four shocks at the rear) but I have not seen it in any showroom not on the streets. Honda also shows all kinds of motorcycles which the press says they have pulled the plug on (CBF Stunner, CB Trigger).

I always thought that the purpose of a website was to make sure that the customer knew what exactly a company was doing and what models was it making and what were faded out. Despite the Web emerging as a significant medium of communication, if the companies do this then god help us. We won't even know if some of them are legal entities (Eider, FAB, Vibgyor). I think manufacturers should be penalised if they put information which is false or misleading to a customer.

[payeng]

Regarding Product Availability:

India is a huge market and not every model have uniform demand in every nook and cranny of the country.

Eg: Models like Achiever, Pulsar 135LS etc. have demand in some areas and not so much in others. Dealers will order, stock and sell models that have demand in their respective area.

For Eg: In Assam I hardly get to see the Best Selling Motorcycle Model in the world, the Splendor in as great numbers as the Glamour model, one that sells in visibly huge numbers (something that I have not seen anywhere else in India).

[King_pin09]

Voted for the FIAT. Their website seems to be the most appealing one amongst all Automobile websites.

The visibility of their cars in real life and their sales/ service experience is a different story altogather.

[nik hill]

VW might be the only company which does not display even the prices of all its cars for different locations on its website. Hence if there is a award for least informative website, VW is a strong contender.

[AdiSinghV12]

In my pick it would be the current BMW India website, it shows all the options as well as the pricing of each specific options and even for the lesser models every detail is very well laid out including a pricelist. Way better and informative and intuitive then Audi and Merc.

[myavu]

My vote - Fiat India ����

http://www.fiat-india.com/abarth-punto/

Now there is a desirable factor attached to the Fiat India site and it is soothing to the eyes too.

Cheers!