[blacksport]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

NA Car engines by themselves are hugely reliable. Turbochargers by themselves are probably even more reliable. So when you have a very reliable system (engine) to which you add another component or sub system (ie. the TC) which in itself is also extremely reliable the total reliability of the new total system is hardly affected at all. That's just how the math works.

If the NA engine has a failure rate of say 1 in 10000 and the turbocharger has a failure rate of 1 in 10000, by adding the turbocharger to the engine you get an engine with a failure rate of 1 in 5000. That is how math works.

[TheLizardKing]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

So in theory you're correct, but in practice I don't think it matters at all.

Thank you for taking the time to type out that long post. I really appreciate it. So I get your point that a turbocharged engine is not simply a NA engine with a turbo thrown in. But here is my counterpoint. Consider two engines, one NA and the other TC, designed for exactly the same reliability. What about reliability in use?

• A TC engine is more complex with a greater number of parts.
• It needs special care while driving (e.g. the idling rule) that a NA engine does not.
• It needs special maintenance that a NA engine does not. (I have never owned a turbo so I am making an intuitive guess here.)

So as a result of the above points, wouldn't a TC engine tend to fail more often than a NA one on the road?



PS: I am not arguing anymore. I am just seeking more information.

PPS: The Mods are going to kill both of us for going wayyyyyy .

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by blacksport

If the NA engine has a failure rate of say 1 in 10000 and the turbocharger has a failure rate of 1 in 10000, by adding the turbocharger to the engine you get an engine with a failure rate of 1 in 5000. That is how math works.

No it doesn't, sorry to say, you have no idea.
Jeroen

[blacksport]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

No it doesn't, sorry to say, you have no idea.
Jeroen

Probability addition:

P(EF or TF) = P(EF) + P(TF)

If you think I am wrong, you may want to explain the math. I would like to learn.

[GTO]

Mod Note: Please restrict discussions to the scope of the thread title. Any off-topic posts will be deleted.

Thanks!

[D4D]

Well, no surprise here! But VAG is not finding it's feet because of the dynamic Indian market. VW and Skoda are slightly more premium in pricing in the segment which can bring volumes- Hatchbacks and Mid-size sedans.

• Some vehicles like the three cylinder Polo's don't offer good performance
• According to me, the main cause for VAG failing in India, is that the are "perceived" as high maintenance cars, which they are not. But lack of good ASS needs an explanation
• Well, the Japanese do well in some departments, and satisfactory in the others. Brilliant in reliability
• And Japanese cars are cheaper, efficient but are way behind premium feeling VAG cars offer
• A good sub-4 metre sedan will do the brand a world of good

[Hayek]

The fundamental problem for VW is that they are trying to sell cars designed for a completely different driving cycle in India. I have just spent two weeks driving about 2500 km in Germany, Switzerland and Austria - and it's only now that I can begin to appreciate the differences fully. Despite it being "summer", temperatures have rarely crossed 25 deg C. My average speed has been above 100 kmph (mostly autobahn, but also B roads and city traffic in Munich and Vienna). There is no dust. Even urban driving is systematic and low stress - much more so than even the US. Roads are super smooth - the rough ones were better than any newly laid high quality Indian road (and once again much, much better than those in the US). And yes, the roads are full of VW group cars - VWs, Skodas, Seats and Audis.

You take cars designed for such conditions and put them in 40 deg C heat, average speeds of 15-20 kmph and conditions that are practically off road, massive amounts of dust, and the results are obvious. Suzuki designs cars for India, and Hyundai too has succeeded in India with its third world models, not the Sonatas that succeed in the US. Unless VW decides to design cars for India, it will not succeed. But given its success in China and Europe, it does not need India. Hence it is unlikely to invest towards this end.

BTW, people often blame dealers. But VW Downtown Mumbai is owned by the same guys who own Arya Honda. My own experience with 2 VAG cars is that the problem is not with the dealers per se, it is that they resource up based on the sales they do but face a disproportionately high degree of problems. And are not able to cope. So VW is going to be a niche player in India for the foreseeable future - bought by folks who like the fact that these cars drive much better than Hondas and Toyotas (I don't even think too many Maruti buyers seriously consider VW or Vice versa) and have usage patterns that allow them to tolerate unreliability. Personally, I think the bigger blow to VW has come from the fact that their target buyers now find buying the luxury German trio more socially acceptable and trade up from Honda directly to the top end brands.

[diffsoft]

If you see the VW ads, the Polo ones especially, they tend to show the car in a superior light and the driver in an inferior light; in a subtle way. Just check the past commercials hosted on their India web site. An ostrich running after a comical driver, a rhino making the driver look stupid but not the car and so forth.

Even their latest "Enjoy the engineering" copy shows a father being sarcastically asked by a uber smart VW sales person if he knows how to drive. Implying that VW can handle even the most "illiterate". I just compared that with the Kapil Sharma Mobilio ad which shows both the owner and her prospective car as the "hero".

It struck me that VW's attitude is like, "you should know our car can handle even YOU". Customers who are new to VW may not like to be put down relative to their car which comes out of their money.

Cheers,

[KevinP]

Looks like vw are looking at sub 4 meter cars

http://m.timesofindia.com/business/i...w/37345845.cms

[aseem]

No other manufacturer/group makes/offers fun to drive cars in India. If all you are looking for is reliability or boring commute, look to the Japanese. Honda City is a testament on how successful point A to point B cars that "look" big or excude an image are important for our mindset.
VW group is the only group that offers something thats fun, engaging and appeals to the heart. If they don't do well here, then its really a sad state of affairs for Indian car scene. So this is not really good news, this is really bad news.

[wilful]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The fundamental problem for VW is that they are trying to sell cars designed for a completely different driving cycle in India. I have just spent two weeks driving about 2500 km in Germany, Switzerland and Austria - and it's only now that I can begin to appreciate the differences fully. Despite it being "summer", temperatures have rarely crossed 25 deg C. My average speed has been above 100 kmph (mostly autobahn, but also B roads and city traffic in Munich and Vienna). There is no dust. Even urban driving is systematic and low stress - much more so than even the US. Roads are super smooth - the rough ones were better than any newly laid high quality Indian road (and once again much, much better than those in the US). And yes, the roads are full of VW group cars - VWs, Skodas, Seats and Audis.

You take cars designed for such conditions and put them in 40 deg C heat, average speeds of 15-20 kmph and conditions that are practically off road, massive amounts of dust, and the results are obvious. Suzuki designs cars for India, and Hyundai too has succeeded in India with its third world models, not the Sonatas that succeed in the US. Unless VW decides to design cars for India, it will not succeed. But given its success in China and Europe, it does not need India. Hence it is unlikely to invest towards this end.

I would agree with most of the points covered in your post. The only point that puzzles me is the Chinese factor. I should have thought that road & climatic conditions in a substantial part of that country are not too far removed from us. Granted that the bigger cities have excellent roads and some of the highways are top class but a large bit of China is similar to us (from what one reads on the net).

Quoting from Wiki here -

The physical condition of roads and road maintenance varies greatly from municipality to municipality with the Western provinces being poorer than the east-coast and the Guangzhou region. As the building and maintenance of roads are mostly funded by local government, you may notice a sharp change when crossing provincial borders. Places with decent economy have superb infrastructure.
When possible, drive near the middle-right of the road as drain covers are usually stolen. The side of the road could be a mixture of pedestrian, bicycles and tricycles, animals, drain well without covers, and sometimes farmers use part of the road to dry the grains.
Turning off of main roads may require technical off-road driving skills and equipment, and at some places it is illegal.
In major city roads traffic is often congested, even on the myriad of city ring roads (except those on the outer fringes of the city). Beijing comes in at the worst (comparatively), despite five ring roads and nine arterial expressways. Shanghai ranks relatively better, with elevated expressways and tunnels.
The congestion is far more complex than that in Western countries. There are crowds of pedestrians to contend with. Bicycles swarm everywhere even in the dark. In recent years, the electric scooter/bike has become quite popular. Economic prosperity has made it affordable for many Chinese to own cars and the number of cars on the road has increased dramatically. In many areas, there are also lots of motorcycles. Three wheeled carts powered by motorcycle engines are also common. In the smaller cities, anything from tractors to bullock carts may turn up!

Sounds pretty familiar doesn't it?
Therefore one would expect the cars (like VW) to have a similar set of woes as in India. So I can only conclude that the factors for success in China are different.

[amit]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The fundamental problem for VW is that they are trying to sell cars designed for a completely different driving cycle in India. I have just spent two weeks driving about 2500 km in Germany, Switzerland and Austria - and it's only now that I can begin to appreciate the differences fully.
You take cars designed for such conditions and put them in 40 deg C heat, average speeds of 15-20 kmph and conditions that are practically off road, massive amounts of dust, and the results are obvious. Suzuki designs cars for India, and Hyundai too has succeeded in India with its third world models, not the Sonatas that succeed in the US. Unless VW decides to design cars for India, it will not succeed.

I don't agree that the Polo is designed for Europe & hence wouldn't work in India. Car companies carry out many engineering changes to make their car's compliant for Indian type market's (remember the rough road packages?). Most models today are global model's and car maker's are expected to understand the differences in each market and make changes to their model's so they are reliable and durable. Suzuki hardly sells in North America, are we going to say that since their car's are designed for Indian conditions they can't take the less dust, relatively higher speeds in such markets and hence they fail?

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by wilful

I could agree with most of the points covered in your post. The only point that puzzles me is the Chinese factor. I should have thought that road & climatic conditions in a substantial part of that country are not too far removed from us.



Therefore one would expect the cars (like VW) to have a similar set of woes as in India.

Not true. China is worse than the West but most car sales are in the prosperous coastal cities, and like in India, foreign brands are even more skewed towards these places. Further, based on feedback from friends who have been to smaller towns in the West of China, even those places have infrastructure that is light years ahead of that in India. But yes, VW DSGs have had problems in China and even in the US and Australia - but much fewer problems in Europe.

For that matter, countries like Malaysia and Australia get rough road packages from German car makers - and the roads there are far, far superior to those in India. We need to recognize that Indian infrastructure is uniquely pathetic. The same applies to our weather as well.

Suzuki hardly sells in North America, are we going to say that since their car's are designed for Indian conditions they can't take the less dust, relatively higher speeds in such markets and hence they fail?

Well, Suzuki never recovered from the Samurai roll over fiasco in the US. Even the few models they sell there are Daewoos badged as Suzukis. Frankly, in India too, they sell cars that are value engineered to the point of being perceived by folks like me as being unsafe. Forget about all the A segment cars - you have an argument that those cars are better than scooters and have a raison d'être. But even the Swift sold in India has lots of safety equipment removed compared to that sold elsewhere.

[humyum]

VW's market share will never increase unless they touch the right nerve of an Indian buyer. Just selling a tank is not enough, the tank should work well in Indian conditions, be cheap to maintain and have service stations who are willing to solve your problems with a smile whenever they come.

[diffsoft]

Originally Posted by humyum

Just selling a tank is not enough, the tank should work well in Indian conditions, be cheap to maintain and have service stations who are willing to solve your problems with a smile whenever they come.

Reminds me of a dated Colgate ad where a muscular weight lifter would break his teeth while biting into a shell but a kid would proceed confidently. VW themselves were selling Polo without airbags until recently.

Cheers,