Team-BHP (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/)

-   The Indian Car Scene (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/)

-   -   Japanese or European cars? Whats your pick in India? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/17181-japanese-european-cars-whats-your-pick-india-10.html)

European,. for the build quality, for the strong and safe feeling and styling.

What is the Ford Figo supposed to be? I guess it's American, rite?

Ford is American but the models in India are mostly derived from their Euro cars - for e.g.; all the Fiesta based cars from different generations - Ikon, Classic, Figo, or the Fiesta.

In that case my vote is with European cars!

Although have driven Japanese cars by laying hands of F&F owners, however have personally owned Palio (European) and the Cruze and Mondeo (American).

I feel European cars are best of both worlds and are better put together (build,handling, ride and looks, albeit slightly higher cost of ownership).

I would like to disagree. I have owned a Honda City for 5 years and it never gave me the solidity that I felt in with the subsequent Corolla I owned. Worldwide too, Toyota's build quality is a notch above Honda. Though in Brio vs Etios I would agree with your view but over the entire product range it is a different matter.

Jazz would have been a better comparator with the Liva, but its the younger sibling which blew it.

Corolla and City? It would be more apt if you bring in the Civic here. Let the City slug it out with the Etios sedan.

Price to price comparison I would say Honda is ahead, but then these views are mine & I have no experience with the current gen Accord or Camry (just launched), but Fortuner and CR-V? The CR-V it is.

No doubt German cars in particular are the best engineered vehicles, but that was very true till the late 90's. After that the bean counters took over to such an extent that today Mercedes has a reptation for bad cars, something they never had in the past till the w124/126 and maybe even the w140. Those were cars built to last a lifetime and over engineering was the norm.

Admittedly the Japanese have also gone down the bean counter route, though they seem to have lesser issues than the Germans (Toyota excluded). Part of that is thanks to their philosophy of kaizen and barring vw, no large European manufacturer sells anything remotely close to the Japanese numbers, which gives them more feedback and the chance to fix things more easily (they seem to listen far more than other manufacturers to customer feedback).

Also, I am far more a reliable car type of guy. Yes, I have petrol in my veins just like everybody else here, but I do not have the patience, skill or willingness to spend a couple of hours every weekend taking care of some small issue

Not sure if we should put Maruti under Japaneese or Indian header since the designs are actually done by Suzuki. Since I wouldn't prefer to put Maruti cars in the same league as Tatas, M&M and Hyundais - I'll treat Maruti as Suzuki and put it under Japaneese. So its Japaneese for me.

My experience with 3 Marutis in the family - none of them ever let us down which includes a '95 Zen at 175k kms and two '08 Swifts. So Maruti is definitely going to be a strong contender in my shopping list for the next car. I hope they come up with something better as an SX4 replacement by then. :)

I don't have much regard with the other Indian and Korean manufactures based on personal experience- I've driven Indica and Hyundai cars over long distances and never found the steering to be precise in the Tata and never found the stability in Hyundai cars, especially when compared to Zen or Swift. Also, the Indica seems to be too attracted to the workshop once it crossed the 80k.

Ford is another manufacturer that is really good based on my experience - Ikon (although spares are expensive), Fiesta and Figo are definitely very good cars, but I'm not sure if I should treat it as European or American. Whatever it is, thats one good brand to be trusted on and they know how to make reliable cars.

Coming to GM, they have given cars from across the globe. They started with European (Opel), then switched to Korean (rebadged Daewoo models), then tried an American flavour and future seems to be going the Chineese way.

Regarding other Japaneese cars, I've very rarely seen Hondas or Toyotas lying stranded on the road. Thats the most basic thing I would expect from a car - taking me from point A to point B on time and without hazzles.

Coming to European cars, unless the service stations have enough competence, there is no point in relying on their better build quality as I feel the trouble free nature of the car depends on how well your car is serviced post 20-30k kms. I intend to keep the cars for a very long time and sloppy service would make the car much less reliable even if it has a superior build quality. In such a case, why should build quality matter? I wanted to go for a used Octavia some time back but decided against it after hearing Skoda service horror stories directly from a couple of colleagues who owned Fabia and from the forums including tbhp. Even the Big 3 (Merc, BMW and Audi) seems to have lost its way of making relaible cars as is evident from the multiple instances reported in tbhp alone.

Unlike the older days where a car was more of a mechanical device with electrical parts, its more of a device controlled by an electronic chip with sensors all across the mechanical parts these days. I think this shift is were the Europeans probably lost focus on the important things. Things were much more simpler when cars were primarily mechanical and European cars are still solid when it comes to build quality. Electronics is definitely a strong area for the Japaneese and thats probably why the modern Japaneese cars tend to develop much lesser electronics faults when compared to the European counterparts.

I would prefer slightly lesser build quality if it comes at the expense of reliability.

Somehow in the options listed currently prefer the Indian, American and Korean options over the other two as they get supported by the manufacturer though not as reliable as the Japs and yet seem more solid and better built (body) than the Japs though of course not as solid as the European options. I would probably prefer the Indian/ Korean / American option over the Europeans over the Japs.

as my signature line suggests, have experience of Koreans, Japs and Italians / Euro.

I would say Euro rules my heart since i am a big time driving enthusiast and also practically, if u buy the right Euro, maintenance is at par with the Japs .... i am referring to the down to earth and humble FIAT, which sarcastically makes no claims of it being a Euro company / aka Italians / makers of Ferraris etc.

Post poll for me goes in favour of Europeans and yes VW makes good cars but in India only in the higher segments.

i have made a point or two probably.agree:

Voted for Japanese, when i was voting i was expecting to see Japanese winning by a large margin, but when i saw the results the Europeans were ahead. This is a surprise to me.

In my view, owning a Japanese is less painful in terms of repairs and the whole car functions as a unit, the reliability aspect of Japanese is much higher (atleast in India). They might look plain and boring, but i am more a functional person. If it does its job well then thats the one i prefer.

Europeans give me solid feel but, solidity does not only mean the body shell needs to be solid. All the parts put together needs to be solid too.

Liked the way @Tanveer put it, if i am paying for it, i would rather have Japanese.

On Honda vs Toyota debate, i have not owned a Toyota but when comparing between Civic and Altis i found Civic to be better in terms of ride and drive. Everything else seemed similar or same to me.

Japanese all the way. They are most reliable. I wonder if European cars sell on the strength of pedigree alone. I mean look around; BMWS, Audis, Mercs, VWs and Skodas horror stories abound, yet every just-got-rich aspires to buy these over Japanese.

Hi,

I was going through the thread http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/143032-jlr-india-pr-disaster-salman-khan-tweets-his-frustration-over-range-rover-breakdown-7.html#post3275218, and noticed that there were a few generic comments like following:

It would be nice to see the impression these cars have made to our learned community. Pour in your votes, associated comments would be nice!

Generic take? Japs - Reliability. European - build quality, ride & handling.

But that doesn't mean that the Japs are not fun to drive.
The Civic with its free revving unit is a hoot to drive at high RPMs.
Ride is not that bad. Sure it doesn't have that taut setup like a Jetta or a Laura, but it isn't so bad.

On the other end of the scale, European cars have a solid ride, unmatched handling and excellent build quality.
But there are certain parts/issues that have contributed hugely in reducing the reliability associated with such cars.
Parts such as the infamous Mechatronics.
Not to mention the callous attitude most of the dealers in India have towards customers who own European stuff.
All put together, the European makes tend to be perceived as great to drive, excellent handling cars that are difficult to maintain, fault prone, expensive to run.

The Japs on the other hand appear to be far more reliable.
Companies such as Toyota are generally perceived as a byword for hassle free ownership experience.
Sure there are instances where some particular owner has faced reliability concerns regarding the car purchased by them.
But such instances are much less when compared to the European car owners section.
While such cars have excellent refinement, and score high marks on reliability, they are not the best cars to drive around.
The Honda City, while being similarly priced as the Linea T-Jet, is no match for the exemplary ride and handling the Jet is well known for.
Even the build quality is not as great. Ask anyone about what they feel about the Honda Amaze, as compared to say a similarly priced European make.

But I sincerely believe NO car make is absolutely hassle free to own.
Be it a Japanese, Korean, European, American or even Indian.
I believe there is a lot at work here behind the scenes that we just don't have a control over.
Factors such as production failures, faulty parts, bad dealers, consumers luck in certain cases.
There will always be people who will swear by Japanese, some who will hold Europeans above all, and some who'll say that Koreans are making the best cars now since the provide a heady mix of both worlds. At the end of the day, its down to personal choice. As they say, to each his own.