[carwatcher]

I am not an Innova basher or owner but have observed few of the pecularities about Innova and our Indian market.

1. There is absolutely NO competition for Innova and like Omni, it enjoys absolute monopoly.
2. From point No. 1 above and as pointed by many prospective Innova buyers and Innova owners, it can safely be presumed that a person considering Innova would certainly not consider Mobilio, Ertiga or Lodgy.
3. There Is No Alternative factor is perfectly milked by Innova as reflected in its pricing.
4. At the same time many strongly believe that as the TCO of Innova is actually very reasonable after taking into account Service costs and Resale Value, which makes Innova (like Swift and Dzire) an unbeatable VFM proposition.
5. Like Skoda, Innova also enjoys premium image atleast in the eyes of their owners and that's what make our Indian market unique.
7. There were huge complaints about the puny engine in Innova and now it has been addressed perfectly by Toyota, we still see few complaints, its definitely impossible to please all.

We all know that only Maruti can take head on the Toyota but I haven't read any rumour leave alone news regarding that, so Toyota can relax.

I have driven Innova only once in my life and still remember that wonderful drive especially due to the small-sized steering.

[docaxe]

Booked my ZX AT with a price tag of 26 L on road Mumbai
Changed my color choice from Garnet Red to Pearl White
Will be doing the final payments Tomm
This will be my 2nd Innova the previous one being a 2010 VX 8 str which made me a Toyota fan
I think the premium we pay here is for reliability low cost of maintainence and
Resale value
I wish they had a 8 str in ZX

[canonball]

Mumbai dealers are being non committal about final pricing. Booking done for GX Auto 8 seater - Bronze, but dealer mum on price. Gave a range of 19 to 20 inroad mumbai but no official word down to the dollar. Did anyone who is booked get a formal price list for mumbai? Also whats to be done on depot charge? The Road Tax/RTO charge calculus put forth seems to have Rs.3500 more = the service charge? Also can I use my own insurance source if dealer premium is higher?

[PrideRed]

Originally Posted by carwatcher

I am not an Innova basher or owner but have observed few of the pecularities about Innova and our Indian market.


2. From point No. 1 above and as pointed by many prospective Innova buyers and Innova owners, it can safely be presumed that a person considering Innova would certainly not consider Mobilio, Ertiga or Lodgy.
4. At the same time many strongly believe that as the TCO of Innova is actually very reasonable after taking into account Service costs and Resale Value, which makes Innova (like Swift and Dzire) an unbeatable VFM proposition.
7. There were huge complaints about the puny engine in Innova and now it has been addressed perfectly by Toyota, we still see few complaints, its definitely impossible to please all.

We all know that only Maruti can take head on the Toyota but I haven't read any rumour leave alone news regarding that, so Toyota can relax.

A normal person shall see Mobilio,Ertiga, Lodgy and Innova in same category as all of them appear to be of same shape and can carry 8 people. In reality similarity ends there. Apart from Innova all of the rest struggle with 8 people and their luggage on board. Only Innova is the one with ladder on frame chassis here and hence has a much better load carrying capability. While the larger engine isn't as fuel efficient or refined, the drivability when loaded(or unloaded) is unmatched.
The Total Cost of Ownership is actually lesser than Swift and Dzire. I no longer see Swift as cheap to maintain in comparison with competition.
The Innova never had a puny engine, the previous generation was 2.5L compared to 2.4 of current generation. Where it struggled was w.r.to top end. Coming to drivability the Innova is an absolute gem.
Maruti can beat Toyota in under 10lac category hands down, not in the Innova segment. People think twice(or thrice) when they spend 15lac+ on a Maruti(Reason why Kizashi,Grand Vitara,SCross all turned out to be flop/average despite being good products).

[wrongturn]

Originally Posted by PrideRed

A normal person shall see Mobilio,Ertiga, Lodgy and Innova.

Competition for Innova? The usuals- Ertiga, Mobilio & Lodgy!
I went looking for a tourer last year (September 2015) that could comfortably seat 7-8 people, had good power & ground clearance, reliable and wound not cost a lot to maintain. Innova crysta wasn't even in the news back then.
Where did my search landed me? It wasn't the usuals, Safari & Scorpio can honestly seat 5 with ease anything over it is a sqeeze. Innova might be the champion in its class but for me the winner was Mahindra Xylo. I did not even had it in my mind when I was looking to buy my tourer. And when I first thought about it, sitting at the Mahindra dealership looking at the price quotes for Scorpio and XUV, I quickly went through the limited ownership & other threads of Xylo on team-bhp. There was majorly just two negative aspects, the looks & the resale. Only personal experience I had with Xylo was with a 2009 Xylo in the friend circle and I never thought it looked bad and the new refreshed version definitely looks way better.
It came down to Innova vs Xylo.

Mahindra Xylo H4 (ABS) it was.
- It has better third row seating compared to Innova.
- It has better power compared to Innova (crysta wasnt there) and that mHawk is a proven work horse.
- Fuel economy better than innova.
- I saved about 6L in comparison to Innova otr price. Forget about future resale value it saved a lot for me in the present. I am looking to keep it indefinitely so resale wasnt that big a deal.
- Innova has better handling and ergonomics but the new Xylo is based on the new Scorpio platform so handling & suspension is pretty sorted in comparison to earlier editions.
- interiors of Xylo are mediocre in comparison to Innova, but I can definitely live with it.

8 months & 12000 kilometers later, I am happy I bought a Mahindra Xylo and I love my car.

I am not bashing Innova here, neither I am promoting Xylo. I just want people to for once go and check it out. It's the best bang for the buck. It's from an Indian manufacturer and it's a very capable beast of a machine. But I know some people will just ignore it as it is not a Toyota, Honda or Renault.

I am sorry for bumping this thread but I just couldn't resist.

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by wrongturn

- Innova has better handling and ergonomics but the new Xylo is based on the new Scorpio platform so handling & suspension is pretty sorted in comparison to earlier editions.
-

Every MUV can learn a thing or two from the Xylo regarding interior space. The third row of the Xylo may even rival the first and second rows of many others.

No. The reason why it didn't sell well was it's ride and handling. Sure, Mahindra heavily reworked it in 2014, but by then the damage was already done and also the model became old in the public's eyes (Innova was 4 years older is another matter altogether)

There were news of Mahindra launching the next gen Xylo this year which is being currently developed in it's USA R&D center, but scoop pics have not even surfaced this late. Hope Mahindra gets it launched ASAP.

[ecenandu]

Guys, in the brochure they have mentioned about 'back monitor', which I believe is the reverse camera. I haven't seen any pictures of it in action, though.

Do you guys have more info on the same. Does it support multiple viewing angles like the City.

Originally Posted by wrongturn

Competition for Innova? The usuals- Ertiga, Mobilio & Lodgy!

I am not bashing Innova here, neither I am promoting Xylo. I just want people to for once go and check it out. It's the best bang for the buck. It's from an Indian manufacturer and it's a very capable beast of a machine. But I know some people will just ignore it as it is not a Toyota, Honda or Renault.

I am sorry for bumping this thread but I just couldn't resist.

Absolutely buddy, there is nothing like a perfect car. At the end, each car purchase is a balancing act with so many variables thrown in like reliability, performance, ride comfort, resale value etc.

Other wise we all end up buying the same vehicle for the given budget.

My mom is not fully sold on the idea of getting the new Innova, its a taxi according to her . She wanted a sedan, typical desi mind set. Anyway, I hope she will change her mind after the test drive.

[mustang_shelby]

Originally Posted by bbhavan

There are many innova bashers in our forum. I find different groups of people who
1. Want to buy an innova, but the price is an issue, so saying it is over priced
2. complaints on the shortage of power and lack of 6th gear in the old innova
3. Complains, why crysta an mpv is loaded with such high power,
4. cannot afford its price, settles for a lower segment and argues why need an expensive car as 90% of the works can be done by a lower segment car?
5. above category who deposits the difference amount in bank and waits for the money to grow.

There are many members in Team -bhp who goes on complaining about this car and waiting to see the sales number decreases, but in vain.

Even the official reviewers of other MPVs were sure that innova got a true competitor and proclaimed that innova era is over. (eg. Lodgy)

I must say that many BHP ians fail to understand the logic of a common innova buyer. May be because our forum is comprised of more people in the younger age category.

Pls. consider my post in a lighter sense, no intention of hurting anyone.

While you are free to have your opinions, I do believe that your statement suggesting that folks that question the price of a product do so because they cannot afford it, is unwarranted. By this logic, there would be even more questions about the price on the Endeavour thread, BMW 5 series thread and other higher priced cars.

Everyone will have their own perception of value in a product. A lot of folks bought S-cross 1.6 at the launch price because they felt it was worth it. Many others did not feel so and therefore questioned the price.

You are most welcome to state why you believe the pricing is value for money in your perspective, but there is no need to pull others down and paint them in the way you did.

Peace!

[THE-U-]

Originally Posted by wrongturn

It came down to Innova vs Xylo.

Mahindra Xylo H4 (ABS) it was.
- It has better third row seating compared to Innova.
- It has better power compared to Innova (crysta wasnt there) and that mHawk is a proven work horse.
- Fuel economy better than innova.
- I saved about 6L in comparison to Innova otr price. Forget about future resale value it saved a lot for me in the present. I am looking to keep it indefinitely so resale wasnt that big a deal.
- Innova has better handling and ergonomics but the new Xylo is based on the new Scorpio platform so handling & suspension is pretty sorted in comparison to earlier editions.
- interiors of Xylo are mediocre in comparison to Innova, but I can definitely live with it.

Excellent points. Clearly, you used all the information available to you to buy Xylo not worrying about resale. If Mahindra could actually make the Xylo interior and exterior upscale, it will be an attractive van.

Given that excess of 90% localisation has been cited in this thread, it seems Toyota India is making a handsome profit per vehicle just because of their reliability reputation.

Toyotas are not priced this way outside of India even though they have similar reliability/ resale reputation. In fact, Toyota vehicles in the US cost less sometimes due to promotion etc. than the Ford/ Dodge/ Chevy competition. A 30-40% premium over the competition is unheard of making it a non VFM proposition.

Just to be clear, I wrote the above as a general observation and not because I cannot afford the Innova. I prefer AWD/4WD vehicles.

[ecenandu]

To be fair, if we compare the international prices of the new Innova they are almost at par with the Indian pricing.

For the top variant (in INR)

Indonesia - 24 - 25 lakhs.
Dubai - 18 - 19 lakhs.

In Indonesia, the top of the line BRV CVT will set back 13 lakhs INR. Just for comparison.

So, its not like in India they have gone insane with the pricing.

I know my comparison is not scientific, for one, there might be a lot other factors to take into consideration like local production, taxation etc.

If others have better way of comparison, please feel free to chip in.

Its not like I am openly challenging anyone, but if you say 'x'% premium over the competition better substantiate it.

Innova models OTR (INR)
16 - 26 lakhs

Corrected price, subtracting the premiumness .

10 % - 14.4 to 23.4 lakhs
15 % - 13.6 to 22.1 lakhs
20 % - 12.8 to 20.8 lakhs
30 % - 11.2 to 18.2 lakhs
40 % - 9.6 to 15.6 lakhs

Let us try to find an objective way to find the premiumness. BTW, to be clear we want to find the premiumness, which is India specific.

[THE-U-]

Originally Posted by ecenandu

To be fair, if we compare the international prices of the new Innova they are almost at par with the Indian pricing.

<snip>

Let us try to find an objective way to find the premiumness. BTW, to be clear we want to find the premiumness, which is India specific.

It is good to know that the Indian version top end is almost on par with international pricing.

Here is one way of looking at the Toyota Premium objectively. It has been pointed out that ZX AT corresponds to XUV500 W8 AT. One could also use W10 AT, but since the Aisin AT is imported, actually the AT XUV may have extra taxes bundled in the price vs local manufacturing of Innova ZX AT.

Ex show Room Prices in Chennai:

XUV 500 W8 AT: Rs. 16.21L
Innova ZX AT: Rs. 21.18 L

Innova ZX AT Premium = (21.18-16.21)/16.21 = 30.7%

Even if one were to use W10 AT, the premium would be ~24%. Clearly, the W10 AT has a lot more features than the ZX AT. I am assuming here that other differences are intangibles. Of course you can add or subtract based on the value of each item that is important to you, but these numbers are ball park estimates. I do not see such premiums in the US in my experience.

If we start from Xylo, the premium will be much higher as well.

Cheers

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by THE-U-

XUV 500 W8 AT: Rs. 16.21L
Innova ZX AT: Rs. 21.18 L

Innova ZX AT Premium = (21.18-16.21)/16.21 = 30.7%

Fair enough.

Its no open secret that Toyota has increased the pricing of the old Innova over the years. It will be interesting to see the ex-showroom price of Innova over the years say, 2006 - 2016 Vs Corolla over the same period. People with old car magazines, Autocar, Overdrive and a little bit of free time can chip in with the data .

Plot the data over a graph, and then we can objectively come to a conclusion.

I just went through the official team bhp review of the old Innova and the new one is worth the extra premium. The Crysta's interior(VX, ZX) is comparable to a D-segment sedan, a Japanese one, mind you. But the problem was the old one wasn't value for money by all those increase in pricing.

I don't think Toyota can get away with increasing the price like what they have done before. I think they have hit the limit with the pricing, lets wait and see how the market will respond.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by wrongturn

Competition for Innova? The usuals- Ertiga, Mobilio & Lodgy!
I went looking for a tourer last year (September 2015) that could comfortably seat 7-8 people, had good power & ground clearance, reliable and wound not cost a lot to maintain. Innova crysta wasn't even in the news back then.
Where did my search landed me? It wasn't the usuals, Safari & Scorpio can honestly seat 5 with ease anything over it is a sqeeze. Innova might be the champion in its class but for me the winner was Mahindra Xylo. I did not even had it in my mind when I was looking to buy my tourer. And when I first thought about it, sitting at the Mahindra dealership looking at the price quotes for Scorpio and XUV, I quickly went through the limited ownership & other threads of Xylo on team-bhp. There was majorly just two negative aspects, the looks & the resale. Only personal experience I had with Xylo was with a 2009 Xylo in the friend circle and I never thought it looked bad and the new refreshed version definitely looks way better.
It came down to Innova vs Xylo.

Mahindra Xylo H4 (ABS) it was.
- It has better third row seating compared to Innova.
- It has better power compared to Innova (crysta wasnt there) and that mHawk is a proven work horse.
- Fuel economy better than innova.
- I saved about 6L in comparison to Innova otr price. Forget about future resale value it saved a lot for me in the present. I am looking to keep it indefinitely so resale wasnt that big a deal.
- Innova has better handling and ergonomics but the new Xylo is based on the new Scorpio platform so handling & suspension is pretty sorted in comparison to earlier editions.
- interiors of Xylo are mediocre in comparison to Innova, but I can definitely live with it.

8 months & 12000 kilometers later, I am happy I bought a Mahindra Xylo and I love my car.

I am not bashing Innova here, neither I am promoting Xylo. I just want people to for once go and check it out. It's the best bang for the buck. It's from an Indian manufacturer and it's a very capable beast of a machine. But I know some people will just ignore it as it is not a Toyota, Honda or Renault.

I am sorry for bumping this thread but I just couldn't resist.

After having sat in one going from Pune to Lavasa on the twisty bits, I swore to myself that I would never again travel in one. The ride and handling is atrocious and it gave me so much motion sickness in the corners that I almost puked after I got down. Coming back I sat in the Innova and volia, light and day difference.

The problem is that it is too ugly inside out as a private vehicle (no offence) and not as reliable as Toyota for Taxi duties. Kind of like in the middle of nowhere.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by ecenandu

Plot the data over a graph, and then we can objectively come to a conclusion.

So here is how the data looks, I could source the data from 2011 onwards. All data from Autocar India. I took the top-end variant of Innova, Corolla and Fortuner. I took only manual variants, so that it will be more representative of the increase in price vs sudden introduction of automatic will skew the data.

The spike in Corolla's data in 2014 was due to the introduction of new model.

For XUV 5OO, I have selected the W8 variant.

Safari, Storm when launched otherwise the old model.

Aria, pride 4X4, I have no idea why the price is all over the place.

For Innova, I have selected the top end manual variant. Its interesting to see the delta in price over the year is highest for Innova and with the latest iteration, it crossed to the next segment.

I took out Corolla, Aria and Fortuner from the delta graph since it was cluttered

Please feel free to share your inferences that will make my time spend on this more worth.

[THE-U-]

Originally Posted by ecenandu

Please feel free to share your inferences that will make my time spend on this more worth.

Thanks.

Both Fortuner and Innova have monotonic price increase across the board. Corolla on the other hand flat lines toward the end similar to XUV Safari and Aria. In addition Crysta price increase is pretty steep from 2015 to 2016. It is clear Toyota kept increasing the prices of the two more popular models even though rest of the market flat lined. I wonder if the numbers kept increasing after each price increase.

One sees similar trends in the delta as well. What would be useful to do is to normalize each model's price history with its 2011 value. So, y would be 1 for all cars in 2011 and you can capture the increase with respect to 2011.