[arunramaswamy]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Well, with our extensive base, someone is always willing to lend their car to us for a review.

Remember, if a manufacturer thinks their car is good, they will want us to test and tell you all about it. The Captur has some good points but alas the ad campaign and the resulting tarnishing of the brand is overshadowing this.

Agreed. Captur has its own strength. However the flip side is that those strengths can be obtained at a lower price point in the form of Duster. Besides Captur does not exactly ooze class, either in terms of quality of materials used or the platform it is based on, that is expected at the price point Renault is pitching it in.

My main concern is if they use the same tone during launch as well. If that is the case indeed, I think everyone will know what Renault India is made of.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by rajeshsundaram

Ah.. err, well I think one of the side effects of this Renault issue exposed in TBHP is - Here after, TBHP will never get invited to new car launches from Renault or Nissan I guess.

Jokes apart, what Renault did is absolutely unethical in todays Social connected world. They may go unscathed without any damage. But they lost a lot of respect in certain circles now.

You remember what happened when Rover Denied a Cityrover for Jeremy Clarkson to test right . The rest is history. Lets hope Renault is not planning to chart the same course as Rover

[rakeshsinha]

Tata Nexon is the biggest competitor for Kaptur and for S-cross too. Renault has done nothing new in releasing the Kaptur with outdated interior and old Dacia platform in India. Duster is now completely outdated despite a capable car. The Kaptur looks awkward. On the other side, the s-cross did nothing with its poor interiors, whereas has done some excellent job in uplifting front with some grilling work. The Nexon looks quite upmarket with its refreshing interior, cockpit type sitting style with Herman infotainment system and new engine at a very low price. TATA have put everything in Nexon due to which even the booking of New Hyundai Verna has also got affected adversely after release of this compact SUV. I think, the Nexon will blow away every new entrant at this moment

[R17]

Originally Posted by deehunk

Disabling comments is not in good taste, this is a new video, look at the claims of longest and widest SUV in its category and then later saying C-SUV. Renault still believes that there is no competition to Captur as it is fully loaded and a global winner.

I don't how many of you have seen this video

Unethical. Shocking. But unfortunately, not unbelievable , coming from Renault-Nissan India.

As some folks have pointed out, Renault/Nissan has a history of unethical misdoings.

• During the Kwid launch in India, they repeatedly claimed that they their internal crash tests confirmed that their Kwid meets crash test standards - While they sold a boot-load of the cars, a few months later we learnt that it got 0 stars from G-NCAP
• They requested G-NCAP for multiple retests claiming they had made structural improvements - which helped the dealers keep the sales momentum going - each successive test showed they'd lied; I believe G-NCAP tested the Kwid thrice if not more
• This isnt just an India specific problem - they were panned by multiple regulatory crash testing bodies for selling the Nissan Tsuru in Lat-Am which offered safety standards of the 80s but they continued

Renault, if it has a shred of dignity, should publicly retract this campaign and highlight that the Kaptur is different from the European Captur. Thats the least they could do to stop deceiving the indian buyers.

But...

... Since its pretty unlikely that they will, lets do what we can as an informed forum. Ive shared the link of this article with Autocar India and am hoping they'll surface this issue. I'm also sharing this article on my social media feeds, for what its worth. Would really help if all of us could find ways to highlight this issue in public as best as we could - We can reach out to Auto magazines / newspapers, highlight on social media, maybe even drop a note to the CEO (if someone can find the coordinates)?

[Wheel Spin]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Why did Renault rebrand the Duster-based Kaptur to Captur to mimic their Clio-based European car?

To mislead people into believing this -

This is disgusting. For over a decade, some car makers are trying to take Indian buyers for a ride by projecting awards given to their international models which are entirely different in design, engineering, built, features and even the quality of the sheet-metal used for the body.

Another is Hyundai, who was flaunting 5 star NCAP for their i20!

Are their marketing officials not aware that there is something called internet and people can browse & get informed?

[GTO]

Originally Posted by rajeshsundaram

Ah.. err, well I think one of the side effects of this Renault issue exposed in TBHP is - Here after, TBHP will never get invited to new car launches from Renault or Nissan I guess.

I believe Renault is bigger than that and all car manufacturers know that we are fair. Team-BHP calls a spade a spade. What's good about the Captur will be highlighted in our official review just as the bad stuff will be (as is the case in all our official reviews).

However, if any car manufacturer doesn't lend us a presser for our review:

1. We will request BHPians to allow us some time with their car. Have already done it for some manufacturers (Maruti, Tata).

2. If no BHPian has yet bought the car, and it's an important launch, we'll go ahead and buy it specifically for the review, selling it once we're done.

No manufacturer can stop Team-BHP from reviewing its car.

[himanshugoswami]

Originally Posted by GTO

2. If no BHPian has yet bought the car, and it's an important launch, we'll go ahead and buy it specifically for the review, selling it once we're done.

No manufacturer can stop Team-BHP from reviewing its car.

Really? can you please share an instance of when this was done. Just buying for a test and then selling the car off? Depreciation and loss be damned?

[GTO]

Originally Posted by himanshugoswami

can you please share an instance of when this was done. Just buying for a test and then selling the car off?

No.2 hasn't (yet) been done, because we've always found cars that we could borrow.

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by himanshugoswami

Just buying for a test and then selling the car off? Depreciation and loss be damned?

Having seen the way the forum works, I wouldn't be surprised a bit if this happens. WE are known for our hatke ways of functioning.

Robert Frost (May his soul rest in peace) will agree with me that these lines of his suit the forum the best:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken

[deehunk]

Originally Posted by dailydriver

Having seen the way the forum works, I wouldn't be surprised a bit if this happens. WE are known for our hatke ways of functioning.

I am doing this unofficially from past 1 year by buying 3 different vehicles and burning my hands badly.

• Duster - 4 months, 8K plus km's, lost 3 lakhs
• Ecosport - 4 months, 8K plus km's, lost 1.5 lakhs
• WR-V, Still with me

I invested in shares for the first time in my life which helped me to bear this loss. This forum is never short of risk-takers.

[pacman2881]

This has been covered in Rushlane now with links to this thread: Link

This is what Renault said when they were pulled up up by ASCI for claiming Lodgy to be the number one MPV-

"Once this issue was brought to the notice of Renault, the company immediately changed the advert, which was in line with the standards set by ASCI. We would like to reiterate that we have no intention to mislead the public by our advertisement and the same was changed immediately," the company said in a statement.

Source

[shipnil]

Originally Posted by deehunk

I am doing this unofficially from past 1 year by buying 3 different vehicles and burning my hands badly.

• Duster - 4 months, 8K plus km's, lost 3 lakhs
• Ecosport - 4 months, 8K plus km's, lost 1.5 lakhs
• WR-V, Still with me

I invested in shares for the first time in my life which helped me to bear this loss. This forum is never short of risk-takers.

Looks like you are an ideal candidate for long term comparison of all these models. Could you please start new thread to share the same?

[Brishti]

Hyundai had done something similar with the i20 which stated that it had achieved 5stars in NCAP but obviously thats not applicable to any Indian version at that point of time because that 6airbag i20 was released way after.

[shashanka]

Originally Posted by C300

Absolute pathetic from Renault. I thought the airbag saga was a low but they have outdone themselves with this con job.

Lets not glorify Maruti. S-cross and Brezza are overpriced hatchbacks. I dont think they have even tested by gncap. Will pick up Duster/Captur/Terrano over these any day.

"Pathetic" is not the word I'd choose in this case. I think "slyly underhanded, bordering on defrauding" is the expression that comes to mind.
As for the examples chosen (Maruti, Renault, Nissan) its a case of the pot calling the kettle black. All looking for a free ride on that tired old (hatch-on-stilts-and-steroids wanna-be SUV) bandwagon.

[GTO]

Motorbeam.com also stood up & carried the story .

Automobile enthusiasts are of the opinion that the international-spec (called Kaptur in some markets) and the India-spec Captur differ in various aspects and hence such an ad doesn’t make sense. Soon after a post on an automobile website went viral, the French carmaker removed the ad. But before they did so, some people had downloaded the ad and reposted it on YouTube.

Though the international-spec and the India-spec Renault Captur may look similar, there are differences. For instance, the platform. The Europe-spec Captur underpins Clio’s platform (which gets a 5-star rating from Euro-NCAP), while the India-spec model underpins the Duster’s platform (the Europe-spec Dacia Duster gets a 3-star rating from Euro-NCAP, the India model didn’t fare well with the safety agency finding out that the small airbags in the car are almost useless).