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-   -   Why no sliding doors in Indian MPVs? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/198489-why-no-sliding-doors-indian-mpvs-2.html)

Toyota Sienna does not have Omni like sliding doors. It’s a heavy plush door with one touch open and close feature. You don’t really pull open the door. That kind of door will surely increase the cost.

Sienna comes closest to Innova and if Innova had a sliding door feature, the price would be much higher.

Two things that Indian MPV still don’t offer is a completely flat third row space and sliding door.

Sliding door doesn’t sell Coz it’s not offered and not Coz people don’t want to buy it. Iam sure if Innova was offered in both option of sliding as well as normal door, we would have got the answer.

Sliding doors last I can remember Maruti Van or Omni, the railings for the sliding mechanism always needed attention.

They were robust but at the cost of exterior aesthetics, in today's car trend nobody wants even the shut line to be imperfect. For example, my clothes wardrobe, it's sliding fine but the shutline has to be 100% so none of my air conditioner flow is wasted.

While personally I don't have any problem with sliding doors, I think companies don't sell them in India mainly because they know that we have that tendency to link sliding doors to taxi, people carrier, ambulance type vehicles and not an ideal posh family car. So simply they don't want to invest in something that might be hard to sell. Yes they can bring their tried and tested models like the Odyssey or Alphard but until then I don't see them developing an India only or Asia specific vehicle for our market with this feature anytime soon.

IMHO, i think lots of these cars try to look like SUV'ish and not because they are derived from smaller cars. The primary intention of these cars was to look attractive and not to look like typical people carrier van. See latest Innova, it tries to look more like SUV. Same goes for Honda BRV. Cars like Xylo, Lodgy which looked typical people carrier where not that successful and paid the price for their looks.

Why only big MPV's, Suzuki can bring in a SOLIO which has power sliding doors and make this feature a desirable one.

I can only guess, my guess is manual sliding doors are associated with cheap vans like Omni and Eeco and hence not considered premium enough for higher end cars.

It seems having good quality sliding doors ( powered one's ) is a costly affair and hence they want to avoid it in a cost sensitive market like ours.

And commercial feel or not, that's a major letdown for those spending big bucks on premium MPVs. Imagine walking out of a 25-lac-rupee Innova Crysta and having to slide the door back into place! :uncontrol And compare that to walking out and shutting the door normally. The latter looks more "normal" and requires less physical effort as well.

Just like in some vehicles, the tail gate can be opened and closed from a button near the driver's control and the remote, in the same way some variants of the Odessey have the sliding doors open and close using the remote or a button close to the driver's controls.

I think it's about market perception.
In the US, Honda Odyssey and Toyota Sienna are vans- meant to transport large groups of people in comfort. All the SUVs in the US have regular doors.

In India, our MUVs are supposed to feel like extended cars. Vans are categorized as commercial transport for fleet operators- Omni, Evalia, Alphard etc.

How many of you remember having trouble with the Omni's sliding doors? :)

While a normal door just needs a push, the Omni's sliding door required one to pull and then push/shove the door for it to latch.

Toyota Hiace has sliding doors and it takes considerable effort to close them.

It's basically cumbersome and has a commercial vehicle angle to it. Can't work for passenger cars in India.

Some vans like the VW Transporter have electronic doors. They are nice. Tesla X's automatic wing doors are at a different level :D

Regular doors have a 2 or 3 step opening and that's a good safety to have.

If i am right, sliding doors dont have this feature. If its open, it slides all the way down immediately. No ?
Which would mean, an improperly locked door can suddenly slide all the way down and probably quick if the car is accelerating.

Was thinking about this and the first thing that came to mind was this. Wouldn't the sliding doors need a electrical contact for the window rolling mechanism and power lock mechanism? That contact can be put in place near the door latch and at the extreme open position, but then it would operate only when the door is closed or fully open.

So we have two wireless contactors which are maintenance prone compared to fixed cable connections and then also the windows and locks can work only then the door is at the extremities. In between the two, nothing in the door is powered. Add to that the connection for speakers.

That's why Indian sliding door MPVs I've been in, had manual sliding windows, no power locks and no speakers in the doors. Even the manual crank windows seem to be a difficulty probably because it has to clear the flank of the car, seats etc. across its travel range when the door is opened/closed. Add to that the channel along the side of the car which accommodates the rollers (like in Omni/Evalia) which is a grease ridden track prone to dust accumulation and noisy in operation. Step-less mechanism, which can be a safety hazard for kids compared to stepped mechanism of the hinged doors which breaks the swing of the door while being opened or closed.

Personally, I prefer conventional doors.
They are much simpler to operate, make less noise, and require less maintenance/attention.
And to top it all, the ugly slide mechanism/railings of the Sliding door is not required as well.

I don’t think this is anything to do with Indian MPVs; the Innova for example has regular doors be it in India, Malaysia or Indonesia. What I have seen is normally smaller MPVs have regular doors and larger/expensive ones have sliding doors – examples VW Sharan / Honda Odyssey with sliding doors, and VW Touran / Honda Stream with regular doors. Recently the Toyota Sienna is small car which I saw with sliding doors.

That's one of their favorites in HK, it was my airport pick-up and drop there. It is a good ride, but don't know on Indian roads how will it bounce.:D

I have seen several tall boy hatch backs in Europe with sliding door, of almost every make and brand, and they are very popular there. In Turkey for example Fiat Fiorino (which is incidentally the cheapest car in Turkey and price starts at INR 7.5 lakhs!) is very popular in private cars and Fiat Doblo for Taxi. Off course they look ugly, but as many have said here it is form here and function there. We are still far away from a mature market.

While i feel the Sienna is the ideal car for Indians with large families (and most Indians do) the sliding door wont be a deterrent. Kia is already bringing their 10 seater, Innova rival with sliding doors here and Toyota wont be far behind, i wont be surprised if they bring in the Sienna earlier that the Kia. All will depend on the pricing now and with the high pricing of the Crysta and still getting buyers to lap it up, i think Toyota has unfurled yet another market in MPVs.... Sienna may come to India sooner than we thing....hopefully.

On a related note, why fixed window glasses for the third row? Why so tiny space in the third row? Why no doors for the third row? Why no AC vents for the third row?