[redcandle]

Maruti rings down curtain on Baleno
Byas Anand

[ INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK ]WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2006 03:19:08 PM
NEW DELHI: India’s largest car maker Maruti Udyog is slamming brakes on its upper-end mid-sized car Baleno. The company is discontinuing production of Baleno to make way for its new premium segment car - code-named YY4 - which is slated to hit the Indian roads by April next year.

Sources close to the development said Maruti - which has closed its plant for the annual maintenance shutdown - is not expected to restart production of Baleno when the plant reopens in the first week of January. “There are some limited stocks left with the dealers and efforts are underway to clear this inventory,” a source said.

Company officials were not available for comments despite repeated attempts. Meanwhile, sources said the decision to discontinue Baleno was taken in view of the pending roll-out of the new sedan, which will be the costliest made-in-India Maruti Suzuki car till date.

Maruti Suzuki Baleno

This new vehicle - which will be pitted against the Chevrolet Optra and Toyota Corolla in the premium mid-size car market - is being build from scratch by Maruti and Suzuki engineers.

Though the firm is yet to finalise brand name for this new vehicle, sources said there has been a line of thinking within Maruti to do a Zen encore and use Baleno badge for the new mid-sized car too.

“However, there are some others who feel that the Baleno badge should be laid to rest and not used on the new car given the brand’s not-so-inspiring performance in the Indian car bazaar,” a source said.

Baleno was first introduced as a premium segment car, sporting a tag of close to Rs 8 lakh. However, the car failed to attract much demand and the company later slashed its tag to around Rs 5.6 lakh - a move that resurrected the brand in the domestic market.

This would be the third model being discontinued by the company after the original Zen (and the Zen Classic) and the Alto VXi (sporting a 1.1-litre engine). The new car - with a nearly Rs 8-9 lakh price tag - will be positioned in the fast-growing premium sedan market, which has witnessed an 80% growth in 2005, outpacing all other segments.

“The car is being developed on an all-new platform and is being engineered from scratch by a team of Indian and Japanese engineers. This will mark a big image change for Maruti , which has till now been identified as being a small car maker,” a source said.

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[Sahil]

Finally Maruti replaces a model rather than upgrading and facelifting the life out of the car....
Its high time they phase out the Esteem too, its been overdosed with makeovers.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

But... The pricing wont be in 8-9 bracket... It will bve in 7-8 region...

[ramie2400]

I have heard that the new baleno will be with a price tag of 8.5-9.7L? anyone any guess about the correct price and the pic of the new baleno.

_______________________
Happy New Year TBHPians

[GTO]

Come to think of it; the Baleno and the Vitara are the only two Marutis that never sold. Can understand the Vitaras problem with its near-20 lakh pricing but the Baleno was a pretty decent buy at 6 lacs.

An insider says that the new Baleno is not as driver-oriented as the old one (NHC vs OHC). I hope that hes wrong.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by ramie2400

I have heard that the new baleno will be with a price tag of 8.5-9.7L? anyone any guess about the correct price and the pic of the new baleno.

Pics are available in Autocar india...

I went to maruti dealer here, and they said, the multijet diesel will come into the new baleno in march... That could be high priced, at the level of fiesta TDCi top- end which is also near 9L... Petrols wont be that expensive... Maruti knows to price its cars right... Proof, the swift and the estilo...

Originally Posted by GTO

Come to think of it; the Baleno and the Vitara are the only two Marutis that never sold. Can understand the Vitaras problem with its near-20 lakh pricing but the Baleno was a pretty decent buy at 6 lacs.
An insider says that the new Baleno is not as driver-oriented as the old one (NHC vs OHC). I hope that hes wrong.

Baleno sold better than Versa, and vitara...

I think the two flops from maruti were versa and Vitara...

Balno, though not a hit, was certainly not a flop...

By the way, after all the offers... the baleno starts at 5.5L... Its unbelievable VFM now... Just 20- 30 k above esteem...

[iraghava]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Baleno sold better than Versa, and vitara...

Balno, though not a hit, was certainly not a flop...

By the way, after all the offers... the baleno starts at 5.5L... Its unbelievable VFM now... Just 20- 30 k above esteem...

Baleno was a flop when it was initially launched with a high price tag pitting it against the OHC. It is only after the drastic price cuts that it started selling.

[GTO]

Balno, though not a hit, was certainly not a flop...

The Baleno was absolutely a flop in terms of:

1. Failing to match the expected sales (expectations of Maruti).

2. Failing to match up to the sales of its competitors.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by iraghava

Baleno was a flop when it was initially launched with a high price tag pitting it against the OHC. It is only after the drastic price cuts that it started selling.

yes... but finally it recovered a bit na...

Overall, till now, would you say it flopped???

Considering there are so many fans of the baleno (I for one, love it, donno why)... there are enough cars to make its presence felt... Its certainly not an overall flop atleast in kerala...

Anyway... no point in arguing...

Maruti has great knack of killing (some of its) newly released products with high price tags -- Versa and Baleno. May be this due toexcessive self-confidence/some-mis-calculations.

In Versa case, they thought Initial-Ads will give sales boost. But they forgot apart from getting viewer's attention from ads, they also need to prodcut price right -- Indian customers are not fools after-all

They had great opportunity with Versa(which they lost):
* They have already established esteem engine and their product cost should be not high as freshly developed engine as is case for any other new release
* There is market opportunity -- we can still see this from sales of qualis,sumos,taveras,scorpios,safari(though Versa does not fall in thier category, it is after all people carrier)

[jkdas]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Maruti knows to price its cars right... Proof, the swift and the estilo...

Baleno sold better than Versa, and vitara...

I think the two flops from maruti were versa and Vitara...

Balno, though not a hit, was certainly not a flop...

By the way, after all the offers... the baleno starts at 5.5L... Its unbelievable VFM now... Just 20- 30 k above esteem...

maruti learned it the hard way

most became a Baleno fan after they reduced its price!

Baleno was the only car maruti was selling at a loss.

[shuvc]

Originally Posted by GTO

An insider says that the new Baleno is not as driver-oriented as the old one (NHC vs OHC). I hope that hes wrong.

Well as per this months ACI, the new one weighs 225kilos more than the outgoing model .. with the same 1.6 engine having to pull the extra weight .. straight line acceleration probably won't be what it was ..

Originally Posted by shuvc

Well as per this months ACI, the new one weighs 225kilos more than the outgoing model .. with the same 1.6 engine having to pull the extra weight .. straight line acceleration probably won't be what it was ..

Do you what this 225 ks extra weight is counted for -- are they adding new gadgets,more solid body ??

[Equus]

Originally Posted by jkdas

maruti learned it the hard way

most became a Baleno fan after they reduced its price!

Baleno was the only car maruti was selling at a loss.

At a loss? If Tata can make profits from its Indigo Diesel sedan at 4L (Hmm, there is VAT, Transportation, Dealer Margin, etc), then its a ton of money for the Baleno especially since their dies, etc are all used/depreciated.

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by shuvc

Well as per this months ACI, the new one weighs 225kilos more than the outgoing model .. with the same 1.6 engine having to pull the extra weight .. straight line acceleration probably won't be what it was ..

Somewhat similar to the Swift where the old Esteem engine had to pull a heavier body. But still it turned out a much better car than the Esteem