[Mechy_74]

I have been through the process of car purchase this May-June which began with pre-booking of Venue and ended with the purchase of Kicks XVP. We test drove Venue-Turbo DCT, Venue 1.4L Diesel, Creta 1.6L CRDI, Vitara Brezza-Manual, Brezza-AMT, Ecosport-Diesel, Ecosport-Petrol, Ciaz Petrol, Baleno Petrol CVT, Honda City IVTEC, Honda Amaze Petrol CVT, Toyota Yaris, sat in XUV-300, and, of course, test drove the Kicks Diesel and Kicks Petrol. In doing this interacted with 9 dealers.

The Huyndai sales folks were found to be in disarray, with hardly any follow up, probably smug in the quality and reliability of their products. I was leaning towards the Venue due to its fresh looks and DCT, but was worried about the performance of Turbo petrol engine and DCT in start-stop traffic in hot weather. (It is being heard that clutch tends to overheat in this variant in such conditions.) But the people at Hyundai did not make any effort to convert. I was also levitating towards Creta despite budget creep, but it was inconspicuous to them. The showroom experience (went to two of them) was also not worth mentioning.

Both the brand showrooms of Maruti Suzuki presented an extremely professional front, giving nice experience and the sales people did polite follow ups, post the TD. This is where MS becomes the undisputed leader, with its great products (loved the new Ciaz) and now enhanced dealership quality.

Similarly, experience at the Honda and the Toyota showrooms was extremely good and we received expected follow-up calls.

However, our Nissan sales executive went out of his way to make us come to a decision, right from bringing car for TD and good discounts. Incidentally, Honda, Ford and Nissan showrooms I went to here, are run by one family.

Now, I have a car and I am facing niggling and possibly some serious issues too(Is the GB vibrating?). I was buying in a little bit of a tight schedule, hence I could not do the due diligence of pre-delivery inspections as available on T-BHP, though I had given a print-out to my son.

Now, for a car brand, which saw a decline from about 800 units in launch in Jan to about 100 units per month when I bought, how difficult would it have been for the OEM to instruct the dealers to positively avoid selling any lemons, least any TD ones, even by mistake? Can they afford the negative publicity when a buyer suspects that his piece could be having serious quality issues? I keep wondering, what would they be doing now with their Total Quality pieces.

[Nithesh_M]

Nissan should have taken the helms of Mitsubishi in India instead of riding the Renault coattails. Mitsubishi has the compact suvs and full size suv product portfolio that aren't sold in India yet. Heck Nissan could even bring the Chinese market Mitsu Lancer to compete with City/Ciaz. The Lancer nameplate is still strong in the minds of Mitsu loyalists who wouldn't mind Nissan badges on it. 😆

The new Eclipse Cross? Outlander Phev? AsX? Could all do well with competitive pricing here.

[Slick]

I believe Nissan will leave.

They should not, actually. They have a base here and the next big disruption, The Electric Vehicle phenomenon, is round the corner or atleast some hybrid tech initally.

They should stay and see if they can gain an advantage there. Like a lot of people mentioned here, Nissan already have EV/ Hybrid cars which can be leveraged here.

Now if they can successfully position themselves as a reliable EV manufacturer or a leading hybrid/EV Organization, they might have a chance.

I have a feeling that the EV disruption will affect Suzuki's market share and that's when companies like Nissan, FIAT, Renault would have the next chance of creating a niche.
Though don't see FIAT doing anything about it.

- Slick

[sdaityari]

Nissan is among the top 5 brands in the US in terms of sales numbers. Nissan Rogue, Altima and Sentra come up in the top 20 cars. However, there's a catch.

Over the last decade, Nissan has focussed on fleet sales, and their gross margins have come down to as low as 1%. Nissan USA is obviously working on that.

I think Nissan can only survive in India with a boost coming from commercial sales in the near future.

In the long run, their expertise in EVs will come into play. Rhe Leaf should be launched in India at some point in time.

[vinya_jag]

I feel, they should ride the wave. The electric revolution is about to happen. They could become relevant in a few years.

[DreamsUnlimited]

I feel they should stay, for we need brands with international reach and technology, but I think they will leave.

As for Rakesh Srivastava, I remembered a quote by Warren Buffett, "When a manager with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, its the reputation of the business that remains intact".

[.HEM]

I have voted NO.

With Rakesh at the helm, if he is given a free hand, then the possibility of Nissan to survive in the Indian market is more. We can wait for one last time, if again there is a change at the helm in a short period, we can wirte a RIP board for Nissan.

As stated by GTO, there are many beautiful cars Nissan can offer to the Indian buyers. The EV and Hybrid alone can turn the tides in favor of Nissan.

[Lalvaz]

With such dismal sales, it’s not surprising that people are speculating about the imminent closure of the brand in India.

Was recently interested in a TD of the kicks and the dealership was extremely courteous and responsive. The folks were sincere and patient in answering all my queries. Although they did not have the diesel version at that point, they encouraged me to do a TD of the petrol and explained the differences. Subsequently they did try and arrange the TD of the diesel Kicks but I was travelling. So bottom line I liked the dealer response.

I think their products are good. The Kicks did have a good ride quality, road presence and good interiors.

I wish they get their act together and give competition to the existing Indian auto players who are making the most of this monopoly. It will be our loss as consumers if Nissan decided to exit.

[AMG Power]

Originally Posted by GTO

Rakesh Srivastava is .....a great captain coming onboard the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

True. There is N O T H I N G he can do other than try and delay the inevitable.

Originally Posted by GTO

To be sure, there is no problem in the auto industry that a good car can't solve.

I have always maintained that this is applicable to any industry not just automobiles.

If you have a good product you can hide a HUGE amount of inefficiencies and incompetencies in management and staff.

The product will cover up for all of that and as long as the product remains relevant, the company will remain safe inspite of such management.

[rascalangel]

They might as well start packing their bags. Renault just announced the pricing for e-Kwid in China. $9000 or about 6.4Lakhs'ish. Do note its comes with a real world range of 190km and 44bhp equivalent motor.


https://electrek.co/2019/09/12/renau...r-cheap-china/

[live2dream]

I hope they exit India and only manufacturers serious about India should remain. Look at their lineup, cars which has gone well past their life-cycle continued to sold by Nissan. We cannot blame their dealership and service as after putting a huge amount to setup the dealership they hardly have any good car to sell. Nissan Kicks even though a good product has come in too late to the party and competition is fierce.

[gauravanekar]

I have no love lost for either Nissan or Datsun brand as a customer. But I've seen the RNAIPL factory at Chennai. It's a good factory with good enough processes. Over the years it has contributed in developing a lot of engineers and technicians. They have invested good amount of money on that factory. It's a sad story for the factory and the people working there.
The fate of any factory should not be that bad.

[lrsays]

Yes, unless they have a solid plan of doing something with new buzz word - Electric. They have few good cars but no solid plan to support their existing customers.
9% workforce cut and 95 % profit dip globally points to close to zero probability of Nissan trying something which requires a lot of investment.
Apart from technical capability and willingness, financial heath of company matters a lot when it comes to changing something drastically.

Reference-
https://www.rushlane.com/nissan-indi...-12318395.html

[superbad]

It beggers disbelief that the company which built the iconic Skyline GTR can't sell cars in India, inspite of Jap pedigree. Goes to show that brand value, customer service & marketing is crucial for selling products.
I believe Nissan, to start from ground zero, should take an EV approach - appoint own dealers, build infrastructure, have first mover advantage in an upcoming segment, build a brand & then introduce new IC vehicles in the market.

[hondatoyotafan]

I really cant recognize nissan india from the nissan i was used to in North America.In NA nissan is very aggressive in launching new models and also discounting to beat other established Japs in the North American Market. Compared to that Nissan India is very laidback , I think the Renault alliance is to blame