[bharatbits]

I prefer most cars in their first iteration. They are launched at introductory prices and after assessing the response they get then price them accordingly in the upcoming festive season say Diwali. Also, i feel a manufacturer will go the extra mile to keep their first customers, who bought a new launch without much info in the marker purely relying on the brand, happy in terms of honoring warranty etc.

I feel facelifts are priced unnecessarily higher without significant increase in the value they provide.

Again, it depends on the manufacturer. I'd go with a new launch, if i like the looks, from Tata, Fiat, Mahindra or say BMW for example. However, if it's from someone like Datsun, Maruti, Hyundai, Kia, MG i am not very sure if i'll go ahead.

[venkyhere]

Originally Posted by GTO

Oh, my eyes! That ugly grille on the 7-Series facelift:
Attachment 1918287

That they chose to showcase it in black, is a botched last-ditch attempt to hide the ugliness as much as possible.
The bean counters (the chinese are obsessed with their notion of rear legroom and size of front grille announcing the status of the guy in the car) have dictated terms here, in the decision making meeting rooms in Munich. I can practically picturize the germanic vowel starved heated arguments between the designers and the marketeers that would have taken place.
The kidneys are looking like lungs now.

[1.2TSI7DSG]

One of the awesome facelift stories has been of the XUV 500 (not the current but the one before. the same was a disaster in the 2.0 facelift. Hence, depends purely on the variants under consideration

[Dr.Mechanic]

Logged in just to answer this! I’d absolutely love the S-Cross 1.5 pre-facelift version being put into production again. But at the same time, you have cars like The Fortuner, which seem to be have sporting a pristine 3-piece business suit in the facelift over what earlier looked like a purely butch design. So, the car definitely matters.

[Thilak29]

When Honda Brio launched , I bought one within few months of launch , as I have noticed in last 7 years of ownership no part has failed (even battery lasted 6.5 years and around 70k kms), touchwood. Most pleasing part is to see Made In Japan labels in many parts.

[Romeo_Mike]

Voted for depends. Sometimes I feel the so called "face lifts" are bad enough to be called a face drop

The most recent one such job in memory is the appaling job by Honda on the 1st gen Amaze and breo. I get their justification though.. Poor guys just wantrd to cut some cost on multiple low selling models. So they just pasted the mobilio (which came later) front section on the amaze and brio calling it a face lift

But seriously, the face lift just buried the charecter of the two cars.

Images for reference -

[TheHelix0202]

Originally Posted by Vik0728

[*]Not sure about other manufacturers, but VW India themselves have lost count of the number of face-lifts they have offered on Polo. So I can safely say that the variant I have today, is probably the best & max VW could go with respect to adding features, before launching the all new Polo, which is some time away. [*]Some tiny (insignificant) flaws in the previous model were fixed, such as lifting the windshield wipers without getting them into 'Service' position

Interesting to know about the wiper lift position "glitch" being fixed. One other cost-cutting technique VW-Skoda has followed is reducing the weight (?) of the doors. I mean that the door, including the handles just doesn't feel as strongly built as compared to the pre-facelift (compared a showroom model with our older Rapid back-to-back, so I'm positive about this). This gives rise to a new question-why couldn't Skoda at least provide rubber damping on the lower edge of the door frame, now at least? A VW SA (while TD'ing a Polo, but it's the same issue with the Skoda as well) highlighted the absence of it as if it were something actually worth mentioning! If someone can throw some light on this, I'd be glad. Even cars with a much lighter build such as the Honda City and the Nissan Sunny have much better damping material used in their doors that give a "premium" feel while shutting them. Wish VW looks into this. Sorry for ranting about something seemingly silly, but I just had to get that out of my system.

[adi.mariner]

Voted for "cannot generalize, depends on the car". The initial batch of vehicles might have a few niggles which would hopefully be sorted out in the first year of production. Judging only on the looks and design, I preferred the older SX4 (which I bought in 2011) without the chrome grill rather than the one launched in 2013. For the Grand i10 in 2017, Hyundai had deleted the Automatic version in the top end Asta (O) variant. This one came with all the safety features before the face-lift. Luckily we got the pre-facelift version for my father.

[TejasKinger]

Voted for "cannot generalize, depends on the car". We own pre-facelifted versions of the Grand i10 and the Creta. Functionally, none of the additions or deletions (aside from airbags and Bluetooth in case of the i10) make a difference to my usage of the cars.

In the case of our previous cars though, we owned the facelifted Ford Ikon NXT and the 2006 model facelifted Mahindra Scorpio both of which were vastly superior to their predecessors.

So, clearly, can't generalize.

[VaidhiR]

Voted for facelift option.

OEM develops a car. Waits 12-18 months for phase-1 customer feedback. Irons out the bugs for the next 12-18 months. Launches a phase-1 facelift. Waits 12-18 months for phase-2 of the customer feedback. Works on the bugs for the next phase lift. And launches a part-2 phase lift. That would probably be the last. This is called a product lifecycle. Ideally, the development of a new car takes about 24-36 months. And the product lifecycle is about 7-9 years for a modern automobile.

When a new car is launched, they undergo about 12-18 months of extensive road tests where the OEM tests everything from engine bush mounting to wheel nuts and from cold starts to gear lever play. Atleast speaking from an European perspective, in 18 months, a car like Audi A3 or BMW 3 series would have clocked 5-6 million kilometers. A car like Mercedes Benz E-Class or BMW 5 series would have clocked about 7-10 million kilometers. Mercedes Benz S class or BMW 7 series would have 10-12 million kilometers.

I currently drive a Mazda 3 hatchback from 2018. The car was the last of its generation having undergone a couple of facelifts in 6 years. A completely new generation was on the horizon in 2019, and needless to say, I was torn between the choice to invest in an "end of a generation" car or a "new generation" car. I have to say, my decision to to go for the "end of a generation" car proved to be the best because of the mere fact that the new generation is filled with bugs. The most significant one being a recall issued to 6000 Mazda3 cars because of a wheel nuts problem. And those colleagues who bought the car I drive as a "new generation" car in 2013, they had bugs. The speaker mount on the doors were failing because of NVH. Bugs that were gradually ironed out through the "face lifts". These bugs arent something that could be identified in the 5-7 million kilometers of roadtests that went into the development. You can measure how the tire wear will be in these road tests. You can test how durable the foams of the seats are going to be with regular usage. You can also test how good the damping effect of the rubber engine mount is going to be. But you cant test how the driving style influences tire wear. Or how the friction between the fabric of the seat and our clothes will gradually reduce over time. Catch my point?

And hence, for optimized parts, all round performance and overall character, "facelifts" all the way. Even better, for the ultimate winners trophy, "end of a generation" car.

[baskar]

I actually like this facelift of Duster. I saw one in real and it looked nice and Macho. Even the tail lights look better

[aveoman19]

I'm on the fence when it comes to facelifts. On one hand, facelifts bring a generation of any car more in line with the latest design trend, thereby getting ourselves a tried and tested product while not feeling dated. On the other hand, facelifts may actually spoil the original coherence of a design as it is only the face and the rear of the car (in most cases) that are usually updated. In the process of updating the front and rear, the rest of the car ends up feeling like it was designed by someone else.

This is where the Germans do a great job. All they do is actually refresh rather than facelift. For all one cares, if the facelift design and the original design are interchanged in their timelines, it would still look decent. Case in point, the Audi A4 B8 facelift and pre-facelift was so imperceptible that one could barely differentiate the pre-facelift from the facelifted version. What they do is try to bring in some freshness by making design alteration ever so slightly, which to the untrained eyes will almost be imperceptible and is more of a blink and miss refresh.

German cars have for a long time been 'facelift ready' right from the inception of a design till the end of their product life cycle and hence the evolutionary design changes from one generation to the next. The sole exception being BMW with its gaudy ever growing (can't call them kidney grilles anymore) lung design grilles.