[ashutoshb]

Rather than going retrospective, it's better that bhpians vote keeping safety in mind from now on.

Many of us have cars, which are untested or have below par safety ratings. But, we are getting more aware and that's progress.

Taking back an award won't do a thing.

Many of us are 'influencers', when it comes to car purchase advice, be it in our own family or friends. If we can make others aware, that would be the better thing to do.

And even before that, we will soon see, how many us are willing to walk the talk. The initial ownership reports section would be one place to watch in the coming months.

[GrammarNazi]

Since many people have chosen the product in good faith of it being sufficiently safe, they may now tend to feel like justifying their decision (which isn't necessary, as they do have a right to their choice). Basically sort of like an "Endowment Effect".

Although, poor safety rating issue isn't new in itself & hasn't been a major factor in the past few years, as time went people have now learnt about it, and thus structural safety has very much become an essential part of the car buying decision.

In the present day ideal scenario, BHPians or ANY informed person would prioritise their family's safety over other factors.

This to me is a sufficiently compelling reason that cars which (at the time of launch) were expected to perform well in a crash test, but later didn't, must absolutely be stripped-off of the forums' COTY award.

If we take a stand on the issue, it'd uphold the forums essence & image of being unbiased informed individuals persuading objective purism, and which could be relied upon by the readers.

For some of us, it'd be the easiest & most obvious decision.

[theAutomaniac]

Originally Posted by giri1.8

What I said might look like nonsense, but that is just my view.

I just felt COTY tag need not be stripped just because of its safety rating. That would be like saying only 5 star rated car should deserve to be our choice. Which means we will have just one or two cars to choose from. Don't feel that makes any sense.

Of course! Even I believe that a car does not deserve to be stripped off the COTY award due to poor safety ratings as many other unsafe cars have been crowned in the past as well!

Also, no one was actually expecting the Kia Seltos to fare so bad! Most of us(except me lol) were expecting the Kia Seltos to be rated at least 4 stars, considering the hype created by sponsored reviews and the strong PR activities.

[84.monsoon]

Taking a COTY award away is an illogical response, especially since it was awarded by popular votes of forum members. Not a lot of information is available at the point of voting, as the cars are new and there is little real world experience or safety rating information available.

The fair way to do it would be a second award which focuses on cars released the previous year. Let the members vote for “the established car of the year” - a car released the previous year. The cars would have been through enough real-world usage, any niggles would have surfaced, service cost and quality information would be available, and most of the cars would has been safety rated by then.

[GipsyDanger]

Allow me to be terribly honest here.

The Seltos was a gentle slap in the face for us BHP-ians. A mild eye-opener, for we chose it on the basis of features and overall packaging alone and did not take into consideration actual safety, reliability, consumer satisfaction among other real-life factors.

My concern is less towards safety, but more so towards brakegate. And the company's attitude towards it: all of these were mild indicators on whether the car was truly deserving of such praise.

I think it's high time we reassess our criteria for the polls.

Don't you think it's a great idea to atleast wait for one year, to hold the polls, to wait for all the issues to be reported and whether those issues were getting solved properly, wait for the ownership reports, or atleast hold some surveys among people we know in case none of the BHP-ians own the candidates and then compile our results and judge them accordingly?

I don't see the harm in holding COTY 2019 on July-August 2020 and so on, sure, crash results can't still be predicted, but atleast we can create the opportunity to assess the candidates more realistically based on the other said factors.

I know it's easier said than done but I think such a more through examination is what should be expected from such an esteemed forum as ours otherwise we'd be no better than the other automotive news outlets who readily give away awards to cars that simply make up the headlines

As for crash testing, there's nothing we can do. We can't simply expect GNCAP to test all of our candidates in the given time, the least we can do is atleast look for other factors like actual reliability as well.

On a happier note, Happy Diwali everyone!