[venbas]

Just reminded of the Cigarette ads decades back that were endorsed by Doctors and celebrities ranting on the benefits of smoking! Despite its torque and mileage advantages Diesel's are established as more polluting than Petrols. It took the BSVI for our Manufacturers to finally bury the bad Diesel's as there was no incentive to make it viable for BS VI upgrade. Suddenly the forgotten Petrols are good now

[satyamkolhe]

I am no Maruti fanboy and have never owned one, but I don't understand why people are pissed about the advertisement. They don't have good diesel engines and they are investing in future technologies like EVs and hybrids but for now they are selling only petrol cars.
They are not calling anyone stupid for buying a diesel car in past. They are just saying that in BS6 era, not everyone can recover the extra money they spend on a diesel car. That is a fact even if we don't like it. Dieselheads will still buy a diesel car no matter what. So using actual facts in advertising is not wrong. People should be angry if this was a misleading advertisement, which, it is not. And I think deep down, everyone knows that in BS6 era, this advertisement has some truth to it. We just don't want to accept it.
And all the discussions about Maruti cars being tin can are for some other thread because people are still buying unsafe maruti cars in millions just to get a couple of KMs extra per litre. Those people will agree with the advertisement if they calculate it themselves or even compare the features and prices of diesel competitors from other manufacturers.

[John316_WRC]

Good leaders = good products. This fact applies to any company.

After this diesel hypocrisy, what else is Maruti going to say next? - "that all their cars are safe & Global NCAP is an unnecessary testing entity & that they will not send cars for testing anymore?"

Oh wait ! They've already said that.

[dragracer567]

Indeed as many people pointed out, Hyundai/Kia is behaving more like a market leader now. If I remember correctly, Hyundai Creta and Kia Seltos both sold over 10,000 units in the month of August in the midst of a pandemic induced recession while the best Maruti sold was about 14,000 Swifts. Do the math, a 15 lakh car will bring in much more profits than a 6 lakh one!

I suspect that Suzuki is about to go the way of Mitsubishi (or Nokia) since they aren't popular in any major market except India and Japan and globally don't have any competent and successful product except the Swift and the Vitara (and maybe the S-cross).

[Lambydude]

Originally Posted by SCORPION

Attachment 2047384
At that time, they claimed, their diesels were the most fuel efficient and the most economical cars in the country. The only diesel they built 'in house' - a 2 cylinder for the Celerio which they later glued together for the Ciaz!

Now they have no more diesels in their line up. They have no suppliers, so they cannot milk their customers with 'their' diesels anymore. ?

Not a big fan of Maruti and their tin foil cars, but what is wrong in this strategy?

When they came up with Fiat sourced diesels, the price difference of diesel and petrol in India was nearly Rs.12. That too when petrol costed approx 55-60 Rs per litre.
Hence, along with better fuel efficiency offered by diesel engine, this made total economical sense.

Now the prices difference is just Rs3-4 and per litre price is nearly 80. So paying 1.5 lacs premium for a diesel variant doesn't make sense. Hence, they are pushing petrol engines. Don't find anything wrong in this strategy.

[Sounak04]

I own a Maruti Dzire ZDI AGS. While buying the car in March 2018,the salesman really convinced me to buy the Diesel instead of the Petrol. Infact he told me privately that they receive orders from above to sell the Diesels more. I was interested in buying the Diesel anyway. But the point is that a Company which promoted Diesels so much just a few years back, has not only stopped but also gives all these weird reasons to not buy a Diesel. This is just pure hypocrisy by Maruti.

I think its time that people understand Maruti is not what is used to be. Maruti cars are not Safe, they lack features, use just 3-4 engines for the entire line up of their cars and their service is no more cheap. Their service costs have gone up drastically and their service quality has gone down. I was really not satisfied with one of my Services done at a Maruti's ASS (Excell Autovista, Taloja) but after sending so many mails to Maruti to complain about the same, i have not received a single reply from their side. Finally, i just switched over to another Service Center.

Hyundai and Kia has introduced so many Engines and Transmission options in their Line up. They have upgraded their Diesel Engines to BS 6 without making any fuss about it. Even a Brand like Ford,which has such a small presence in India and has no certainty about their future, has upgraded their Engines to BS 6 but Maruti cannot do that. Yesterday only i was going through the month sales of 4W for the month of August, and i was surprised to see that Maruti still has 7 Vehicles in the top 10. I hope Maruti realizes soon that they just cannot take Indian Customers for Granted or the Common people make them realize it.

[bharatbits]

What more can you expect from them when they have been all about Kitna Deti Hain and nothing more.

[motorworks]

This whole aspect of shunning diesels is very short term. No doubt, buying a small diesel car is now not viable, but if you would like to own a sedan or a crossover like the Creta or Seltos, diesel still makes sense to some extent due to the far higher efficiency figures.

So when Toyota and Suzuki do develop a Creta rival, is it only going to be in petrol? Or at best a mild hybrid? I dont think they would go the route of developing something along the lines of a Prius, it would be expensive and plus you now have a Nexon electric at around 15 lakhs! Hence in the very near future you will have pure electrics as the next alternative, and this whole hybrid tech may be neither here nor there, unless they are able to offer these at a standard cost, which I dont think will be the case.

[Rshrey22]

To be honest, at the end of the day it all comes down to ease of maintenance of your vehicle. Safe or not, efficient or not and even smart or sad looking, you would want to buy a vehicle that is easy to maintain.

Maruti parts are available even at remote mechanics and service at these FNGs is dirt cheap, as maruti cars are built simple with least amount of complexities making them easier to work on. This is very important aspect for a lower middle to middle class household when it comes to owning a car.

Taking a simple example, my dzire's clutch plate was due for a change and I took it to the nearby FNG, the job was done for 4.5k parts and labour included. Take a VW for this job to the Service center and you are looking at a 15-25k estimate.

Many people don't buy a Maruti because it gives good mileage, it's because of excellent parts availability and cheap maintenance cost something which other brands don't offer.

It is quite visible that those who can afford better cars and their maintenance buy good cars like Cretas and VWs and what not. But at the end of the day, the average middle class man looks for cheap maintenance and cost of ownership alas a Maruti.

[Hayek]

Don’t see why people are reacting so vehemently to this ad. The fact is that if the cost of a diesel car is more than that of a petrol car, diesels make less sense than the petrols for most urban car users. Getting people to run the numbers makes sense.

And let’s remember, the situation was very different pre 2014 when oil prices were sky rocketing, diesel
was subsidised and the price gap between petrol and diesel kept widening. We have a very different fact pattern now. Despite owning a diesel car (which I bought because it was a lot cheaper than the petrol for the same model), I would say that they are doing a social service by letting the mathematically challenged find an easy way to assess total ownership cost.

Let me give you my own example:

In 3.5 years, I have driven 28,760 km, and used 3393 litres of diesel costing ₹ 228,000 at 8.6 kmpl. With a petrol equivalent giving 6.5 kmpl, I would have used about 4400 litres costing ₹ 339,000. So even if the petrol car cost ₹200,000 (under 5% of the cost of my car) more, I would not have recovered the principal yet - leave aside the interest.

Think the same would apply to most urban users

[1.2TSI7DSG]

I have heard radio jingles as well. Height of stupidity. Won't be surprised if maruti looses market in tier 1 / 2 cities in the next 2-3 years

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Don’t see why people are reacting so vehemently to this add. The fact is that if the cost of a diesel car is more than that of a petrol car, diesels make less sense than the petrols for most urban car users. Getting people to run the numbers makes sense.

I'm in favour of petrol cars and the balance started leaning towards petrol cars in the smaller cars a few years back. Also, diesels should be slowly eliminated from small cars. But that is a topic for another thread.

I too have a strong opinion about this misleading advertisement due to their incompetence and agree with other members. They use ARAI FE benchmarks to arrive at the figures. I compared the Ciaz Alpha in Delhi considering no loan, 30 km of daily driving (11k annually), and 13/17 kmpl for petrol/diesel respectively.

Fair enough on why their claim is a load hot air? 68k km in 6 years is easily possible!

[Arjun Bharadwaj]

Is this the effect of the "tik tok" era where the sense of responsibility and accountability is dropping by the day from people/companies who post data? Anyone can "create" content out of thin air without providing real experimental data or research.

This is what makes Team-BHP so unique that each and every post is reviewed for value, accuracy, source etc and hence produces high quality data.

The above ad seems to be simply a case of inadequate review/editing or simply lack of creativity!

[Abhi5868]

I still can't fathom with the fact that such obnoxious marketing is being done by the "Market Leaders" of the auto sector. Especially their TVC makes my blood boil. How proudly they're claiming to be the best choice when most of their offerings are nothing but coffin on four wheels.

Even my unsuspecting dad who also happens to be an ex owner of a diesel Dzire was pretty pissed off by the advertisements. Wonder why weren't they worried about our Purani soch when only five years ago we bought a diesel from them . I sincerely wish this ad campaign bites them back in some way or another when they again proudly launch their bs6 diesels.

[chiefpk]

Ok so this thread has come to light now and receiving a lot of attention now.

I see that many people have been saying that petrol is the future and the diesel is costlier now and what not. I agree with every word you say, No issue with that.

But don't you think that this is an injustice beyond forgiveable, to those loyal customers who have been buying Maruti's, recommending Maruti's and promoting them for years and now Maruti is just kind of betraying them( not being emotional here though)

The DDiS engine that got them to the heights of selling around more than 20 lakh cars cumulative is now non existent.

The parent company of the engine, Fiat if I quote, is now dead in India, and Maruti who made money on someone's else's work is now opposing its existence. C'mon this ain't how things work.

And if they boast of their engine's they have made, I can't think of a single good mill they have made except if you consider the 2-Cylinder engine for Celerio which they later glued together for the Ciaz.

Look at Hyundai, being in the market at no.2, leading the game as if they are the market leader.
They have whole range of engines be it diesel, petrol heck even turbo's for NIOS AND AURA. They introduce great tech like the iMT and what not in this side of 10 lacs where Maruti reigns. Give me one decent example of Maruti leading the market. They are leading only because of their Alto's and S-Presso. Brezza, S-cross, Ciaz these all are down in terms of sales because people have way better choices.

It's high time people give preferences to some other brands because of what the competition has to offer, be it Specs, features, Safety and even cheaper maintenance.