[firstdrive]

Originally Posted by sureshkishore

There are diesel lovers who don't work out the math before buying a diesel car. The Maruti ad aims to convert those diesel fans. It sure does a decent job of presenting the case.

You are talking about Math, I had a colleague who bought his first car not even knowing how to drive as if he was buying vegetables. Just walked into MS showroom and said below words!!

“Ek Swift Dzire diesel dena!!”

Having talked to him he was adamant on buying diesel because everyone he knew had diesel cars!

I don’t think this Petrol only approach from MS is going to last long, there would be a lot of meetings in the board room on how they can prepone the diesel launches to get market share back!
The korean sisters have changed the game altogether and no longer is MS the preferred brand.

[ankit.livedrive]

Currently, newly launched S-Cross petrol and Brezza petrol are doing decent numbers. But, 1.5L K-series NA petrol is definitely not gonna be an enthusiast's pick.

In the long run, it will be very difficult to sustain Brezza, S-Cross, Ertiga, and Ciaz without Diesel or turbo petrol engines. *Even if they introduce CNG variants, that isn't available throughout the country and it further degrades the performance.

[AMG1]

Maruti seems to be portraying that diesel cars have no other trait going for them barring their fuel efficiency and relatively cheaper fuel status. This is so ignorant and wrong at various levels.

I know many people including my close friend who swears by diesel cars for their low end torque and ease of drivability irrespective of the segments.
That close friend recently bought a pre owned AMEO diesel just so he can enjoy his dream of owning a VW TDI car, even though he had a high budget of 12 lacs & could have got a brand new car. So, the love for diesels transcends their fuel economy trait into much more.

Also, these ads have the potential of making existing Maruti diesel buyers to feel 'cheated' by Maruti salesman and may force themselves to introspect their own car-fuel choice they made. These ads have the potential of causing more harm than good to Maruti's image and potrays something more from just "Fuel-Money Saved" calculations.

[Bibendum90949]

Originally Posted by ankit.livedrive

In the long run, it will be very difficult to sustain Brezza, S-Cross, Ertiga, and Ciaz without Diesel or turbo petrol engines. *Even if they introduce CNG variants, that isn't available throughout the country and it further degrades the performance.

To be honest, these models are difficult to be sustained, in the long run, no matter what engines Maruti decides to plonk it with. High time they started thinking about phasing out these and bring in fresher and safer cars, it's already getting a little long in the tooth. Till then Maruti will continue milking them to the last possible drop.

[anish5225]

I think Suzuki motors don't have anything to offer Maruti be it technology or newer cars. What is stopping Maruti from partnering with someone and start making diesel engines? I guess Tata and Mahindra are doing the same.

[COMMUTER]

Great move by Maruti to keep milking the gullible in the nation. Many have even started lecturing the enthusiasts that they have made a mistake in buying a diesel. They have run the resale of their own diesels down to the ground with this wonderful move and have kissed the hopes of higher segment offerings goodbye.

Maruti has relied on advertising alone to have raked up enough numbers to keep a good number of dealerships floating in the urban and rural places. It had thus been managing to have a good resale value. This alone is supporting its premium pricing.

They have been treacherously stunting the development of automobiles in the nation by pandering to the compromising mentality of the Indians who had been considering the cars a status symbol all along. They haven't bothered about safety or performance and have purely focused on making people believe that they are getting a steal-deal to appear just as great as their neighbors while charging a premium for the same!

They could have given us affordable performance and modular engine/chassis customization but have chosen not to because of bean counting.

All this would have ended with the onset of mandatory crash testing. But that had been thrown away while the EVs are getting mooted vigorously. I sincerely hope that this is not a move towards population control in our nation.

[vibmat]

This hate that Maruti Suzuki repeatedly receives baffles me. They are not wrong when they made these calculations. After the diesel subsidy ended it does not make sense to buy small diesel cars. They are just highlighting it to the unaware customers.
And please explain to me how their cars are unsafe, I agree they use lighter materials than tata and Mahindra but that does not make their cars unsafe.
Over the years maruti has made buying cars possible for vast majority of Indians. They are affordable, reliable and easy to maintain.

[venbas]

Originally Posted by vibmat

This hate that Maruti Suzuki repeatedly receives baffles me. They are not wrong when they made these calculations. After the diesel subsidy ended it does not make sense to buy small diesel cars. They are just highlighting it to the unaware customers.
And please explain to me how their cars are unsafe, I agree they use lighter materials than tata and Mahindra but that does not make their cars unsafe.
Over the years maruti has made buying cars possible for vast majority of Indians. They are affordable, reliable and easy to maintain.

I think most of the hate is directed towards Maruti suddenly advertising Petrol as the holy grail after going ga ga on Diesel. Also for the fact that Maruti is still pushing underpowered engines on their cars when competition has already graduated towards Turbo petrols and way better drive experience. Hopefully the honchos at Maruti come out of their shells and see the difference...having had a no fuss Maruti earlier, I don't want them to fail either.

[123.rishabh]

A friend inquired from a MSIL dealership for a Swift Diesel & the sales guy replied "Govt is planning to ban diesels from the country in the next one year, hence MSIL has stopped production of diesel engines". Hearing this, he called another dealership where the sales guy said "Only Registration of 2500cc and above Diesel is allowed from now".

These incidents clearly state that the sales force of Maruti has been trained properly to spread a negative word of mouth for diesel engines and also they want to switch their Diesel customer to CNG (Because that is the only technology they have now)

[yogie]

I don't see anything wrong with the advertisement. Advertisements are meant to promote the company's products and this is exactly what it is doing. It shouldn't matter whether the Maruti sold lot of diesel cars earlier. Advertisements should be in line with the product line. They have changed their product line and it is only logical that their advertisements have also changed.

Also, IMHO this is a text book case of applying TW strategy from TOWS analysis. TW strategy is a passive strategy. i.e. to try to overcome threats and weaknesses by putting least amount of money and efforts. In this the weakness is lack of diesels in Maruti's stable and threat is that other companies are still offering diesel cars.

TOWS: Threat, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Strengths

[neil.jericho]

For years, a politician promised the people that he would build them a bridge to connect their island to the mainland if he was voted into power. He claimed that it would benefit the people and they would prosper if they could reach the mainland faster instead of using the ageing ferry. After he got elected, he first got an international donation and built a small bridge. Then he got a two lane bridge built. The voters were eagerly awaiting a four lane bridge next.

Then the politician got reelected, had the busy bridge closed down and said that his constituents were better off using the updated old ferry instead. And then he asked the people to continue voting for him.

Such are the ways of Maruti Suzuki in India.

[BashfulKlutz]

Originally Posted by vibmat

This hate that Maruti Suzuki repeatedly receives baffles me. They are not wrong when they made these calculations. After the diesel subsidy ended it does not make sense to buy small diesel cars. They are just highlighting it to the unaware customers.
And please explain to me how their cars are unsafe, I agree they use lighter materials than tata and Mahindra but that does not make their cars unsafe.
Over the years maruti has made buying cars possible for vast majority of Indians. They are affordable, reliable and easy to maintain.

I admittedly am myself biased more towards petrol cars, but somehow (I'm very poor at market analytics), it still seems a little off that Maruti, the brand that used to sell diesel cars at a frequency akin to hot samosas being purchased all over the country, has now decided to take a totally opposite approach to the same segment, by actively trying to influence customers to go for petrol cars instead. Their independently-developed 1.5 litre diesel engine could have done so well, if it would have been developed with BS6 norms in mind. As others have said, such marketing will meet a very quick end when said engine becomes BS6 compliant, and Maruti may be exposed as a hypocrite (key word: may).

Also, you easily will find evidence on the internet about Indian Maruti Suzuki cars being barely safe or quite unsafe for their respective segments, such as the Swift scoring a measly two stars in the Global NCAP test, while being massively overpriced. Ford's Figo has nearly equal spare part costs and reliability to Maruti's Swift. The only advantage Maruti has is its service centre availability in relatively remote locations.

[TheGearBox]

And here I was thinking that only politicians change parties!
This is a manufacturer that was selling cars like the Brezza and S-Cross in diesel-only form for years just because they were too lazy to come out with suitable petrol engines for them. And now that they have been unable to develop a BS-6 diesel in time for the new norms deadline, they are asking people to shun diesel engines completely. It is amazing how many of the Marutis one sees on the road are diesels. What about their owners? Are they to think that they have made a mistake in buying a diesel car?

[Mr.Beat]

Please don't stereotype me as a Maruti Fanboy, I must admit that this is a business that needs to run on profit. What would you want them to say in ads? Sorry, we don't make diesels anymore so please buy our petrol products which are more expensive to run?

Companies are fictional entities that run to make profits first. If I was in their place, My business's existence was at stake, what would you recommend me doing?

The ethics question baffles me really, tomorrow you will say look Apple is creating a new iPhone every year just so that people spend more and that people who bought the last year's phone were stupid. Oneplus does this at every blink of an eye.

Getting that extra dhaniya after buying vegetables or extra puri after pain puri is ethical and our birth right, but a company advertising as per current situation is not. How?

Sidenote, it's an excellent strategy and will connect with target audiences. I hope they do well. Millions of jobs run with the profits they make

[WhiteSierra]

Well, what happened to the in-house developed 1.5 Diesel engine? Do they have any plans to bring in this engine at all or did it turn out to be a dud during testing phase?

According to me, out of 10 swifts / dzires, 7 would be either VDI or LDI. That is what I saw on Hyderabad roads at least. In Delhi and Gurgoan most of the dzires I've seen were LXI or VXI but most cabbies drive it on CNG instead of petrol. If they advertise petrol cars, they should also advertise integrated CNG and it's benefits.

And coming to S-Cross', Brezzas, Ertigas, Ciazs', I've mostly seen diesel version of these vehicles so far. This is pure hypocrisy by Maruti Suzuki and I someday hope to see Hyundai / Kia or even TATA as new market leaders. People here who are talking about Maruti service being cheap should read the thread regarding the same here. (Maruti Service is cheap - A myth!)