[giri1.8]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The cars that NEED to die are in my view only the following Death Traps on Wheels

- Maruti Alto
- Maruti Eeco
- Maruti Celerio
- Maruti SPresso
- Renault Kwid
- Mahindra Bolero

From my perspective, these cars probably saved more lives than the top of the line Mercedes S-Class Hopping into a car is way more safer than riding a bike with your entire family.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by Hayek

it helps to sell to customers such as @adimicra who want a VAG sedan but are unhappy with the local Skoda dealer.

In my city this is exactly the case, there is only one Skoda dealer compared to multiple VW dealers.

Vento being the only sedan in the brand, is there just to complete the portfolio.

Originally Posted by amitayu

I think the Polo needs to die, if for nothing else but to make space for the Golf to come into India.

Vacating Polo will mean nothing to Golf, they cater totally different budgets. In the European markets, Golf starts a cool 10K EUR above Polo. That's about 7-8 L difference in INR.

Besides I think the market for large hatchbacks (4000+ mm) in India is very miniscule, even less so when sedans in the same showroom are going to cost much less.

[souvikjana83]

While Kicks do sell in poor numbers, it is a wonderful car to drive and not many people notice that one get a touchscreen with Android Auto and Apple Carplay in the base model itself. Thereby the base model of Kicks itself has quite a number of features it becomes a VFM product. It is bigger and wider than Creta and on top of it one can get a good bargain at dealership.

[SgtRepeat]

Originally Posted by bhavik.1991

S-Presso and Ignis can be put to rest. Poor cars and low volume by Maruti standards

The S-Presso hasn't sold in low volumes even by any standard. It sold 69527 units in 2020. That's an average of more than 5000 cars per month.

For an OTR price of Rs 5.9 lakhs for the top end automatic variant, it offers fantastic value for money as a city driven car.

[Kosfactor]

As you travel you understand the regional impact of certain vehicles - one may think ISUZU MUX don't sell but once you driven into Vijayawada, they are everywhere, you also see good number of DMAX commercial vehicles - Andhra had some tax incentives for Isuzu I think.

Vijayawada, you see a lot of Safari / Storme , of course less than Scorpio/Bolero but significantly higher than any other city that I have noticed. Same with TUV with Need for speed like stickering for Andhra police , don't see this many TUVs anywhere else.

North Karnataka and rural Maharashtra, TN , there is a market for Force motors UVs which you usually do not see in the cities. Traveler is too delicate for such roads and won't take kindly to overloading.

Therefore I think other than maybe a few models are unnecessary, the others do deserve to live on, for small markets sake.

And then you look at the hills - Old is gold

[gsferrari]

The Figo should not have featured on this list. At the same time, the Figo deserves a spot in this list.

One of the best handling small cars, available with one of the best 4 pot Diesel engines in this country and with 6 air-bags, the Figo should have been racing towards the top of the sales charts.

Instead Ford crippled it by removing Sync-3 and refusing to refresh. the interiors with smarter space management to create more room for the occupants.

Had the Figo Diesel been blessed with Sync 3 it would have been mine years ago. I had an absolute blast driving it and chucking it around corners and I will be sad to see it go extinct. The pen-pushers at Ford will count the Figo as a failure and they have only themselves to blame.

[Carpainter]

Interesting thread but we as car lovers should not ask companies to kill any model. While I agree some cars like datsuns and Kuv are some of the worst cars in the market, killing cars like Figo, Elantra,Vento will reduce the number of options for buyers.

If Figo is discontinued then there is no point selling the Aspire too because they are using the same platform so Ford is not losing too much from making Figo and say if that happens then Ford will be left with only EcoSport and Endeavour. Same way, if Vento is discontinued then Polo and Rapid should also go. Now these three are really old now but if they are discontinued without a replacement or new generation then we will lose the best build cars in their segment. Being a City owner I feel reliability aside Polo/Vento is a much better car to drive. Hyundai deserves a praise for keeping Elantra alive even with low numbers when more established cars like Corolla and Civic have been killed. We should encourage manufacturers to bring more sedans here to arrest the onslaught of SUVs, else, C segment sedans are next in line to drown in quick sand.

[MDED]

I think Datsun thinks that we Indians are fools and they can sell CHEAP. Everybody cant be MSIL; they were here, are here and will be here for generations to come. As someone, has rightly pointed that the cheap Maruti's have saved many lives, or perhaps helped transporting a pregnant lady, who's husband otherwise could have taken her to medical check-ups on his two wheeler fraught with maddening traffic and absolute recklessness prevailing on Indian roads. But, the doting husband the man is, he would not have been able to afford a safe and reliable car owing to the budget constraints and would have settled for an Alto or Wagon-R or any other sub 5 lakh car.

I, as a first time buyer had bought a used Alto (2008-LXi) in 2013 from a True Value dealer in Chennai. The reason was simple, the brand presence, the kitna deti hai feeling and Maruti's super impressive brand recall.

I currently drive 2nd generation Honda Jazz (SV-MT) and love the car for its massive space, generous city and highway FE. However, at the same time I feel that Honda despite being in the country for over 2 decades have failed to understand the pulse of Indian buyers and they think that City will keep their factories operational. They are too sheepish to give a proper 1.5 litre mill under the hood and too boring to bring a proper compact SUV which competes with the likes of Venue, Brezza or Sonet. They keep dishing mediocre stuff like BR-V, WR-V and hope to fool the customers.

With the popularity of social media and internet aided by the fan following and the reach of Team BHP, no car manufacturer can relax and sell mediocre stuff.

As the marketing guru, Philip Kotler has defined Marketing, as "The science and art of exploring, creating and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.” I think MARUTI has followed this in letter and spirit. So, I strongly agree with this list and MSIL will continue to rule the roost, keep catering to diverse sections of Indian LMC, UMC.

[DarthVeda]

There are two cars which can replace the ones mentioned in the first place or add to it:
Maruti S-Presso, if you thought KUV-100 was ugly, this will take Ugliness to another dimension, and it just doesn't speak itself as Maruti to start off with, it's like one of your conservative cousin is going for the pub first time and has dressed like how they see it on TV.

If e-Verito needs to go then Tata Tigor EV also needs to, both fall under the same category. Having said that, both are darlings of Fleet owners so I am guessing they won't. Before anybody says that Tata updated the Tigor, I'd still say it gives EV a bad name.

Another Maruti car, which I am confused about is, XL6. Is it Ertiga rebadged or is it a new segment? I am not sure the logic behind it.

[Steer-safe]

I have one positive point about Tigor. Ihas very good rear seat incline angle and i am 6.2 felt comfortable. Experienced this only during a showroom visit.

[jbpanda]

For me it is the Datsun duo, KUV100 and Hyundai Santro which deserve to die for the reasons already stated by fellow Bhpians in the posts above, which I am not repeating.

[kamilharis]

Even though some cars have very poor sales, they deserve to be in the market for a bit more time or they deserve a makeover instead of death.

Cars like Duster, Kicks, Jazz, etc deserves a next-generation and not death.

[1.2TSI7DSG]

An alternative thread should be created- cars which did not deserve to die a premature death 😁

Maruti baleno (sedan)
Maruti kizashi
Tata JTP twins
Ford classic fiesta

[buntee90]

I see many fellow members bashing and calling for many (Unsafe) Marutis and Datsuns to die, but in all fairness those particulars models are the sole reason many people can think of buying a new car in the first place. These cars have probably saved more lives than all of the safe cars combined ever will.

Further I sincerely hope they continue with kicks. Now that Magnite is pulling crowd into Nissan Showrooms, many people will take a closer look at Kicks and will find it to be good alternative to Korean twins!

[RavSam]

Originally Posted by TaurusSHO

I feel like the new Santro should be discontinued soon. It's an overpriced economy hatchback, super ugly IMO and don't think Hyundai India is very much pleased with the sales numbers.

The frontal look of this car can be easily fixed by just removing that "charcoal face pack" cladding that the car has and moving the fog lamps below. And may be slimming the headlamp design.

The tailamps are a bit too lame and need complete redesign. Knowing Hyundai's Xcent facelift, they can do this.

The car is overpriced, yes; but may be it doesn't deserve to die atleast not with the Santro name on it since if it does, it's never coming back. Would be a sad end to a brand name, just like the Zen.