[RSM_TorqueZoner]

CNN carries the news -

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/09/busin...ion/index.html.

Such a shame it has come to this for Ford in India. As a 90's kid, Ford Escort was the first international car for me, though the Cielo was around earlier. Escort, and Astra, at the time were luxury barges! I remember drooling over the faux wooden inserts and clocks on the fascia of the Escort. Later, I had the chance to drive around an Ikon for a few months and was in total admiration of how the car handled. And then first-gen Ford Figo, no car has surprised me the way it did! Totally loved the way the car behaved, it was such a pleasure to drive. That steering was fab, maybe the best! Oh yeah and the Mondeo back in the day looked like a beast!

None of the ford cars after impressed me like the Figo. Not even the Endeavour for that matter, though it is (was!) the best in its segment. The Ecosport, Figo/Aspire twins etc never really touched my heart.

But today is a sad day. Ford leaving India is an ominous sign. The likes of VW, Nissan, Renault etc might follow. Take the City out of the equation and even Honda isn't doing too well. This is scary. No offense to anyone, but we might end up with the gimmicky Chinese, smart and competitive Koreans, and our very own Indian brands in the market.

[haskelerator]

So many posts talking about how they didn’t launch anything “new” and how it’s the consumer’s right to penalise them for that. Well how about “penalising” Maruti for unsafe cars. Hyundai and Kia for selling gimmicks and cutting corners on quality, structural strength and engineering. Tata for not improving its reliability and being full of niggles. Our market is not value conscious, it’s image conscious. Need to brag on having the latest digital cluster or touch screen infotainment. Doesn’t matter if it falls off the dash or stops working every odd month. Ford have made the smart decision to not corrupt their DNA by compromising on their values and strength and fighting with these Koreans and Chinese and Maruti. Maybe if the government changes its tax structure and let’s in 2000 cars a year or so tax free, we can exercise “our” informed choice as consumers.

[Pyrotek]

Originally Posted by Singh101

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Like the bowtie, I have no sympathy for the blue oval. Lacklustre product line-up, no aggression in product strategy, plain complacency and to top it all off, ego by the Endeavour-loads.

Blaming it on the government or the junta is hilarious. Cry, flip over tables, laugh, smile, whatever. Fact is that it's curtains for them because they messed up. Period.
I wonder how the team responsible for deletion of active noise cancellation in the Endeavour feels right now. Was it the right call? How about the breathless 2L in a ~40L on-road, massive SUV? Was that a good move when playing in that segment?

Did no Ford employee ever sit in an i20? Or did they, and come out of it thinking "Yep, we're definitely doing this right. No problems here!"

No crossover to compete with the Creta. Kia probably looked at Ford scratching their behinds looking bored and said "Well if you're not gonna, I might as well."

Completely aligned with this. Just as the momentum was picking up with the facelifts, Ford did incompetent feature deletions. This never gave them a fighting chance. As bad as it feels, Ford dug its own grave.

The industry is very much working on Darwinism now. I see more quitting soon unless they roll up sleeves, pull up socks, and do a multidimensional assault - product expansion, sales and service experience, lifestyle and aspirations, product quality, and optimal cost of ownership.

[sid3091]

Originally Posted by Singh101

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Like the bowtie, I have no sympathy for the blue oval. Lacklustre product line-up, no aggression in product strategy, plain complacency and to top it all off, ego by the Endeavour-loads.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I could say the same thing about the Indian consumer. We repeatedly waste our money on useless features like Air purifiers and an extra kmpl or two in Mileage, at the expense of safety and drivability, and one by one, every company that makes fun-to-drive cars is leaving this country. Sorry, but a Live to drive sticker just doesn't belong on 99% Kia's and Hyundai's.

[speedmiester]

While it is sad to see Ford exiting India, I find it hilarious that people are blaming Govt, taxation and what not for Ford's failure.
This is coming from a past Ford owner. I loved my Ecosport, never had a single issue in 5+ years of my time with it, even after 88000Kms, it was on it's original clutch and brake pads.

Ford had good cars, but no vision. It was one of the first mass market manufacturer in India who focused on safety, build quality and FTD cars.
When Ford launched good products and took good decisions, the market responded with good sales numbers.

Ford India created the CSUV segment in India and what did it do with it. Gave away the segment to late comers like Maruti, Hyundai and Tata. Even Kia, one of the latest entrant into the Indian market made a big dent in this segment with Sonet.

The product portfolio of Ford lacked any vision. There is big vacuum between Ecosport and Endeavour. Why did they not bring in Ford Escape in this space, they didn't need to reinvent the wheel for this. They had good products in their portfolio, but no clear vision to execute it.

The writing is clear for any manufacturers, the market responds to good well priced products, period.
Nissan and Renault are good examples for the same, one good launch of Magnite and Kiger twins and see how the market responded. Isn't the regulations, taxation and policies same for all manufacturers?

Ford had sufficient time to wake up from their slumber after their compatriot's exit in 2017, but they didn't learn their lesson and are now paying price for their own folly.

[ramzsys]

Those of you who fell in love, lived those moments and moved on: Ford ownership is something like that.

The arranged marriage guy, instead, would speak in a very different language: ''Why love something that costs you a lot of emotions? why pay too much time/effort for her? yes she seems attractive, but I am worried about the maintenance part. I would prefer the one from arranged marriage and 'love' her for a lifetime''

Hence the 2 different tones in this thread akin to 'told you, all this love will not work / Sad to see her leave.

[Durango Dude]

I see the Ecosports and Endeavour's depreciate under their own weight and the 'gravitational pull' of the news will take their prices subterranean. Next in line I the company on this list would be Honda: except the new City there isn't much imagination and desirability in their product portfolio. No SUV's in an SUV centric market, if you can call WR-V an SUV: Even that has no automatic gear box. Unless one's "Amaze"d by the new Amaze. They made an announcement for the Nth time of an SUV 'Some-RV' which Honda generously offered to launch in 2022-23 by which time the market and world would've moved on...

[fhdowntheline]

I think the simple reason is that the India arm had no financial or other backing from the parent, and their scope was thus limited. In contrast, one key reason for Hyundai groups success is their focus on India, in whatever shape/ form. In fact it's better than Suzuki's attention to MSIL. Even Renault to that extent is doing good. And of all the American brands it's the supposedly weakest FCA that is still around and doing reasonably ok for a niche product. The irony couldn't be more palpable.

[Durango Dude]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

In fact it's better than Suzuki's attention to MSIL. .

I think as it stands MSIL is much bigger than it's parent company: sales wise. We in India get all the 'trash' Suzuki has to junk.

[satyabrata.dash]

It indeed is Ford's failure for not filling in gaps, getting something new and most importantly not marketing what they have. I have also seen the reluctance to sell their cars in dealerships here in Pune. I was given no definite wait period when I went for an Ecosport P AT. That was in Dec, 2018, I believe. They only offered me the cars which they had in their stockyard and others offered were TD cars with heavy discounts. Those were a year or two old cars. But I really wanted that Ecosport. They kept telling me that we are only selling new Endeavours, and arent sure about any other car. Finally they told me there was also a Figo with same engine and Torque Converter AT. I really liked the hot hatch and was ready to wait the 3 months they promised. Why didnt they give me the option when I visited them every weekend for 4 consecutive weekends? Even after 3 months of wait the Dealership had no idea when the car would come. I had to raise a complaint with Ford India, after which this Dealer A arranged the car from another Dealer B. (Mind you, Dealer B had also told me they dont have any Ecosport or Figo, only old cars in stockyard.)

The salesperson was such a difficult person, there was always a lack of communication on what was happening with my booking and on top of that he entered my phone number and email-id incorrect. It was like speaking to a rock. I also spoke to his manager about the mistakes, but he always asked me to continue working with the sales person. I had to ultimately raise a complaint with Ford for getting those mistakes corrected. Whatever happened, he still entered my phone number incorrect while filing for registration. When registration numbers arrived for the day's deliveries, he communicated someone elses registration number to me, because 'our names were similar', and again mind you, I carry a unique and strange name :| During delivery he wasnt able to explain the price breakup properly. This person was supposed to be a Team Lead and only feature he spoke about Ford Cars was good AC.

This is what I felt during my visits/interactions: Neither the sales team, nor the manager were interested to sell Neither was I ever greeted or asked at the Dealership, if I was here to buy a car or just window shopping. They were always empty still no one bothered to attend me during my visits. Ford customer care was good and resolutions have been good so far, but Ford doesn't push Dealers for targets. My friends working at Ford also agree that there hasnt been no attempt from the sales and marketing team to keep their products afloat.

My Dealership, anyways opened a 'different brand' dealership around the same location and most employees joined there, nice move

[Jude300]

An Indian 9/11 (dd/mm) moment for our auto industry.

My heart sunk in pain when I saw this news. I just sold my second EcoSport to my best pal last month. I never expected this to happen. What an abrupt end to an iconic brand?

While I have already posted my thoughts on the reason for the product failure here it is clearly the incompetency of the management to blame. The company has invested so much in India, built a decent dealer and service network but could not build India specific products. Many global corporations still believe in achieving economies of scale by delivering global products. It took nearly 20 years for Ford to give the Indians the Right hand drive switches.The one size fits all attitude doesn't sell in the Indian market and they wasted those valuable years they had. And when they wanted to change, whoever did the market research for them did a poor job.

At one point few years back I did think Tata would close shop. But what a come back! They are No.3 now. Tata was in greater trouble compared to Ford. Their brand was synonymous with unreliable and outdated. While they still need to improve a lot on reliability they have now won the confidence back. It should have been easier for Ford only if they had the right management at its drivers seat.

[eternalck]

As I posted on another thread of mine, we took delivery of an Endeavour 4x4 just as this news was being announced. High chances that the dealership team would be out prepping and cheering for us while somebody inside would be reading the news.

There was another Endeavour scheduled to be delivered after ours and that too went through as I later found out from the stellar sales person I had the pleasure of knowing through this deal. We called him up any time of day and he was ready for any query.

There was also a revision in service terms at delivery time that 3 free services would be provided instead of two… my brother commented that now Ford will definitely not exit and the delivery consultant remarking yes sir it’s not just one person which will be affected but thousands of others. I agree with her and this what I am sad about. It is the people cost associated with this abrupt decision. Them being the smallest dealer here, I don’t think they’ll be selling Mustangs here anytime soon.

Anyways, we knew what was happening during our shortlisting process but went ahead anyways because our hearts were set on this beast of a car that handles like a dream- nothing came close. Sad to see the state of the Indian market where one manufacturer treats the rear wiper as a luxury option and another can serve up a 0 star NCAP rating on an extremely popular hatch while their customers shell out 6-8L of their hard earned money. Think the Indian government should just put in speed limiters (set at 50 of course) because that's how they can probably make these millions of cars safer. This is sarcasm of course.

Anyways, here's the delivery pic from yesterday. They were so nervous they couldn't really smile! We shall keep this beast, enjoy it to our heart's content and treat it like the queen she is till we plan to wrap up our family's last few years of "India operations"

Mr. Ranjan, if you are reading this, all the very best in life and I am sure you will get past this speed hump.

[dr_TJ]

This announcement came in the middle of my car upgrading process. I booked a Mahindra Thar Diesel HT AT and for that, I am selling off my 2020 Ecosport Automatic. Also I had some other investments lined up once I got clear of the Ecosport Car loan.
And with this announcement, everything is deranged.
I don't know, what to do now.

Please suggest

[gjiyap1]

Originally Posted by eternalck

…..
Anyways, here's the delivery pic from yesterday. They were so nervous they couldn't really smile! We shall keep this beast, enjoy it to our heart's content and treat it like the queen she is till we plan to wrap up our family's last few years of "India operations"

Mr. Ranjan, if you are reading this, all the very best in life and I am sure you will get past this speed hump.

Congrats & Best wishes. Yes. Enjoy as it lasts. Kal kisne dekha !.

On a side note - recently got an pre-worshipped (!!!) Ecosport - only as a stop gap before moving to Germans !.

But for some reason, have a strong feeling - with this news and 400kms drive in 2 weeks, i might stay-put for longer !. A good product is a good product. Period.

[johy]

Although I never owned a Ford, I have recommended them to my friends - who have subsequently purchased them and are enjoying them.

I have been owning cars since 2001, and have always been partial towards cars that drive well. Fiats. Fords. Even with Maruti , the old Baleno sedan comes to mind, which I owned for a few years.

My take is this:

• Brands that make drivers' cars don't succeed in India.
  
• Brands that have drivers' cars - these models fail quite badly. The same brand which has regular commuter cars or the cars full full of "features" - generally do well.
  
• So I feel the car market is not mature here, and in that sense there is a herd mentality - reluctantly yes.
  
• When big car manufacturers exit - it is not a sign of an open economic environment in the country.