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The following news article caught my eye, especially after the numerous comments/allusions about/to Hyundai's falling quality. Case in point Sam's woes with his Verna. Thought this would be interesting to share.

Full story here

Quality issues drive Hyundai to Korea

At a time when global auto makers are scrambling to set up operations in India, Hyundai Motor India Ltd, the country’s third largest car maker, says it has been forced to bring in more South Korean suppliers to replace some local vendors in order to arrest falling “global quality” standards here.

The maker of the popular Santro car and a subsidiary of Korean car maker Hyundai Motor Co., Hyundai India started with 17 Korean vendors when it set up its first plant here in 1996. However, it has brought in 23 more suppliers from Korea for reasons of quality, cost and new technologies, said company officials.
“I cannot give you the names, but some of the component makers do not match international quality standards,” said Heung Soo Lheem, managing director and chief executive officer of Hyundai India, in a recent interview with Mint. “We had no other choice (to replace India vendors with Korean ones). We had so, so many... discussions with them to improve the quality, they did not show any willingness.” Details of vendors replaced and the parts they manufactured were not disclosed by Hyundai India.
It is unclear if this is a relatively new problem or whether the problem is unique to just Hyundai’s domestic suppliers, but comes even as the car giant is scaling its production operations in India.

Other Car makers also do the same. Most of the failures on my indica have been non Tata components. Recently Tata decided to get all Power steering systems from China instead of local vendor due to poor quality here.

At face-value, this move makes sense. But I wonder if there's 2 sides to the coin here as well.

I also heard that the Santros built for the past 1 year have poor build quality and having lot of complaints. The quality has gone down.

this is a basic problem in india, to reduce cost indian manufacturers reduce quality, whereas china, taiwan & malaysia can give you better quality at those reduced prices also.

Its all about your attitude and quality consciousness.

This is plain and simple BS from Hyundai. Everytime I start liking their cars they come out with nonsense like this and lose all respect from a lot of car buyers. I wonder why Indian vendors were able to provide excellent quality to Hyundai so far. What has suddenly happened that Indian vendors are not able to match international standards? There is more to this and we shouldn't take Hyundai at face value on this.

We need to have more confidence in our ablilites. When other and BETTER car makers like Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Ford are using the same Indian vendors and giving quality equal to global standards, I wonder whats so different and better about Hyundai quality that Indian vendors aren't able to match? Many major automotive companies are sourcing parts from India for their global cars and Hyundai's trying to serve us with this nonsense.

Huh? Even Tata has stopped many Indian vendors and is sourcing parts from china. Since then the niggling problems have reduced. New indica's are much more problem free.
My own indica has had part failures related to Lucas parts, none of the Tata parts failed.


Umm I don't think so. Many parts in those cars are not from Indian vendors. As for Hyundai they are making india a small car export hub, so they have to meet European standards. There are good and bad part suppliers everywhere, and it seems Hyundai and Tata got associated by the wrong guys.

One example of this is the Maruti 800.
We owned a 1988 model, one of the first new design Maruti's. Everything was top notch and original suzuki. Somewhere in the 1990s many parts were sourced from India, and you had these white indicator light M800s all over after one rain. The indicator lamp orange color and the brake light red color used to fade after rains. So you can imagine the quality control which is done here.
If there is no competition, most products made over here would be substandard. More competition is better, it would force the vendors here to up their quality. This is true for any country.

Tsk, a lot has changed since 1990.

Not only that, many Indian companies are now OEM suppliers for major auto manufacturers. The following a testament for improving quality standards of Indian auto component makers

Deming Application Prize Sundaram-Clayaton Ltd, Brakes Division (India) Sundaram Brake Linings Ltd.
TVS Motor Company Ltd.
Brakes India Ltd., Foundry Division
Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd., Farm Equipment Sector
Rane Brake Linings Ltd.
Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd.
Lucas-TVS Limited
Krishna Maruti Limited, Seat Division
Rane Engine Valves Limited
Rane TRW Steering Systems Limited, Steering Gear Division
Quality Control Award For Operations Business Units
Hi-Tech Carbon GMPD
Japan Quality Medal
Sundaram-Clayton Ltd., Brakes Division

Ofcourse, this doesn't mean that all companies make quality products but then there are good companies and there are bad companies. Probably Hyundai went with the bad companies to save a buck or two. Also, the quality of components depends, to an extent, on the auto manufacturers specifications. They lay the guidelines and specify standards and they usually reserve the right to reject products.

I disagree - for reasons stated below.

I agree, but we need to ensure that others have confidence in our abilities too. Why would a manufacturer want to increase his cost base by importing stuff if the same is available here for lower prices - as long as they are reliable.


Things change - the rather narrow-minded approach that some of our business community have towards profits ensures that they produce good stuff just to get the business, and quality levels generally dwindle thereafter.

When we have home-based manufacturers like Tata replacing local component makers with Chinese and Korean ones, why blame Hyundai?

We keep talking about global players coming to India for components - have we seen the EXTENT of the chinese component market? Come to any trade shown and you'll be blown away by the sheer size and number of Chinese manufacturers and the variety of their components as well as their incredibly low cost.

How many component suppliers do we have that have been CONSISTENTLY supplying to one manufacturer for several years? You'll probably be able count them on a hand or two.

Why would anyone want to source from India if that is the case? Patriotism is good, but it has to be backed by substance.

Don't think much has changed.
All the Lucas TVS electrical parts in my indica have failed atleast once, which includes the Alternator, the starter motor.
The Power steering pump bearings have failed
the AC compressor bearings have failed
The wheel bearings need to be changed every 15000kms, while the ones on our santro lasted 60K(Very old santro).
Ditto for getz, (one of the first pieces with mostly Korean parts)

Go through the threads, you will find so many people with OEM batteries failing after 1 year.
I presume the manufacturers tell the OEM vendors to make substandard parts?
The quality may have improved, but indian products whether car manufacturers or OEM suppliers are still sub par.
If that was not the case, why do we way Honda and Toyota are world class and rate them higher than Tata?
The reason is simple, Tata cars are not as reliable as Honda/Toyota and Suzuki and part of the blame is to rest with the OEM suppliers.


I would say rather than Blaming Hyundai for making excuses, which I think they are not, lets look at the ground realities. Even the role model of Indian Automobile industry, the poster child. Tata Motors ltd. has gone to china
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...bhai-bhai.html

When I posted that thread, nobody criticized Tata. But when Hyundai has done the same thing, instead of discussing the Abyssimal quality which plagues many OEM component suppliers, it turns into a Hyundai Bashing thread.

The Funniest thing is Honda/Toyota Example! Honda City is not even 100% localized?? And its not that Hyundai is going to import cars from Korea. And they are not going to import all parts from Korea, only some. They will source problem components from abroad.

Is the PS supplier Rane? Well if it is then Rane has some serious quality problems in their operation.

Recently i heard about Rane engine valves failing in a new diesel engine that was undergoing tests at the factory.

I believe new PS unit for Dicor is Chinese. Intercooler hoses made in India were also replaced by Korean or Chinese ones after our Desi hoses didnt hold up in a few cars initially.

I really look forward to the day they replace the a/c unit with a Chinese or Korean one. Someone mentioned that the export units have Aussie a/c units.

I see nothing wrong in Hyundai going to Korea if the quality of components supplied by Koreans is better than what you get here. As mentioned by someone, the general tendency by many manufacturers is to supply good parts initially when they want to do business, but once their business is established and they turn towards making profits, they do not provide the same quality as before. I have experienced this tendency at many places. I am not surprised by Hyundai's reaction. After all, we are paying through our nose to buy a car and we better get a good quality product, even if it means that we are paying extra for that.

Pardon me i didn't make it clear the first time:)
I meant to ask whether the old PS units were supplied by Rane.

let me also add that the cost for these components to mfg might even be lesser or equivalent as they import in bulk.

btw, even if its higher, the replacement and goodwill costs them much more, specifically when they are exporting these cars to other countries.