[ahuja365]

I think bsm is biased towards honda by giving the car of the year award.According to me a car of the year in India should give good weightage to value for money proposition.

[gshanky]

Originally Posted by ahuja365

I think bsm is biased towards honda by giving the car of the year award.According to me a car of the year in India should give good weightage to value for money proposition.

I have to respectfully disagree. The award needs to go to the best car in the segment. Naturally one can define best by good quality, reliability, endurance, etc. The price as such may not matter because even though the middle class has expanded in india, cars are still a luxury. IMO you don't need to justify VFM, it will be dictated by the market over a period of time. All the marketing and hype can only last for a while.

It has been proven that even if the car is expensive, consumers will buy it, if the "quality" is good. Cheaper cars (and generally products) have failed if they are not of good quality.

[gshanky]

Originally Posted by sridak

Its time to start a poll if it is not started yet on TBHP to findout the car of the year award

Though it is not a bad idea, I guess we might need three polls for each category to keep things in perspective.

Experts Poll - Might include moderators, distinguished bhpians, etc.

Owners Poll - Owners of the car in specific categories

Public Poll - This would eventually have a higher percentage of those who travelled in a car, test driven a car, just love the looks, brand or read an impressive article about a car, etc.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by ahuja365

I think bsm is biased towards honda by giving the car of the year award.According to me a car of the year in India should give good weightage to value for money proposition.

I will agree with you here. Most of the times, not only BSM, but also ACI and OD are inclined towards anything honda. ACI recently carried a 68 page booklet on G3HC. Moreover, this was done for G2HC also by ACI.

Originally Posted by gshanky

It has been proven that even if the car is expensive, consumers will buy it, if the "quality" is good. Cheaper cars (and generally products) have failed if they are not of good quality.

Getz offered good quality ( at the time when it was launched ) and was priced higher. It is still not a success. Badge matters here. Atleast G3HC was not the best as there were many cars that also evoked " We have also worked hard " feeling. A-star and Indica Vista being the prime example. Overpriced and underequipped with poor interiors and not so well insulated cabin is not good specially when they had G2HC that was better in a few ways.

But the most prosmising reply on this thread is this:

Originally Posted by amit

I don't believe you guys are discussing about the COTY so much. COTY awards have become like film awards. Too many of them from every tom, dick and harry. Don't take these awards so seriously.

Correctly stated by amit. Its true that if a car has won awards, it need not necessarialy mean its the best for everyone.

[Fountainheader]

amit,
We may not take these awards seriously. But imagine a potential car buyer is following a vehicle which has all the "COTY" stickers on the rear. He might get tempted.

On the same lines, people do look forward to magazines and crappy shows like C&B to purchase cars. Unfortunately they dont add any value apart from trying to fool the customers.

[raul]

Honda is getting an easy ride here, its a good car but not enough to win the coty. The new city has 2 things going for it, fresh design, a relief compared to its previous house on wheels version and a good engine.

But scratch beneath that and you see poor build quality, average interiors, missing features like climate control, alloys and worst of all a severely and needlessly undersized tyre. Put this and the asking price together and the COTY does look undeserved. IMHO.

[sridak]

Originally Posted by aseem

That poll doesnt even have the ANHC.... says something about the poll doesnt it???

This poll has all C segment cars listed, and SX4 is a distant 3rd.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ingh-king.html

But the survey is done in Dec, 2007. we should have a new survey to find COTY for 2008.

[blue_pulsar]

Originally Posted by aseem

That poll doesnt even have the ANHC.... says something about the poll doesnt it???

This poll has all C segment cars listed, and SX4 is a distant 3rd.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ingh-king.html

That was a poll for Team-BHP COTY 2008. Its across all segment, not segment-wise.

[suneel]

What is it with people and their love for high seating? I consider a high seating position as a disadvantage in a car. All sports cars have low seating and you get the best driving position in low seating cars. Low seats feel so much better so sit in than high seats. You feel like you're one with the car when the seats are low
I hated the seating position in the indica because it was high and i loved the seating postion in my baleno because its low. I actually prefer the balenos seating height to my dad's corolla. And i love the civic and ANHC for their low seating.

It annoys me so much when people post High seating in one car as an advantage over another car. Im not sayin low seats are an advantage either, im sayin its personal preference and lets leave it at that. Some people like high seats and some like low seats. And true drivers will always prefer low seats. The feel and control you get on low seats cant be compared to high seats. Or sitting in a ferrari wouldnt feel like youre sitting on the ground

[agbenny]

Originally Posted by blue_pulsar

No doubt about it! City deserved to be the COTY 2009.

Although the first rank is spot on, I would have liked some changes in the other ranks like :
1) Honda City
2) i20 + A-star
3) Skoda Fabia + Indica Vista
4) Corolla
5) Jetta

I can't accept it as COTY - for a price 10L+ you are not getting alloy wheels. This is cheating!. Will you accept a product as your favorite when the company cheats you?

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by agbenny

I can't accept it as COTY - for a price 10L+ you are not getting alloy wheels. This is cheating!. Will you accept a product as your favorite when the company cheats you?

Since you are not buying it, how are you cheated ? And again since more number of customers will buy this car in its segment and will be very satisfied with it, how can you call it cheating ?

So, if Maruti or Honda cars get picked by media, its cheating. If any other car gets picked its okay. Isn't it ? Since I have driven the car and having owned and still own German and Japanese cars, I feel they should have offered more features. For the things that are present and not to my liking are interior quality/feel (I don't think its about how they are put together, I am sure it last longer than anything else). They build the best 4 cylinders which do not compromise between performance and mileage. Even with little noise isolation, you would be hard pressed to know that the engine is on.

Regarding crash worthiness, it uses GCON which I don't have to tell you has won maximum ratings world over. For people worried about repairs to the tin can sheet metal, I have seen fewer Honda City's damaged than other cars on the road. Maybe they are driven by better drivers and know what they have bought.

If you want to argue qualitatively on specific points, I would be delighted to gain insights to things that I do not know.

But again, please don't get cheated by Honda.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by srishiva

1) They build the best 4 cylinders which do not compromise between performance and mileage. Even with little noise isolation, you would be hard pressed to know that the engine is on.

2) Regarding crash worthiness, it uses GCON which I don't have to tell you has won maximum ratings world over. For people worried about repairs to the tin can sheet metal

3) But again, please don't get cheated by Honda.

1) Yes agreed that Honda builts some of the best motors in the world and IIRC, they are the largest producers of internal combustion engines. But Toyota is not far behind. Take Toyota Corolla as an example. The motor in Civic is all new that was developed after the 1.7 could not be changed further. In case of Altis, the motor is remapped and improved but manages to give out an excellent balance between performance and FE. The FE is reported to be good despite the Altis being heavier. I rate Toyota better than Honda. Toyota motors are more torquey and usable by average consumers. Even the new Accord is not that good in 2K-4K rpm band.

2) Civic uses GCON and scores 4/5 in EuroNCAP. And the Altis scores 5/5 at EuroNCAP. The corolla before Altis was scoring as much as Civic. Honda Legend became the first Honda to get 5/5 rating at EuroNCAP. The names like GCON, GOA,etc are basically building a safer passenger shell using the best resources available to manufacturer.

3) Honestly I could not make out if you are against Honda or not. I have just posted a few points of my own. Here I believe you think that G3HC deserved the award and I feel that it doesnt deserve that award.

[amit]

What we need to see are the parameters on which the car was chosen COTY by BSM. From their website:

The new Honda City looks stunningly good, is brilliantly packaged and has one of the best engines meant for a car in its class powering it. Reliability and refinement can be taken for granted too. What is new is Honda's nod to safety features for its best-selling sedan. Besides this, the new City can return 14 kpl even in traffic and deliver decent 150 kph plus performance when you demand it. To quote the jury: The new City promises the sky with the i-VTEC engine and delivers it too. With one clean stroke, the new Honda sedan has raised the bar and the resulting car is worth every penny you spend on it. An exciting, quality car does not just deserve top honours, it demands it.

The sections highlighted in bold are areas where I, personally, don't agree with BSM.

Brilliantly packaged: No alloys and ACC is brilliantly packaged? SX4, Verna and Linea come with ACC so it's just Fiesta and ANHC that aren't offering ACC. Why is that a Swift and a i20 can offer ACC but not a million rupee sedan?

They talk about Honda's nod to safety features but it was the SX4 that forced Honda to adopt these features. IMO COTY should be a leader not a follower - at least in some features/areas. The Swift had ABS and Airbags for years but since it didn't compete with City, Honda didn't bother offering these features in their innumerable City upgrades.

Can it really deliver 14kmpl in traffic?

And I don't think the car is worth every penny you spend on it.

[srishiva]

Amit, Honda decided a year or so ago that all its cars will have GCON and airbags as standard. (global safety initiative). I didn't expect them to add them midway to cars.

I hope you will accept ACI's decision to award Linea COTY ! I am sure they were not bought over by Fiat and they were biased. By the way, the non-bold words far outnumber the bold ones in your above post !

[amit]

I really don't know why people take everything so personally!

Originally Posted by srishiva

Amit, Honda decided a year or so ago that all its cars will have GCON and airbags as standard. (global safety initiative). I didn't expect them to add them midway to cars.

The NHC VTEC got aribags towards the end of it's lifecycle. So, in your words, I wonder how they decided to add airbags midway to their cars?

I hope you will accept ACI's decision to award Linea COTY ! I am sure they were not bought over by Fiat and they were biased.

If you read properly through the forum you will realise that I don't agree with ACI including Linea in their COTY nominees. I have no comments either on whether it deserve to win or not as I haven't seen the car yet. Besides, unlike you who has voted for the ANHC, I haven't voted for the Linea in the team-bhp COTY poll.

I am sure they were not bought over by Fiat

Going by Fiat's track record I am sure you will agree that they are neither market savy nor smart enough enough to buy over auto journo's!

By the way, the non-bold words far outnumber the bold ones in your above post !

Yes. That proves that I have the maturity to agree on the good points of a product irrespective of the brand and that I haven't gone out of my way to prove my point that the car didn't deserve to win the award unlike a couple of Honda lovers that are going ballastic like stubborn kids in the team-bhp COTY thread because their darling city isn't leading the poll as expected.