[shankar.balan]

there is one more fact - as shared with me by a Senior person from M&M

there is a lot of trouble in getting their existing vendor base to conform to certain quality fit and finish standards. those vendors are quite happy to continue doing what they ve been doing for years! however this is not an excuse -because the company should sack such vendors and move to better ones.
the other aspect I heard which seems a bit weird is that if one were to compare the design drawings made for trims and parts by the Koreans and Japanese, with those made by us Indians, the accuracy and precision of the Koreans and Japanese in this aspect is far higher than that of our Indian manufacturers.

However, I submit this is difficult to digest because we Indians are such excellent engineers - how difficult can it be for such high quality engineers and draughtsmen who are there in India and employed by M&M/ Tata's, to churn out high quality and precisely measured design drawings?

Originally Posted by avisidhu

Couldn't have agreed more. What gives us hope is the pace at which they have bettered their vehicles, so much so that the Aria and the new Manza no longer seem like Tata products!
As you have rightly said, there's no reason why Mahindra cannot do the same, or even better. The thing is, they can ill afford not to do so with these vehicles

[swiftnfurious]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

those vendors are quite happy to continue doing what they ve been doing for years! however this is not an excuse -because the company should sack such vendors and move to better ones.

+1. If the vendors cannot make quality parts, let the manufacturers move on to better ones. And how does Japs / Koreans / Czech manage to find better quality vendors?? This is plain stupid !

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

However, I submit this is difficult to digest because we Indians are such excellent engineers - how difficult can it be for such high quality engineers and draughtsmen who are there in India and employed by M&M/ Tata's, to churn out high quality and precisely measured design drawings?

We may not be able to confirm on this, but if this is true, the option is to find people who can do a better job with precision. Do the customers in India bother whether the car is developed / designed by Indians? I guess not !! And if indeed this is true, then its SAD !!

@Shankar, you look like getting accurate info about this product. So will it be possible for you to give some tips time-to-time to keep this thread active - Like approximate price / variants / some features of this car / launch date ?

[avisidhu]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

there is one more fact - as shared with me by a Senior person from M&M

there is a lot of trouble in getting their existing vendor base to conform to certain quality fit and finish standards. those vendors are quite happy to continue doing what they ve been doing for years! however this is not an excuse -because the company should sack such vendors and move to better ones.
the other aspect I heard which seems a bit weird is that if one were to compare the design drawings made for trims and parts by the Koreans and Japanese, with those made by us Indians, the accuracy and precision of the Koreans and Japanese in this aspect is far higher than that of our Indian manufacturers.

However, I submit this is difficult to digest because we Indians are such excellent engineers - how difficult can it be for such high quality engineers and draughtsmen who are there in India and employed by M&M/ Tata's, to churn out high quality and precisely measured design drawings?

That's really insightful and provides a lot of fodder for thought Shankar sir. In my very humble opinion and at the risk of going OT, may I say that rather than the quality of engineers or draftsmen, its the approach and mindset that matters. Having seen live examples of the same in IT industry, most of us have a strong tendency to go for the easy fix, irrespective of the IQ we possess to actually dig deeper and investigate the root cause.

I'm quite certain the same holds true for the automobile industry, though I must state that have no intentions of offending anyone, just mean it in a generic sense. Plus, the vendors must be wondering that if most of the vehicle buying population does not have a problem with the (seemingly) minisculine product issues, why should they bother ?

It's a two way street, and its immensely heartening to know that M&M is willing to work proactively on the same rather than throwing beta products in the market and then improving on them.

[shankar.balan]

pfa Some of my comments below

Originally Posted by swiftnfurious

+1. If the vendors cannot make quality parts, let the manufacturers move on to better ones. And how does Japs / Koreans / Czech manage to find better quality vendors?? This is plain stupid ! - Yes I agree. Manufacturers need to have a greater quality work ethic when making consumer facing products and charging so much for them.



We may not be able to confirm on this, but if this is true, the option is to find people who can do a better job with precision. Do the customers in India bother whether the car is developed / designed by Indians? I guess not !! And if indeed this is true, then its SAD !!
Consumers in India want good quality at an affordable price. How hard can this be to achieve? Manufacturers are charging good money from us. So they have to provide first class stuff. For example if the Motor vehicle regulation says that a horn has to conform to 100 db in terms of sound, our manufacturers typically source the cheapest lowest variant of such a product and shove it into the car. For example - the Maruti OEM horns and the Bolero OEM horns. One infers that until there is a clear regulation that Airbags and ABS simply MUST be provided in all variants of vehicles, these manufacturers will continue to offer such essential safety kit only in the top end variants and charge the moon for the same. Ridiculous. They certainly need to be more pro-active than they are!
it is not about having bad quality engineers and others - it is more about attitude and greed that makes our Indian manufacturers behave in this way. This is my surmise.

@Shankar, you look like getting accurate info about this product. So will it be possible for you to give some tips time-to-time to keep this thread active - Like approximate price / variants / some features of this car / launch date ?

While I may have been one of the privileged few to receive information of the quality that only the company's senior internal resources and top motoring journalists normally get, right at this moment I am not at liberty to share the same. However, basis the relevant and requisite permissions being granted, I will be happy to do so. All in all, suffice it to say that the W201 is a wonderful effort - but they do need to make some more general improvements before unleashing it on the general public and charging the public reasonable bucks for the same! This is why M&M are taking their time. One thing I will vouch for as an M&M customer, their hearts are in the right place and they are very serious about making this a success. There will always be naysayers amongst us in the informed communities. But I believe in pulling no punches when it comes to feedback because I believe that to be a "best friend" one must have the courage to be a "severe critic" too. Personally, Im waiting for the vehicle - I think we will all be pleasantly surprised overall.

[ananth_iy]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

This mind set amongst us is simply because no Indian manufacturer until date has been able to come up to proper international standards in terms of fit, finish, quality and finesse of their interiors, dashboards and overall trim quality.

I completely agree. The Scorpio is a great vehicle at that price point but it does have its set of niggles that I have never seen with my Santro. But again, if I had to make my purchase choice again, I would still go for the Scorpio because it is a VFM product. Raise the price to that of an Innova and I would not buy it. I am sure that the same will hold true of the W201. Raise the price to match the Fortuner and I would not consider it VFM any more.

[CARDEEP]

Mahindra is planning to launch the Kornadeo & Rexton SUVs in India & the same with be heavily localised to reduce the cost of the vehicles. Here, is the report on the same -

Mahindra To Launch Kornado & Rexton SUVs

IMO these two could not be launched earlier than the W201, unless Mahindra emulates the Hyundai's Santa Fe strategy. So, if we had expected these tow or either of these earlier than the W201, I guess we will have to wait for the parts localisation on these two.

[gshanky]

Originally Posted by ananth_iy

But again, if I had to make my purchase choice again, I would still go for the Scorpio because it is a VFM product. Raise the price to that of an Innova and I would not buy it. I am sure that the same will hold true of the W201. Raise the price to match the Fortuner and I would not consider it VFM any more.

Well, thats again assuming W201 will come with its share of niggles as compared to Fortuner. Lets hope W201 is a better sorted out vehicle from the get go. However IMO W201 will be a softroader with probably AWD and so may not be a good idea to compare with fortuner.

Overall I think Indian manufacturers like Mahindra and TATA are catching up with the MNC giants in terms of quality and performance. In a few years or about another generation of generations of vehicle lines, the indian companies would be able to do manufacture as good a vehicle as the MNCs.

[djpeesh]

Please do take a ride in my Tata Safari if you think that Tata quality is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. I'm sorry but in the six months that I have owned this Safari (and the previous two Safaris, from each generation), I've had more issues than I've had in the three Hyundai cars I've owned combined. Seriously, a company that has such lax quality control that an aircon comes with a broken button and then it requires me to get the top brass involved to repair is not something I'd associate with good quality. And I test drove the Aria before I picked up the Safari in November. It's still got those issues that Tata is wonderfully famous for. I'm a Safari loyalist because I have a farm outside bombay that doesn't have any road access and hence need a true blue SUV and not a softroader to get to (although in the last few months, with the Safari usually in the company workshop, I've been taking the Getz there and it does a pretty amazing job if driven gingerly).

The fact that India has manufacturers ripping off the customer to overprice SUVs doesn't mean there's all that much rocket science involved in building one. Sometimes I wonder if the politicos getting richer has anything to do with the burgeoning prices. So, I buy a Safari because I cannot afford a Fortuner or an Endeavor, but if I was in a better position to buy, and I thought either the Fortuner or Endeavor to be VFM, I would have ditched the Safari two generations ago.

And yes, I visited the Tata PCBU unit last month. The export units, even for south Asian markets, had fewer panel gaps and better switchgear than the model I own. Urgh

[ananth_iy]

Originally Posted by djpeesh

Please do take a ride in my Tata Safari if you think that Tata quality is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. I'm sorry but in the six months that I have owned this Safari (and the previous two Safaris, from each generation), I've had more issues than I've had in the three Hyundai cars I've owned combined. Seriously, a company that has such lax quality control that an aircon comes with a broken button and then it requires me to get the top brass involved to repair is not something I'd associate with good quality. ...

I second your opinion on the quality comparison between Tata / M&M and a Hyundai. Hyundai creates a global vehicle in India and doesn't distinguish between made for India and made for others.

However, my sympathies with you that you have to escalate to get things fixed. At least my A$$ for M&M rolls out the red carpet for me and is more than eager to get things resolved to my satisfaction at the earliest. Hats off to them for that.

[CARDEEP]

Mahindra W201 caught again on the Mumbai Pune Expressway. Here are the links to the sightings, apparently lifted from Mahindra Facebook fanpage:

1. Mahindra World SUV Spied Again On Pune Expressway

2. Mahindra World SUV Picture With Headlight Switched On

As per the reports it is expected to be launched in a couple of months.

[the VTEC guy]

Just happened to see 2 test mules for W201 near the Mahindra Navistar Plant near Chakan, Pune one hour back. One of the vehicle seemed to have LED daylight running light integrated into the headlight. It was a straight line of LEDs on the lower side of the headlight unit. May be one of the variant gets LED DLR

[Latheesh]

Vehicle looks good except the trademark ugly front grill. If they price it well it is going to follow Scorpio success story. I think W201 will do the trick for Mahindra what ARIA failed to do for TATA.

[swiftnfurious]

Originally Posted by the VTEC guy

It was a straight line of LEDs on the lower side of the headlight unit. May be one of the variant gets LED DLR

Correct, we have been spotting DRLs on test mules.

Originally Posted by Latheesh

I think W201 will do the trick for Mahindra what ARIA failed to do for TATA.

Chances are high this will be good for M&M. They had enough time in hand to do more research why Aria failed to fire up charts. If they have done their ground work, nothing can go wrong for them.

[shortbread]

What failed for Aria was price and price alone, people could not come about the fact to pay so much for a Tata product. Which means M&M despite all the engineering positives they can encompass into the car will have to price it very competitively.

Anywhere close to the Fortuner's pricing and they will struggle to shift them of the shelves which I am sure Mahindra know themselves. On top of all this there are strong rumours about Renault and Hyundai lining up SUV launches this year. Not to forget the new Safari/Merlin, which despite being based on an aged design and perhaps a segment below will still be highly competitive especially with the proposed improvements and facelift.

I think with growing ambitions the Indian manufacturers are struggling to find the fine balance between product capabilities and price, perhaps Mahindra will be capable of turning this around.

[shankar.balan]

the statement about daytime running LED is correct.
i will mention that I know a lot about this vehicle having been part of a special forum but am not yet at liberty to share the same on our forum.
it is indeed a first class effort but there are a few squiggly bits on their protos which for the most part will get sorted when the product hits the market.
it is a very nice vehicle indeed and they are trying their best to price it well and make it a runaway success. they have certainly learned from the Aria's idiotic pricing strategy as far as my information goes.
All I will say here now is that this vehicle is worth waiting for and indeed it will be the best to have ever come out so far, from the M&M stable.
If as I hope to, I receive the necessary clearances from them, I would be happy to share what I know on our forum so as to be the first ones to have the authentic info - possibly even before any of these car mags.
fingers crossed and please DONT PM me for details on this - I wont reply as it is not correct to do so on my part at this moment.

Originally Posted by the VTEC guy

It was a straight line of LEDs on the lower side of the headlight unit. May be one of the variant gets LED DLR