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Old 4th September 2009, 15:05   #76
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Originally Posted by Su-47 View Post
I feel Hyundai's image (and sales) could improve if they:
- Stay away from false advertising
- Get the PR act sorted out: get a better ad agency. Get SRK out of the i10 promos, he was OK when Santro was launched but "SRK and Mr. Wilson": Kinda embarassing for the i10 owners
- Price the products a little more competitively: Don't have to come to the same level as MS, the plastics are better in Hyundai and they must be costing more. Besides, who has the time to wait for months to buy a Maruti?
Well put!

Either ways, my point in general was more directed towards the perceptions on TBHP than aam junta.
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Old 4th September 2009, 16:28   #77
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mclaren1885 View Post
Either ways, my point in general was more directed towards the perceptions on TBHP than aam junta.
Lets take the case of one of the cars you'd mentioned from the POV of junta on TBHP and why we didn't see too many recos.

Getz-Crdi:
- How can I recommend this car to someone if I've not driven it myself? No tesdrive vehicle saar.. Also, it didn't sell in great numbers, so the possibility of driving it casually was pretty low as well.
- Didn't have safety gear in place. (Competition == Swift atleast has ABS as an option on Vdi).
- Price: What was that to start with? It was later rationalized and by the time it was getting some fan-following. Poof! it is off the market.

Just my Re 0.02
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Old 4th September 2009, 16:29   #78
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VahanPujari View Post
Chevelle - I think I was misunderstood. I don't think the thread compares Hyundai with Maruti only. It says general perception, preconceived notions, bias etc are against Hyundai. I'm not able to figure it out that how the Indian customers who buys so many Hyundai cars to make it No. 2 have bias against Hyundai (isn't this contradicting itself)? Also, in terms of service also, the feedback which is on t-bhp & market also is that Hyundai is 2nd best to Maruti (if not equal) there as well. So, where is the pre-conceived notion by Indian market? In fact, I read somewhere that Hyundai is much more successful in India than the other countries.

If some good models failed, it might not be fault of Indian customers' perception, may be something else, anything else. But why to blame Indian market for that even after choosing it by leaps & bounds to make it No. 2 with huge volumes ? Not fair at all.
i still wonder, does being number 2 depict that Hyundai have extremely positive image for all people? don't think so.
in my family, even when we bought a santro, my brother still couldn't believe that we bought a Hyundai than a Maruti. That's his beloved brand. He also had a misconception that santro is not a good car. it all changed once he started driving it. now he is more interested in buying an i20 rather than other premium hatchback vis-a-vis punto, jazz, fabia and i20.
My dad too was a bit reluctant to go for Hyundai. but on my assurance (TBHP's good review about santro), we bought it and my dad is in love with this car. My dad still feels that opting for santro instead of wagon r is a very good decision and he doesn't regret it

I didn't compare Hyundai to Maruti. as for the discussion, the thread starter has mentioned in his latest post about this perception, notions, bias on TBHP rather than aam junta.

Here is a quote from mclaren

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Originally Posted by mclaren1885 View Post

Either ways, my point in general was more directed towards the perceptions on TBHP than aam junta.
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Old 4th September 2009, 16:42   #79
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I dont think there is any bias or misconception towards Hyundai on TBHP when it comes to recommending a car that gets the job done or for someone who is looking for a reliable, fuel efficient, comfortable car. I myself am thinking of an i20 sometime early next year, for my wife. But, bring into picture someone looking for a performance oriented car, it is then that you will see recommendation for a Hyundai being scoffed at. And for good reason too. As competition to Baleno, Ford Ikon 1.6, Palio it had Accent (before Verna came in), whose handling was known to be that of a boat. Even Elantra used to be priced quite high (though i might be mistaken here, though i do recall a substantial price drop taking place for elantra, making it a real good buy)

Now, there may be good cars available from Hyundai for an enthusiastic driver, in the form of Getz CRDi or Elantra, but these came a tad too late. And by then, opinion in the performance circles had already formed. It will take some time for that to go away.

IMO, the biggest drawback Hyundai cars suffered from, was their shoddy handling.

Last edited by amitoj : 4th September 2009 at 16:46.
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Old 4th September 2009, 17:19   #80
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A positive note,
Hyundai i10 is the one of the best selling models in UK
from Parkers
Hyundai topped the charts in August and is now the UK's best selling brand among private buyers. According to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), Hyundai sold 3737 new cars to private buyers in August - more than any other manufacturer. In total sales Hyundai was fifth, behind Ford, Vauxhall, Volkswagen and Toyota - all of which sell a large amount of cars to fleets. It's the highest sales position that the Korean manufacturer has ever achieved and the first time in more than a decade that Ford and Vauxhall have faced serious competition at the top of the sales chart.



more detailsAugust 2009 - Parker's




Looks like the Koreans are benefited by the scrappage scheme(recession) in UK :-)
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Old 4th September 2009, 17:54   #81
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chevelle View Post
i still wonder, does being number 2 depict that Hyundai have extremely positive image for all people?
Extremely positive or not that I don't know but being made No. 2 by Indian customers emphatically states that Indian customers (market as a whole- not a few customers here or there) does not have negative bias or pre-conceived notions towards Hyundai. Had it been there Hyundai would have been struggling writhing at much lower ranking in sales.

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but on my assurance (TBHP's good review about santro), we bought it and my dad is in love with this car.
There you go !! TBHP giving good reviews about a Hyundai, recommending it to purchase & influeincing the final sale deal. Why is the complaint against TBHP then?
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Old 4th September 2009, 18:10   #82
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VahanPujari View Post
There you go !! TBHP giving good reviews about a Hyundai, recommending it to purchase & influeincing the final sale deal. Why is the complaint against TBHP then?
There have been instances where members have recommended Hyundai on TBHP. But that mainly comes till the I10 price rang. Anything higher and its a different perspective. Also, you seem to have conveniently missed on some quotes I put up by members here. The point here is, are such statements valid enough a reason to omit the cars made by Koreans while deciding is the question.
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Old 4th September 2009, 18:22   #83
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mclaren1885 View Post
There have been instances where members have recommended Hyundai on TBHP. But that mainly comes till the I10 price rang. Anything higher and its a different perspective. Also, you seem to have conveniently missed on some quotes I put up by members here. The point here is, are such statements valid enough a reason to omit the cars made by Koreans while deciding is the question.
OK but then TBHP is giving good reviews till i10 price range, can't it be deduced that TBHP does not have any bias towards Hyundai as a company/ MFR? If it gives good reviews & recommendation for i10 price range cars & do not generally recommend (which I doubt but do not want to debate) the other higher range Hyundai cars, then doesn't it mean that TBHP has nothing against Hyundai as such but may not be recommending certain higher range cars, may be then we can say there is a bias towards those certain high range cars or may be even there are reasons enough not to recommend it (that is also possible as we've discussed about Verna earlier on this thread)
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Old 4th September 2009, 18:42   #84
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mclaren1885 View Post
There have been instances where members have recommended Hyundai on TBHP. But that mainly comes till the I10 price rang. Anything higher and its a different perspective. Also, you seem to have conveniently missed on some quotes I put up by members here. The point here is, are such statements valid enough a reason to omit the cars made by Koreans while deciding is the question.
I agree. Somehow the perception is hyundai does not seem to be a car worth more than 6-7L. When i was in US, i would see hyundai as a rental car or a cheap car(studends who could afford but still wanted a new car). When i came to india i had the same perception. i did not want to buy a santro, so went for a zen. when i wanted to upgrade, i bought a baleno(accent was its compiteror). in fact did not consider. Though now i own a first hyundai car(i10AT) it is mainly bcos Maruti/others did not have a car in that price range with AT. after driving it for sometime, i am quite happy with its performance and mainly service. But still in my mind, i would not consider a 10L car.(maybe i will go for a honda/toyota).
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Old 4th September 2009, 19:45   #85
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Hyundai needs to introduce new models to keep interest alive. For now, they may be doing well, but i'm sure they are thinking about the long term too. I , for one, was a bit disappointed by the Santro's 'so-called upgrade', but then i thought this through and figured that Hyundai has it's pulse of the average Indian buying public spot on. 'Dull and dodgy' equals 'cash cow' in the Indian car market and Hyundai is doing ok in domestic sales this year, so they're keeping it like it is, i think. This is a market that thinks an Alto is an, ahem, a "man's car". Not the SX4.
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Old 4th September 2009, 20:12   #86
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Quote:
Originally Posted by madhukar_n View Post
I agree. Somehow the perception is hyundai does not seem to be a car worth more than 6-7L. When i was in US, i would see hyundai as a rental car or a cheap car(studends who could afford but still wanted a new car). When i came to india i had the same perception. i did not want to buy a santro, so went for a zen. when i wanted to upgrade, i bought a baleno(accent was its compiteror). in fact did not consider. Though now i own a first hyundai car(i10AT) it is mainly bcos Maruti/others did not have a car in that price range with AT. after driving it for sometime, i am quite happy with its performance and mainly service. But still in my mind, i would not consider a 10L car.(maybe i will go for a honda/toyota).
You took Hyundai as cheap for your stay in US (fair enough, even I know that perception of Americans) - but you went for a suzuki thereafter in India?? I do not remember anyone i knew in USA buying a Suzuki car (save for 1, he got a suzuki forenza, which itself is a rebadged daewoo/GM lacetti - optra in India), and never did i get any Suzuki car in any rental (enterprise/budget/avis/dollar)- the cheapest they offered was Chevy aveo (hatch/sedan)!!
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Old 4th September 2009, 21:04   #87
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While I myself am neutral about Hyundai/Korean cars, some points I had heard people talk:

1. In the early 1990s, apparently, people in the US witnessed Hyundai cars catch fires while being driven on highways, without any warnings, among other breakdowns. Hyundai, therefore, was said to have been the recipient of many class-action lawsuits that followed as a result.

Colleagues of mine who mentioned this to me, who were in the US at the time, even after their return to India for many years, dismiss the possibility of buying Hyundai cars here irrespective of their advancement and VFM since the early 90s, owing to this mindblock.

2. Korean work culture, generally, was said to be not on par with Japanese work culture. This is said to have resulted in lower quality of process/deliverables/products compared to their Japanese counterparts.

I am told that this is why Korean cars - which sold brilliantly in their own space, were not comparable to their Japanese counterparts. This is currently a moot point, since their maturity of engineering seems to have gone up significantly; and in India, their offerings are of better quality than their Japanese rivals.


3. While the above points are generic to all markets, the other point is that Maruti = better resale in India, irrespective of how tinny/rattling their cars are. In India, but for this one aspect, Hyundai is on-par in ownership experience with the market leader.

4. Again India specific, given the propensity of Indians to treasure the Honda and Toyota brand names, expensive Hyundais - maybe for no fault of their own, do not sell here.

Last edited by theMAG : 4th September 2009 at 21:06.
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Old 5th September 2009, 00:52   #88
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VahanPujari View Post
There you go !! TBHP giving good reviews about a Hyundai, recommending it to purchase & influeincing the final sale deal. Why is the complaint against TBHP then?
The influence was from ownership reports. i didn't put up my requirements in what car section. so i won't say i was recommended to buy Santro. I am pretty sure if i would have done so, i would have got more people recommending wagon r or palio instead of santro here as i have read some what car question about same question as mine.

I remember reading a couple of ownership reviews here as a guest which helped me decide better. also read magazine's views about santro and asked santro owners in baroda itself. that's how I got to know how good santro was. without this we would have landed up with wagon r. and i thank these resources for guiding to right purchase.

anyway, thats something off topic.

on a side note, people in USA are still reluctant to go for KIA cars. the reason being KIA also stands for Killed in Action, which stand for soldiers of US Army who lost their lives in action in korea or vietnam. Though Hyundai has a good perception in USA, they still are not at par with Honda and Toyota. But sooner or later they are gonna be on their heels.

and yes, i agree with mclaren that you have conveniently ignored some remarks by members who despise Hyundai so as to call them utter crap. if some member would have said so about Fiat, i bet everybody would have gonna bonkers about it
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Old 5th September 2009, 01:23   #89
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Originally Posted by chevelle View Post
The influence was from ownership reports.
I agree completely. Hyundai has been getting good feedback mainly in the ownership threads where people have dealt with Hyundai's over a period of time to know they aren't as bad as people make it out to be. I am sure many owners will vouch that more than anything else, its the ownership threads that made them comfortable about picking a Hyundai. And that the recommendations are still on the lower side from non-Hyundai members.

Try posting a new query in the "what car" section. I bet every suggestion will be for either the MUL/Fiat cars. But then again, what I have noticed is that, Hyundai owners are the quiet types. They make less noise, hoopla about the cars they own. IMO I think they are the most satisfied lot. You will never see a Hyundai owner going gaga over how the Hyundai cars are built with passion or over exaggerate their love unlike most Maruti/Fiat owners. Most Maruti/Fiat owners start talking about passion, A.S.S, history of the company, the technology used in the cars and what not only to hide the fact that they cannot accept the -ve's of a car and try to cover it up with a lot of small talk.

Quote:
and yes, i agree with mclaren that you have conveniently ignored some remarks by members who despise Hyundai so as to call them utter crap. if some member would have said so about Fiat, i bet everybody would have gonna bonkers about it
I think that is because Fiat is the only company that builds its cars with passion in India and when you buy one you automatically get entitled to some of that passion. The rest of the manufactures lack passion, so we aren't entitled to be passionate about a car that doesn't come packaged with some of it from the factory . So we don't have the license to go bonkers.

Coming back to topic, here is another classic case of "skewed perception".
Quote:
I will also advise you not to go for another i20. Look at different options. This tells you only one thing that the Quality of i20 is not very high.
This post comes from a thread where the OP was being delivered a lemon and posted his experience. In return, we get such comments. I am wondering, if the quality of the I20 is not high, which car in that category classifies as having high quality?

My last 3 cars have been a Suzi and yet I find most people try to push a new buyer into picking up a swift and conveniently leave out the fact that the swift is a "rattle king". They overcome these faults with talks about re-sale, A.S.S and what not.

Then you have the Fiat group. These are the most active lot in the "what car" section and you can be rest assured that their posts will convince you not to look at anything beyond a Fiat for all your needs. Even if your budget is upto 15L .

I have seen many instances where, given that the OP has the budget to go in for a Getz D/I20, no one actually recommends it, instead we have a million reasons asto how you can save up the same dough and spend it wisely on alloys, tires, ICE and what not. Each one is trying make their own tribe grow.

What I would really like to see is, people dishing out some honest non-biased opinions. If a Hyundai is more expensive, for the extra dough what you get is better quality, better A.S.S (better compared to Fiat and on par with Maruti) and lesser headaches. I can understand if budget is a strict concern, but even where the OP is willing to stretch the budget they are often warned to stay away from a Hyundai or its never suggested as an option to look at to begin with.

I don't own a Hyundai. Probably won't for another 5yrs. Not because I can't put my money where my mouth is. But because currently I have no plans of changing my Swift and Baleno anytime soon. The day I do decide to buy a new car, I can be sure that Hyundai will be heading the list on my chart. Hopefully, till then Hyundai will dish out some nice cars like the Getz/Elantra. IMO, as great as I find the I20 is, I still wish it came with that Verna motor.

And this is coming from someone who never liked Hyundai. Owns 3 Suzi's, dreams of buying a OHC Vtec and a Gtx to join the Baleno in my garage.

Last edited by mclaren1885 : 5th September 2009 at 01:42.
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Old 5th September 2009, 01:41   #90
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Originally Posted by theMAG View Post
1. In the early 1990s, apparently, people in the US witnessed Hyundai cars catch fires while being driven on highways, without any warnings, among other breakdowns. Hyundai, therefore, was said to have been the recipient of many class-action lawsuits that followed as a result.

This I can vouch for first hand!

My Hyundai Sonata (1991) caught fire while I was clipping along at 160kmph on the free-way. I barely managed to bring it to a stop and cleared the vehicle when KABOOM (I had just tanked up)... It burnt so fiercely that in 10 minutes even the steering wheel and the number plate had melted completely!

Maybe some day I will pen that experience down - but that was a very very lucky escape!

PS: I drive an Accent CRDi now :-).

Last edited by kb100 : 5th September 2009 at 01:52.
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