[shankar.balan]

Honda is certainly way over-priced here in India.

The Jazz definitely needs a severe downward price correction as well as some loading in terms of features for it to become a reasonable value proposition!

A reduction of around 1.5 lacs springs to mind and then, in the basic version they should definitely add in a stereo, reversing sensors and some other extras.

They could then stick in alloys, sat nav, and some decent seat upholstery options etc and charge the consumer a little extra for these things - thereby creating another variant.

I would still say that the 1.2 engine is a tad useless even though it is predominantly a city car. Some steroids and/ or health supplements in the engine department would certainly help!

I guess where they ve sort of gone wrong is to expect the "second car" consumers to choose the Jazz for their city usage.

Unfortunately for them, in the case of the larger majority of consumers in India it is a simple "one car" policy and for them the Honda Jazz does not appeal at all!

Whatever they do, if they reduce the prices to the extents as speculated above, they should most definitely give back cash vouchers to those few consumers who bought their silly car in the first place, paying such an exorbitant price! It is about time the paying consumer was accorded some respect by all these manufacturers!

Another thing - consider that the top end CRV costs almost Rs 29-30 lacs on the road!! - Why should anyone be made to pay that kind of money for what is essentially a hopeless poseur -wannabe SUV which effectively is a taller and viciously expensive hatchback!

As mentioned before the chaps at Honda appear to have a highly mistaken impression of the "premium" cachet of their badge - it would certainly help if their hotshot fat-cat executives and marketeers would once in a while come out of their comfy plush aircon/ leather lounge boardrooms deep inside their ivory towers and take a good hard look at reality on the street so to say!

Originally Posted by GTO

Whether stock clearance or not, 50K is still not enough. The Jazz deserves a price correction of atleast 1.25 lakhs.

Ajmat had mentioned a Renault instance on another thread : In the UK, they overpriced some car. When the market didn't bite, they accepted their goof-up, corrected the price to more realistic levels and sent a voucher to all existing customers. This is the only way for the Jazz to move forward.

[prince_pervez]

Man I sure did not expect a price cut from Honda. They are going the Chevy Spark way, well almost. This does affect they brand image. Wrong move I would say. But then pricing the Jazz at what they did, at launch, was itself wrong.

[Ramsagar]

This seems to be a dealer offer, but not given by HONDA. May be he is trying to push all the 09 mfd JAZZ.

What brand would be of GPS system is he offering?. I'm sure its not form HONDA, expecting of some Chinese make. Can anyone confirm.

[rutvij]

Originally Posted by prince_pervez

Man I sure did not expect a price cut from Honda. They are going the Chevy Spark way, well almost. This does affect they brand image. Wrong move I would say. But then pricing the Jazz at what they did, at launch, was itself wrong.

I dont think it is a price cut. In other cities they are offering free insurance worth about 25000/- so i guess its an incentive given by the company to clear the stocks. And Ahmedabad dealer has decided to offer goodies priced at Rs. 50,000/- which might have costed him Rs. 25,000/- or so.

Honda is a serious player in India but they have made a mistake in pricing the Jazz. I am sure they must have realised it by now. Jazz is an important model in their portfolio. My take is that they will come out with different variants with revised pricing in near future.

[harimakesh]

Originally Posted by .anshuman

This kind of pricing cannot be possible, These days Getz Petrol is available in Delhi for 3.99lakhs ex showroom + Free Registration + Free Insurance + some more free stuff. I think you are expecting too much from Honda.

5.25 Lakhs exshow room price for Honda Jazz is 30% higher than GetzPrime prices. I am not asking Honda to coverother additional road tax, registration expenses for Jazz

Jazz is a petrol Hatch and not even a Diesel engine to ask a premium like this. For the current price Jazz must come with Diesel engine, A/T and curtain airbags.

[civic-sense]

Honda is only charging a premium for the brand, and any manufacturer would have done this, had they been in Honda's shoes. Having said that, I think, Honda overestimated it's brand value a bit (lot?) more, when they priced the Jazz. I think there would be a "E" variant coming soon.

[ranjitss]

Originally Posted by Parm

Honda Jazz has been over priced in UAE also, they launched it at 65000 dhs and not its being offered at 49000 Dhs.

Going by the sales of Jazz and considering the fact that Honda is offering some freebies we can expect a price cut here in India too. It remains to be seen how long can the Jazz go at the present price tag with new cars coming in early next year

[kratos11]

In todays Pune TOI,dealer is offering insurance at 999 & finance at 8%.No mention of free goodies.

[svaid]

I got this SMS over the weekend ( Copy-pasting as is from my mobile )

"Congrats! Save up to Rs 30,000/-* on HONDA Cars. Exclusive offer for U. For dtls pls. call ur nearest HONDA dealer today or sms HONDA to 54242
*T&C Apply."

This is the first time I am seeing any such SMS from Honda. The content seems generic in nature and not specifically talking of JAZZ.

Either this is a push to clear 2009 inventory OR the start of HONDA offering discounts like other manufacturers.

[ashthedivx]

Yesterday, I got an sms stating 50% discount on Insurance of Jazz !!

[raul]

This could just be end of year sales push rather than Honda thinking of cutting the price of Jazz, and going by the offers people are reporting that seems more likely

[.anshuman]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

Another thing - consider that the top end CRV costs almost Rs 29-30 lacs on the road!! - Why should anyone be made to pay that kind of money for what is essentially a hopeless poseur -wannabe SUV which effectively is a taller and viciously expensive hatchback! !

Though i agree about the pricing part but i think as a Crossover CRV does the job exceedingly well, Its not a wannabe SUV its a Crossover, It delivers what its owners would want it to do.

[mrwalker]

Well I HAD posted the following on 12th Jun 2009, but on my Facebook page!!

"...wonders if the just launched Honda Jazz is going to be Honda's first flop in India and the subject of brand positioning case studies in the B schools..."

"They're trying to create a new super premium hatch category by making some things eg ABS, airbags standard, a spankin new engine and fantastic interiors... I wish em luck......"

[AWD]

Jazz has such big glass house, wonder how A.C. will keep the cool in sweltering summers!
Though Jazz is a well engineered car but I did not like the looks(ultra short bonnet) & huge glass area. The room for the front passengers is restricted too.
Coming to the price, its well-overpriced like most Honda's, lack of diesel & punny petrol motor do not help the cause either. This hatch can have some market if priced below i20 diesel but then Honda will have to lower its esteem too for which it might not be ready yet!

[Zappo]

While most of these offers look like dealer initiatives, the way the market goes, these are actually made to look so but in reality are subsidized by the company. It is a well known trick. Do you guys think the dealer has such a huge margin as to offer you 52k worth of goodies or a 25k insurance along with the car and still sell the car profitably? Well not really. These are tricks adopted by the company when they do not want to dilute the brand value and the resell market immediately. Many companies have done so in the past.

The matter of the fact is that
* Honda now seems to be left with a huge pile of inventory.
* This screws up their production plans plus costs a huge amount in blocked money and other associated costs.
* Honda has still not been able to decide on how to handle this problem and for the time being just want to get rid of as many of these 2009 cars out of their inventory before the year rolls over.
* Thus you see all these huge free accessory offers, cheap finance, zero cost insurance and many other such offers to tempt you to pick up one of these cars at a lower than normal acquisition costs.

My doubt is that irrespective of all such offers (albeit made to look like dealer offers) Honda will still be left with too many of these 2009 made cars which then will have to be sold at additional discounts along with free extended warranty etc. The bigger challenge for them after that will be to think of some ways to handle this goof-up in pricing so as not to end up with a lot of egg on their face.

My suspicion is that soon we will see that Honda has withdrawn the current variants of the Jazz from the market and instead introduced an econo variant (Jazz E?!) of the car shorn of all the accessories like music system, airbags, abs etc. And the price may be reduced to the levels where suddenly it will start breathing down the neck of the other premium hatches. If things start picking up from then on you can expect the re-emergence of some higher variants another 2 years down the line with some of the removed features restored back (but not all) with the same pricing as it has today.

This is the most possible route that Honda can now take as a face saving solution for them. A Jazz priced at 6 lakhs or so without all that ABS, Airbags, Music System etc. will look barebones but people will make a queue for the car saying that Honda is a premium badge blah blah blah...