[pgsagar]

It is interesting to see two Mitsubishis occupying the extreme ends of the spectrum. You might as well call it a tale of two Mitsubishis. Cedia topping and Lancer bringing up the tail. Very interesting indeed. But I expected Optra D on top of everyone else.

[Gilead]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

is it possible to rank the cars in order of popularity ?
considering every buyer has one vote, the total volume shipped per model would give the popularity/preference of the Indian buyers.

Is such a data available ?

I don't think an official petrol-diesel split is available for the Fiesta, Verna, Indigo , Dzire and the Ikon.

[HKP]

Rated 5...

This is a great source for comparing cars and making a decision.

good job.

\\hkp

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

is it possible to rank the cars in order of popularity ? considering every buyer has one vote, the total volume shipped per model would give the popularity/preference of the Indian buyers. Is such a data available ?

Originally Posted by Gilead

I don't think an official petrol-diesel split is available for the Fiesta, Verna, Indigo , Dzire and the Ikon.

Yeah, ACI clubs the data together. But hey, but one can keep an eye on "March Sales", "April Sales" thread in this sub-forum.

Originally Posted by mkh

Another point to note which has been ignore in this diesel vs petrol comparison 1. The servicing cost of CRDI is almost 4000+ per service, which is DOUBLE of a petrol service cost, does that not reduce the actual savings a user has?

4000 km service interval is terrible. But then, the Verna diesel fights back with a higher resale value

According to today's Economic Times article, 15% of all cars sold in Calender Year 2008 in India were diesels. The number in 2009 was 25%. The trend is definitely pointing towards diesels.

Originally Posted by xingamazon

Smartcat great calculations..
I thought you would get tired after the hatchback comparo. But man your enthusiasm surely doesnt seem to die.

My head is asking me to take a long test drive of Manza 1.3 diesel. So I'm curious to know where it stands. But not to worry - I never listen to what my head says.

BTW, it would be of great help for me and sure for others if you would share the excel sheet with the data post all your analysis.
The issue is if I have to make some calculations of my own I am not in a position to do so. Hope you understand

Will upload my XL sheet at the end. And "gou" will put in the weightage formula in - so if you believe on road price deserves higher weightage, you can plug in the number and check.

Originally Posted by carlosTHEjackal

So seems like you already have rounded up the Optra replacement? Not going for punto 1.6 ?

Punto 1.6? I suppose you mean Punto 90 BHP. In the Punto review thread, somebody posted that the model launch has been postponed by a few months - that's a bummer.

Meanwhile, I took a test drive of Punto MJD again. I realized that I have very large feet - and when I remove my feet from clutch to place it on the dead pedal, my wide feet touches the clutch pedal (almost depressing it a bit). Anybody else has this problem?

That's why I intend to take a long test drive the Manza (which has no dead pedal). I want to see if my feet hurts without a dead pedal. Not looking at Linea MJD because it doesn't seem like VFM - but let's see how it fares in my ranking.

Just a quick question, did you consider all these parameters when you brought the Chevy Optra or that the clocking of 1 Lakh kms on the maroon one made you list out these parameters?

My car buying criteria is mainly "value for money". 6 years back, I test drove NHC, Optra 1.8, Corolla, Octavia (diesel) & Elantra (petrol & diesel). At that time, I had given unusually high weightage to exterior looks, interior looks and equipment - and the Optra won. Octavia diesel base model equipment list was as empty as the Thar desert at that time - but I did like that car.

Now my priorities are not very different - good exterior looks, equipment list, interior looks, safety & low running costs. I don't give too much attention to "engine performance" - I'm a very sedate boring uncle type of driver.

Originally Posted by arishi1

Smartcat a small correction to the ARAI numbers for FIAT Linea, for the 1.3 the declared fuel efficiency is now 19.9 as against 17.3. But then we need to check whether this change is there with other cars also or not with the new BS IV standards.

Could be the BS IV upgrade doing wonders to FE. Let's wait & watch.

Originally Posted by pgsagar

It is interesting to see two Mitsubishis occupying the extreme ends of the spectrum. You might as well call it a tale of two Mitsubishis. Cedia topping and Lancer bringing up the tail. Very interesting indeed. But I expected Optra D on top of everyone else.

Lancer diesel needs a heart transplant - and the price needs to go down too. Lancer diesel was good 10 years back (massive fan following) but competition has now moved ahead

Originally Posted by HKP

Rated 5... This is a great source for comparing cars and making a decision. good job. \\hkp

hey thanks man!

[SkyWalker]

Smartcat - a request - once you made all the data available - cna you also upload the XLS. I dont want to kill the suspense by releasing it early - but once you are done with it, it would be great!

One advantage would be that excel can be updated easily for new versions, thread cant

[Gilead]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Yeah, ACI clubs the data together. But hey, but one can keep an eye on "March Sales", "April Sales" thread in this sub-forum.

Petrol-Diesel split is not available in TBHP sales threads either.

[RajaTaurus]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

It is interesting to see two Mitsubishis occupying the extreme ends of the spectrum. You might as well call it a tale of two Mitsubishis. Cedia topping and Lancer bringing up the tail. Very interesting indeed. But I expected Optra D on top of everyone else.

Thats called "Generation gap" for Mitsubishi to be precise. The lancer we have here is more than a decade old, while Cedia is much later edition.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by smartcat

Although it seems to be unfair, as you have mentioned yourself, the high & low values will cancel itself out - I think it is a good property! When we look at the overall scores via addition, the "normalization" will be done automatically.

No, cancellation is not a good property. For example, if a car has very bad score on performance, then what use is a very good score on safety (or vice versa)? In your method, a great performance in one case will help the car balance out really pathetic performance in another case, due to the cancellation property. In reality, this is not true. A great performance is only worth it if everything else is at least at some decent level (and vice versa). Therefore, I am suggestion the "compounding" approach instead of the simple addition.

Simple addition has the property of presenting "OR" operation (i.e. I want to have performance OR drivability OR safety etc.) case whereas compounding (by multiplication) is just "AND" operation (i.e. I want to have performance AND drivability AND safety etc.).

Originally Posted by smartcat

Basically, multiple parameters & addition of points in each parameters automatically takes care of normalization, and also keeps the scoring system fairly simple.

No, it does not. Normalization takes care of fairness of scoring within a given parameter, and it has nothing to do with cancelation or otherwise over multiple parameters (the latter being taken care of by compounding mentioned earlier).

Somebody had earlier mentioned a good example: Suppose one car lags another in 0-100 time by 0.01s, then this car should not be one full point behind the other (this would be around 4% penalty if they are ranked number 26 and number 25 respectively). If we use normalization, the second car will get very low percentage of penalty, proportional to the 0.01% difference. This has nothing to do with what happens on other parameters.

Originally Posted by smartcat

Also this scoring system cannot be using to rank EQUIPMENT & SAFETY.

Well, it can be. Let us say we give 1 point each for having critical safety equipment such as airbags, ABS, rear disc brakes etc. Then all cars which have all of these will get 1 point on normalized scale, all cars which have none of these will get 0, and any car which has a few of these will get score in-between 0 and 1, depending on how many equipments it has.

Originally Posted by smartcat

Doc, Are you a PHD type of doc?

Unfortunately, yes :-)

Originally Posted by smartcat

As ACM suggested, I will stick to points system in descending order for simplicity, readability & usability.

Completely fair! You have done a great analysis and I agree with your KISS principle. Again, we all appreciate your efforts, and I just wanted to make some suggestions to make it more accurate.

Originally Posted by smartcat

But I will also upload my XL sheet at the end - anybody can work on it with your much accurate system of ranking cars.

Thanks, that will be great. I will try to do something with the sheet.

Originally Posted by ACM

But the normalization method could also be carried out in parallel. There is a major value to it as well.

I may be best if you could do an alternative calculation based on your system of normallization and post back to this thread the calculations with the normalization method.

Great suggestion, but basically you are asking me to stop being lazy and do some real work Now that is not easy :-) But certainly I will try my best as and when I get time.

By the way, Smartcat, please do not misunderstand me. I again say that you have done a phenomenal job and I sincerely appreciate your analysis and efforts. I did not mean to criticize it in any way, but just wanted to share some thoughts on what we call "scope for further improvement".

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by SkyWalker

Smartcat - a request - once you made all the data available - cna you also upload the XLS.

Will do.

Round No. 4 - ON ROAD PRICE

I'm considering the on-road Mumbai prices here. This is the parameter that almost all the car buyers start their research with. For example, if somebody has a budget of Rs. 8 - 9 lacs and is looking at petrol cars, he would shortlist the following cars - SX4 Vs Verna petrol Vs Fiesta Petrol Vs Linea Petrol Vs Aveo petrol. And when we look at the overall ranking, we get to know where each car stands.

Comments:

- Tata Indigo CS DiCor Diesel is a marvel in the sense that - it is not only the cheapest diesel sedan in our test, but the cheapest sedan full stop! And the bottom-chopping exercise (less than 4.0 metres) has made it about Rs. 1 Lac cheaper than its nearest rival Ford Ikon diesel.

- Logan diesel, Manza diesel & DZire diesel similarly priced at around Rs. 8 lacs each for the top end model.

- Fiesta, Linea & Verna diesel are similarily priced (Rs. 9 to 10 Lacs).

- Anybody looking at petrol sedans has a wide choice if he has a budget of Rs. 8 - 9 lacs.

Next, we get to the ranking of cars that offer the best compromise between the four parameters we have considered so far. However, note that this ranking is NOT that of value for money cars. If you are looking at VFM, you need to see what features we get for the price we pay.

Ranking of cars when equal weightage is given to performance, driveability, running costs & price:

Comments:

- Indigo CS diesel makes a massive leap in rankings thanks to lowest running costs at the lowest price. The CRDi engine powering the Indigo CS is no slouch either - remember it hits 100 kmph in 14.95 secs. That's quicker than Linea diesel/petrol, Fiesta diesel & Logan diesel.

- Note that we'll soon have a "half-bottom" Logan diesel & petrol under 4 metres in length.

- DZire & Manza diesel are slowly creeping up the rankings table - hand in hand.

- The 85 BHP Tata Indigo Marina petrol too makes a mark for itself among old generation cars.

- Among Rs. 8 - 9 Lacs petrol sedans, Ford Fiesta 1.6 leads the ranking followed by Verna & Logan. If we consider only these 4 parameters, pricey Honda City seems to lose out a bit to Fiesta 1.6 petrol.

[dragstar]

Originally Posted by smartcat

4000 km service interval is terrible. But then, the Verna diesel fights back with a higher resale value

The diesel engines now days (specially the verna) are very sturdy and need to be serviced every 10,000km's.
Spending 4grands every 10,000km's is way better then spending Rs2500 to 3k every 5000km's for a petrol engine.

[trrk]

Hi,

Originally Posted by smartcat

That's why I intend to take a long test drive the Manza (which has no dead pedal). I want to see if my feet hurts without a dead pedal.

For such a spacious car, this does not have the space to have a dead pedal and so they have wisely not put it.

With proper adjustment of seats and steering, I have managed to find a comfortable position where the absence of dead pedal does not bring about any discomfort.

[benzinblut]

@smartcat: are you also gonna add points for features offered? I just thought that it would make some sense because a car with higher OR price also has better features. It will be like a VFM scale for cars.

[vikrantj]

@smartcat .
I think price wise ranking doesn't seem fair since the price depends on lot of factors. Infact it it would be better if we create price buckets and see the VFM factor for the bucket.
For example consider 5-7lakh bucket Indigo-CS will rank higher and consider 8-10 lakh bucket then Linea will rank higher.
Definitely Honda City and Indigo-CS connot be compared price-wise.

[Vik0728]

Personally, I would go with Vikrantj's view on the comparison. May be these sedans should not be pitted against one another, atleast in the price department.

But then again Vikrantj, if you scanned through Smartcat's previous comparison for the hatchbacks, it also had Price factor included, which eventually translates into VFM.
What Smartcat is doing here is just providing a guide for the buyer of Today & Tomorrow.
We all know all this data is available in many Autocar magazines, but hey Smartcat was the one who first thought about collating all the info and we all should appreciate every bit of effort he has put in.

[vikrantj]

@Vik0728 , But the issue is when I look at the rankings table as of now Ford Ikon seems to a better car overall than Honda City . Or probably the more expensive Optra seems to be VFM than a Linea or for that matter a Marina petrol ranked better than Cedia petrol.
But as informed buyer we know that above situations are not true.

But Smartcat's efforts are no less than stellar. Please keep up the good work.