[aseem]

Alrite folks, am kind of inspired by GTO's 20 lakh rupee deal changers thread to come up with this topic. The market at 20 lakh rupees, is giving more value and has seen prices of the Geman giants coming down and offering more for less. There seems to be an opposite trend in the sub 10 lakh rupee bracket, with manufacturers hiking the prices of the cars as they like without giving any value....

If you have a sub 10 lakh rupee budget, there is no automatic car with a good transmission woth buying, very few cars with front and rear disc, etc. Over the years the likes of Civic, Cruze etc have moved closer to the 15 lakh bracket and the likes of City have moved to fill the void at 10 lakhs. Just to show you the cars that offered value that no longer exist:

1) Mitsubishi Cedia Spirit: This car at 8.5 lakhs was VFM. Though the platform itself now is dated and doesnt make a compelling case for itself. But even a manufacturer like Mtisubishi which is in doldrums in India has increased price/removed variant to take Cedia albeitwith more features to 10 lakhs ex-showroom.

2) Honda Civic E: Now this car was a real steal for those who can live withouth tweeters, leather interiors, alloys and climate control. At 9.9 lakhs it offered a Civic at the cost of estwhile ANHC V-AT. The 1.8 ltr engine loves to be revved and a manual AC cools just as well as climate control. Honda conviniently removed this model and now Civic is costing 13-15 and thereabours. Taking it away from the budget of aam aadmi. One look at the interiors of Civic and one feels why the hell is he buying an ANHC. And although Honda barely managers to sell 200 Civics a month, thi model is no longer on offer.

3) Toyota Corolla Executive: Now if I remember correctly this model used to be offered at 8.5 lakhs in the dieing stages of the earlier Corolla model. You may argue that since the model was being phased out, but come on Toyota, gimme a break, same engine, in a new shell with roughly the same space. Dont mean that 8.5 lakhs becomes 10.2 lakhs with Altis J does it. Having said that, I still feel Altis J is a good value proposition, but Toyota probably just does that as they dont have any offering in the B/C segment sedan space to compete with City.

4) Chevrolet Cruze LT: Now again being retailed for 11.4 having been launched at 10.99 ex-showroom. They can easily remove the music system, goodies, bells and whistles and bring a Cruze LS variant at 9.99 ex-showroom. But no, Chevrolet will quite happily see their numbers falling, brand value erode, and than probably do something too little, too late.

5) Honda City S-AT: Leave alone Honda has over priced City, they than had the knack to go ahead and remove the S-AT model at 9.3 Lakhs and launch V-AT model that goes north of 10 lakhs. Now for those of us, who dont care a hoot about the features V offers over S, tweeters my A.S.S., you have to shell out 1 lakh more to get a set of tweeters, chrome and alloys, gimme a break. I rather get an auto tranny and save 1 lakh. Again Honda setting precedence that as long as no player is offering value at sub 10 lakh, and knowing that there is no auto tranny thats worth talking about below 10 lakhs, they just increased the prices by 1 lakh to rip the customer.. I remember when City was initially launched, they came with E variant and S only as they didnt want the customer to feel that owning the new ANHC is very pricy compared to the NHC, but slowly but surely Honda increased the prices.

6) Honda Civic S - AT: Same story!

The prices of currency go up and they are first to hike the price, and when dollar and Euro near an all time low, no one talks about passing the buck to the common man (same is true for petrol prices). The thing with these manufacturers is, that they all know that no one except Maruti is willing to offer value in C segment. And the Sx4 product itself is not a proper sedan to compete with likes of City, so they keep on leveraging this fact and increasing the price. The City would have been the perfect product if it had an auto-tranny in S, and if they worked on the plane dashboard. I mean spending 10 lakhs and getting Swift like central console with City is like a BIG LET DOWN for an average Joe like me. Come on auto manfacturers, are you reading this thread. Time to wake up, and do something for the aam aaadmi below 10 lakhs

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Honda seem to be very strictly following the policy of increasing prices of their cars compared to the competition. City, Civic, CRV and Accord all have gone up the segment w.r.t prices, compared to their immediate competition.

Wonder how long it would take for Honda to realise their mistake!

Originally Posted by aseem

Time to wake up, and do something for the aam aaadmi below 10 lakhs

A car for 10 lakhs is still not 'aam aaadmi' stuff in India IMO!

[MARCUS_520i]

When I read the title, the first thing that struck my mind was a flash of a Yellow Mitsubishi Cedia Sport. And viola! It's the first car on the list!! IMO this one is the perfect deal breaker (I know I'm extremely biased when it comes to this one).

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by aseem

Time to wake up, and do something for the aam aaadmi below 10 lakhs

Slightly OT, but this is an Insult to 77% of Indians or 836 million people, who live on less than 20 rupees (approximately USD $0.50 nominal; $2 PPP) per day.

If you are "aaam aadmi" looking to buy a 10 lac car, who are these 77% citizens then ? Not fit enough to be even called human beings i guess ?

Wake up from your slumber, Aseem ji.

[adisag]

Aseem, I was reading Sam Kapasi's review of the superb just before this, and a certain line which he used
"I want to buy NOTHING. I want EVERYTHING that the car comes with. Fully like super loaded."
Is increasingly holding true for the upper middle class (who you are mis-interpreting as the "aam aadmi"). So the car companies see this and want to capitalize on it.
For an example when I was in the market for a car, I chose the i10 over the swift because the base version (1.2 Magna) came with power windows (I mean of-course there were other reasons influencing the deal, but had the swift LXi had power windows it would probably have been a much stronger contender).
The perceived cost of the car (in the 10L rupee range) plays a much larger role than the actual cost (Say 10.5L vs 10.8L) - if the person likes the 10.8L car, the 30K differential is of almost no meaning.

But overall after saying all that - I must agree with you the 10L rupee segment has not seen any real "Value Offerings" in a while.

[Aniket6]

I totally agree on this one.

I am quite cross with HM/Mitsubishi.The lancer petrol which is very old costs 8.18 lakhs on road in bangalore and the diesel 9.60 lakhs!.

Forget about features,it doesnt even have ABS or airbags as an option. And it has been a really really long time since HM did anything to revive it. They are selling them in double digits every month. And 8+ lakhs is too steep a price thats basically very old. If we remember,before the City arrived, Lancer ruled the roost. These two had tough competition between them.The difference is,Honda kept and updating it and brought on newer models and now they sell 4000 cars every month at 10 lakhs a piece,while Lancer has been struggling with double digit sale figures. Its really sad because the Lancer was a very good all rounder. You can barely see any on road these days.

[ampere]

How old or new is the Mitsubishi petrol technology? I have never heard anything about it.

[Zero Cool]

Honda Civic E....now this would have been my car had the greedy folks at Honda not discontinued it.

[lamborghini]

It depends on how you look at things as well.
The OHC VTEC was retailing for around 10L as well, without ABS, Airbags, fewer BHP, and some other goodies. And this was around 7 years ago.
Similarly, cars like the Fiesta are becoming cheaper as well, with added economies of scale. Look at all the LE editions.

BTW, most of the cars you have mentioned are cars from brands that are capitalizing on their brand values.
P.S. The toyota corolla executive didn't have airbags, alloys, wider tyres, etc. Also, apart from the engine, the Altis is all new. The Executive had been around for a while and Toyota passed on the benefits of their production machinery depreciation to us.

[aseem]

Originally Posted by lamborghini

P.S. The toyota corolla executive didn't have airbags, alloys, wider tyres, etc. Also, apart from the engine, the Altis is all new. The Executive had been around for a while and Toyota passed on the benefits of their production machinery depreciation to us.

The Altis 1.8 J for 10.2 ex-showroom is of sorts exact replica of Corolla executive given it doesnt have airbags, alloys, (not sure about tyres), no music system, no pre-tensioners in seat belts etc. But it charges a hefty 1.5 lakh premium over erstwhile Corolla executive. Which would have been fine if the same 1.5 lakh differential would have carried over to the GL and the V model, but NO, its only the base model that takes the hit!

[devarshi84]

I have openly voiced my dislike for the Honda for one reason. They are yet to know the difference between Business and daylight robbery.

Hyundai too has resorted to increasing their model prices. Where is the santro which used to retail for 2.66? Look at Hyundai Verna and I20. Hyundai getz and Accent which preceeded the current models were successful due to their value for money price positioining.

While HM-MItsubishi has lost my respect I should compliment them for offering a fully loaded sports model at a competitive price. They discontinued the spirit model at the lower price point becasue its was not making them money and they were not selling enough cars to justify different models.

Skoda is another robber just like Honda. SKoda could've done wonders pegging Laura in Octavia's place and Fabia would've done well if it was priced right in the first place.

[Caramelo]

Japanese cars which are more expensive than the European cars is sacrilege according to me!

[cuttingcrew]

When I bought my NHC it was ~8L on road (Blr). This was the lowest version. After few days SX4 was launched which was less than 8L for the highest version. But am I unhappy? Not really.
The cars listed are all good, but do we care? We buy Dzire instead.
p.s. Dzire is a VFM car but the looks.

[Abhi_Automobile]

Aseem,

Great post! I too have vouched for the same point on another thread. Where is the 'quality' in the 10 lakh bracket? Even more glaringly, as you correctly pointed out, where is the 'value'?

Look at what CIVIC E offered you. A CIVIC with 1.8l gem of an engine. Good build quality (as good as the JAPS have gotten thus far). Great interiors (reeked 'quality' from every nook and corner). And of course jolly old 'CIVIC' good looks. All this for 9.99 ex showroon. 10.2 On road Gurgaon!

Now look at what CITY V offers you. 1.5l engine. leather seats. Chrome handles. Alloy wheels. No Climate controls. Below par interior quality. This for 9.4 ex showroom. Close to 10 l on road Gurgaon! The V-AT crosses 10 l barrier too on road Gurgaon, which is one of the cheapest in India.

You tell me, which one is value for money??!!

I am eagerly waiting for VW VENTO. Since VW is still a growing player and yet to be fully established in India, I hope they come up with POLO type pricing.

Then there is the only other decent car in the segment. FIAT LINEA. But it does not sell much because of 'FIAT IMAGE'!

Let's see. But as of now, there is very little value to be had in the 10l segment.

[aseem]

Originally Posted by Caramelo

Japanese cars which are more expensive than the European cars is sacrilege according to me!

This statement is not funny, its actually a reflection of our inferiority complex due to the imperialistic rule we have had mindset...