[saisree]

Honda is struggling globally. Honda has lost its core strength, engineering excellence when it started looking for profits.

On a different note, is there a internal sabotage in Honda?

[PratikPatel]

Originally Posted by saisree

Honda is struggling globally. Honda has lost its core strength, engineering excellence when it started looking for profits.

Lost its core strength & engineering excellence? Let’s see; Honda powered Red Bull F1 team is taking the fight to Mercedes F1 team. In Moto GP it has one of the most sophisticated & powerful engines ever put on a bike. The problem is not in its engineering or core strength of making great reliable cars. The problem is in its product mix which has far too few SUVs and pickup trucks which now form the majority of demand with paradigm shift in customer preferences.

Honda has always concentrated on sedans, hatchbacks and soft SUVs (the CRV being its best selling soft SUV). Unlike Toyota, it never developed a serious SUV (Land Cruiser) or a serious pickup truck (Hilux). Just as it did not invest in and develop a Diesel engine till it was too late, it has made some mistakes in reading the markets and responding to change. However, they have the capacity and wearwithal to bounce back with a vengeance.

By the way, contrary to what is being suggested in some of the posts, it is a myth that Honda tried to compete with Maruti on price. Honda has always priced it self at a premium. If anything, it’s Maruti which wants to move up the value chain and try and command a premium like Honda does for its products.

[NH08]

I do not know about this so-called reliability rankings but my experience with Honda Brio is contrary to what this study says. This is more important because Brio was something that did not carry that typical Honda high quality lineage.

I got my Brio in 2013. With this and Amaze, people said that Honda entered the 'cheap' mass market products category. Only thing I can say is that in those 8 years, there is not a single part of this machine that failed or worked improperly.

Yes, it has a dashboard that looks spartan, cheap. It has doors that resemble tin plates. It has no feature that an owner may brag about.

Simple, too much simple but too much reliable.

Given a chance, I would love to retain it for another 10 years.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by saisree

Honda is struggling globally. Honda has lost its core strength, engineering excellence when it started looking for profits.

On a different note, is there a internal sabotage in Honda?

Just curious, whats wrong in looking for profits?

[Bhalla]

Honda’s fall is shocking. They need to act fast before it gets too late. But I’m totally impressed with Kia. Beating Toyota when it comes to reliability is not a small achievement. Kia is number 1 amongst mainstream brands as the 2 brands above it (Lexus and Porsche) are luxury brands.

[vipinS]

Being an owner of 2011 Honda city myself I can confirm one thing Honda’s petrol engines are still one of the most reliable engine. But the overall build quality and electronics aren’t bullet proof . They are average at it .
And the rattles ,squeaks ,vibrations becomes worse with time even with below 40k km on odometer.
I have talked to many family and friends and this is the general conscious of Honda .

[bravo82in]

I really doubt this ratings, or may be its not applicable to cars sold in India. Kia scoring over Toyota is hard to believe. Honda as bad as VW is eye brow raising. T-BHP is filled with issues, owners have with Kia and Hyundai. Honda may not be the best but still a reliable brand in India. Their cars are largely trouble free.

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by NH08

This is more important because Brio was something that did not carry that typical Honda high-quality lineage.

Quality is different from design.

Honda Brio & Etios Liva are high-quality hatchbacks which are extremely well put together. Part failures, dashboard rattles, body rust, etc are very rare.

The abovementioned cars don't have a premium design - which was the biggest mistake the parent brands made.

[sierrabravo98]

Any rating which places Cadillac (seriously? Cadillac Of all brands) above Toyota/Honda does not really have that much credibility. GM brands do not particularly possess a great reputation in the US in terms of reliability (atleast from what I have heard). Cadillac is the worst of them all. There has been a lot of controversy around the methodology used by JD Powers and their shady links with various OEMs. Further, their supposedly customer based survey defies any common logic (a malfunctioning drivetrain and rattles from the dashboard are placed on a similar level). I think we have a thread on this subject (not recent, maybe 7-8 years ago).

[TheGearBox]

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
Its shocking to see a brand like Honda, known all over the world for the reliability of its cars, score so poorly in this study.
On the other hand, I don't know how much water this study holds. Porsche is No. 2 in reliability? Porsche!? And a whole two ranks above Toyota!? Something is wrong here.

[Agarwal_Aayush]

This could just be be but whenever Honda has gone to Formula1 they have gone down in the market. Be it the time of 2000-2008 and now since they have been in F1 since 2015.

I think they just put in all the efforts to show their prowess in F1 that they are now feeling the pinch in the market.

I am pretty sure they will get through this as well and bring us some really nice products. Better late than never.

[sandeepmohan]

The Executives at Honda probably forgot to pay JD Power.

Honda well below industry average and Acura sitting in the top 10! Its strange isn't it.

[s_pphilip]

I also think it's the training modules and material which Honda apparently trails behind on, they've fantastic products let down by poor process or modules or systems to impart core information to people who are on the field.
Why I say this, I've experienced first hand, no one has a clue at the service center what should have been the right CVT oil and they've been following the wrong process all these years, baffles me how no one realised till I brought to their notice, it seems their systems do not suggest recommendations hence they go by experience, that's something like using a log book to mark attendance at organisational level, primitive, maybe Honda didn't invest in up skilling. What happened here, part no changed, so they went to default.
Untill they had just 2 or 3 products, it was fine, now with so many cars over these 2 decades, the least should have been some workflow process designed and implemented.
It's a shame since the products are fantastic till someone at the ASC decides to play spoil sport, any standardized business should have a process and system in place, of Honda had it missing, they've to blame themselves since customer experience suffers.

[saisree]

Originally Posted by PratikPatel

Lost its core strength & engineering excellence? Let’s see; Honda powered Red Bull F1 team is taking the fight to Mercedes F1 team. In Moto GP it has one of the most sophisticated & powerful engines ever put on a bike.

Yes they lost their core strength. After the iVTEC, we haven't heard of any thing revolutionary in the Passenger Car Market at least in our country. Never expected Honda to design the current CITY with a Sword and a Saree clad woman and isn't this the low for a tech giant?
This thread is all about passenger car business and we aren't taking about their excellence in Moto GP or the F1 or even the cute Honda Jet Business Airplanes.

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

Just curious, whats wrong in looking for profits?

Nothing wrong in looking for profits. But, not at the cost of milking the premium brand image and with diluted build and quality.

Any product to remain relevant in the market, there has to be continuous development and updates to the portfolio. They haven't updated themselves to the markets requirements, right from the portfolio, to the bling and to the tech. They are suffering with basic build and quality issues. Just compare the plastics fit and finish of a 2009 Honda Jazz/City with 2020 Jazz/City. I'm not even talking about the quality of the plastics. Those "once upon a time stories" are not in demand now a days.

[PratikPatel]

Originally Posted by saisree

Yes they lost their core strength. After the iVTEC, we haven't heard of any thing revolutionary in the Passenger Car Market at least in our country. Never expected Honda to design the current CITY with a Sword and a Saree clad woman and isn't this the low for a tech giant?
This thread is all about passenger car business and we aren't taking about their excellence in Moto GP or the F1 or even the cute Honda Jet Business Airplanes.

Exactly, which revolutionary technologies have been introduced in petrol IC engines after variable cams technology? Cylinder deactivation? GM introduced it in the 1980s. Direct fuel injection? The first of these for trucks was introduced by Hesselman in 1920s. Abate that it had limited success. E-turbo? It’s a fusion of existing forced induction technologies that have around for over a 100 years. Again, E-turbos are being refined and the test bed is F1 of which Honda is a part.

For past 2 decades there has been no so called ‘revolutionary’ technologies introduced for IC engines by anyone, let alone Honda. It’s been more of refinement and reintroduction of old ideas. This is because IC engines development has reached a saturation point. There are no breakthrough technologies over the horizon and the IC engines can expect only small incremental improvements till alternative propulsion units become viable for mass production (in terms of cost & tech). When that happens IC engines will be given a quite burial.

Honda has already stated that 2/3 of its vehicles will be zero emissions by the end of this decade. By 2040, it will have 100% of its vehicles zero emissions. It is investing in all 3 technologies, PHEVs, EV and Hydrogen fuel cell. Unlike, Toyota which has placed a long bet on Hydrogen fuel cell, or Audi group and Ford which have placed their bets on EV technologies, Honda is going about developing each of these technologies.

Honda’s FCX was the first fuel cell cars available as early as 2002 for lease in Japan and California. Once again, I will reiterate that there is nothing wrong in their core competences. They have gone wrong in their reading of the changing market conditions and customer preferences. The JD Powers’ survey is for mainland US and has no bearing on India and it’s India assembled cars. It’s a bit ironic that VW that’s scored lower than Honda is considered a ‘quality’ vehicle in India. No one seems to be pointing fingers at it for its consistent gearbox failures or the number of problems that seem to send their cars more frequently to service centers.