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![]() | #16 |
BHPian Join Date: Dec 2019 Location: Mumbai
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| ![]() Mod Note : Please do NOT post messages that add little or no informational value to the thread. We need your co-operation to maintain the quality of this forum. We advise you to read the Forum Rules before proceeding any further. Request to post ONLY when you have something substantial to add to a discussion. Last edited by GTO : 23rd January 2020 at 16:49. |
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![]() | #17 | |
Senior - BHPian Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: KL 7
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But when customers who spend more than 6-7 lacs on a Swift or Dzire, get a 2 star car then this excuse falls apart. It's not affordability that worries Mr Bhargava but it's his company's margins. That said, Maruti's business model is the successful one, make them cheap, sell them cheap and the Indian consumers lap it up. Backed by a wide and efficient after sales network, they dominate the Indian market. Lack of safety will not bother Maruti Suzuki. If it's safer cars that India wants then it's the buyer that needs to re-think his behaviour, because Maruti isn't going to change a winning formula. | |
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![]() | #18 |
Distinguished - BHPian ![]() ![]() | ![]() Personally I don't blame MSIL for making light weight mileage & profit oriented cars in India. They aren't really cheating anyone at all. The light build is visible for each customer to see. If the customers take a calculated decision to buy a Maruti Suzuki, MSIL isn't at fault at all. Them selling the car is alright. The cars selling in the numbers that they are selling, is the problem. And the blame squarely rests on the consumers for picking money over life. As long as there are buyers, sellers will make profit making products! Who knows, perhaps other car makers picked up safety as a USP since nothing else they did could challenge MSIL in market share. It might well have been their last choice too! Safety is their invisibility cloak to cover a lot of short comings in perception compared to MSIL. Nobody is a saint in business. Its all dirty. Even I drive a Maruti Alto. I find that quite a good car for the specific needs for which I use it. I drive it exactly as a replacement for my family's scooter after I was blessed with a kid. Within city confines. Where nothing can reach higher than 30-40 kmph at most. As long as cars of this type are used for such purposes, its okay IMO. Last edited by Reinhard : 23rd January 2020 at 16:22. |
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![]() | #19 |
BHPian Join Date: Dec 2019 Location: Mumbai
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| ![]() In Maruti cars the profit margin is quite thick. My neighbor works for a Maruti spares factory "3rd Party GMA" and according to him these Genuine Maruti parts are made on a high profit and most of the profit is Maruti's. Retool is also not done by Maruti which is opposite to TATA |
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![]() | #20 | ||
Distinguished - BHPian ![]() ![]() Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Ranchi
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Maruti has been a very conservative company throughout. With time, it has even become more conservative in my opinion. Back in the 90s when they literally had zero competition, they had cars like Zen, Esteem, Baleno, Gypsy in their line up which were really an enthusiastic driver's car. That changed with competition coming in and Maruti was happy catering to the masses as they topped the sales chart. Even when emission norms set in by the year 2000, they weren't the first to get MPFI systems in place. Even Hyundai (Santro) was upgraded before Maruti could breathe. Another competitor back then, the Daewoo Matiz was probably already brought in India in its MPFI avatar. But when Maruti upgraded its fleet, it was more of a severe punch in the jaw of the competitors. While Maruti could have easily upgraded to just MPFI system, it also upgraded the head of all cars to introduce 4V per cylinder tech which meant that their cars also gained more in terms of performance by breathing better than just complying to the norms. (Matiz had 2V while Santro had 3V per cylinder) One of Maruti's strategy is to price the car cheap enough. esp to cater to the first time buyers. Once they get the taste of reliability and ASC, those first time buyers are again more likely to go with another Maruti while upgrading. So you see, they can be conservative but not lenient. Brezza has already scored 4 stars. I am sure next line of Maruti models will be 4-5 stars. Once they see the buyers start warming up to the idea of having safer cars, one will find them in equation before they realize. ![]() | ||
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![]() | #21 | |
BHPian ![]() Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: Mumbai
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| ![]() What if something dashes the car at high speeds? What if a huge pillar or a bill board falls on the car like how it did on a Nexon and folks walked out unscratched. May you and family always stay safe, but to drive a zero rated car at a certain speed and assume that it won't matter is a mistake. Quote:
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![]() | #22 | |
Distinguished - BHPian ![]() ![]() | ![]() Quote:
![]() I'm not talking of people buying a 10 lakh ruppees worth tin can. I'm talking of people who can only afford a basic Alto as an upgrade from a scooter or bike. For that group - its either 2 wheels or an Alto. Simple as that. Possibilities are endless. When someone's number is up - even a Nexon can't save them. ![]() | |
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![]() | #23 |
Distinguished - BHPian ![]() ![]() Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Ranchi
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![]() | #24 |
Distinguished - BHPian ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() Like I said - owners should know the limits of their cars & stay within them. GNCAP ratings are an assisting indicator. 0 stars don't mean everyone will die on ignition. And 5 stars don't mean people are invincible. When people choose wisely for specific purposes rather than blindly for brand- MSIL's share will start dropping. That will be the key contributor to them paying attention to safety. Money makes a difference. Last edited by Reinhard : 23rd January 2020 at 16:39. |
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![]() | #25 | |
BANNED Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Chennai
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The risks are many. Ideal solution will be a "best possible" one. It differs from person to person. Last edited by romeomidhun : 23rd January 2020 at 16:55. | |
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![]() | #27 | |
BHPian ![]() | ![]() Quote:
That's why I mentioned 'Maruti being the market leader in my post'. As a manufacturer, if Maruti really cared about safety, they would have done it. And being the market leader, others would have followed suit. Currently, Tata didn't have any obligation either. But they took the onus of developing safe cars. With no guarantee whether the market would pick them up or not. So it's a question of interest or not. It's your job to see to it that you make the necessary developments and see to it that they're profitable. And for all the defence Maruti is getting here, do you mean to say that they would have made losses if they had developed safer cars? They would have sold way more IMO. | |
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![]() | #28 | |
BHPian ![]() | ![]() Quote:
![]() And lets be practical for a moment here. It's only here in this forum that we BHPians are shouting about safety and congratulating Tata and Mahindra for their efforts. Unfortunately the outside world doesn't care. Our nearest Tata motors dealer has been showcasing the Altroz in our office premises for the last 3 days. General consensus that I hear from my non-auto-enthusiast colleagues are that it's better to buy a Baleno or i20 at that price point! ![]() | |
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![]() | #29 |
Distinguished - BHPian ![]() ![]() Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Beans Town
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| ![]() I'm stepping right on a landmine here since there are some aggressively passionate opinions on both ends.. but why not. Frankly I'm getting a wee bit sick of reading the letters NCAP, with a few more letters placed before them based on location of testing. I feel NCAP is the safety equivalent of JD Power Ownership Index - gets incredibly irritating after a point, specially when they have holes in their procedures. Let's just test every single car sold here, and leave it to people to decide what they want to buy, whether it's a 5 Star Tata/Mahindra or a 0 Star Maruti (I'm personally not a fan of any of those brands anyway, but why judge others choices?). I also know for a fact that their Polo crash test is terribly outdated for today's time since 2 airbags are standard today, and they gave zero stars to Fiat Punto which has real life stories of keeping occupants safe in the worst of accidents. Either publish all the latest 2020 model tests of all brands within the same quarter, or stop comparing new with old. Also there should be no judgment of people buying what they like, irrespective of safety ratings. In case it is felt that I'm tilting on any side in particular, I'm not, I myself bought what I feel is a safe car for my budget, but in any segment or any model, there are always safer cars and less safer cars in comparison. To repeat, I'm sick of NCAP, though safety is always a good first factor when deciding on any car, their tests worldwide and since inception, has had gaping holes because of ever changing parameters (which misleads other developing countries not getting such cars) and different parameters per country (again leading to misleading opinions) and their former habit of choosing a base variant to flat declare safety rankings all the way across to the top variant. |
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![]() | #30 |
BHPian ![]() Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: Mumbai.
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| ![]() India is a huge country and doesn't come in with sparse population. Public is available in abundance with us. Sadly, for most of us, a car is still a luxury. The car market in India has started rising recently. In the year 2000, my building had 20 parking slots and 2 cars(ample amount of space to play), Now it still has 20 parking slots but 40 cars( space not needed, children play on mobile now). Scenario has changed rapidly. My father brought his first car when he was about 50. Now in his 60's, and we recently brought our 4th car (sold 2 cars). You get the drift, right? On seeing the Altroz 5 stars on the news paper, my neighbor (a retired banker) asked me what these ratings mean; and if they are similar to the stars we see on AC's and Refrigerators. ![]() So coming back to the topic on car safety, we are a young car market and would take a while to come upto global standards. But given the pace that we are making progress, I think it would be very soon. |
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