[sou_3749]

Originally Posted by vinodvayyat

but recommending others to chill on such news coming from a reputed global body hurts! With all due respect, I recommend some rethinking here.[/list]

Neither did I recommend nor downgrade anything here. This was intended to current Seltos owners. We all learn from mistakes.

Current owners of seltos, now that you know the truth - take extra care. It's not your fault. You are learning from Kia's mistake.

Future owners of seltos or any other cars with similar crash worthiness - Please take an informed decision.

This is a never ending debate, hence I rest my case.

[klgiridhar]

If the Government of India standards, which Maruti is said to have met, are so apalling, what is stopping our government from adopting the Global NCAP standards or fund the organization to set up a facility here in India that does tests to all the cars launched, at same global standards set.

Thousands of crores of budget allocation every year, for what

[Horn-OK-Pls]

24 pages in 1 day… WOW… Lets agree that this is a shocker and a let-down for many of us. We all agree that safety at best is the least discussed factor, dare I say by 95%+ of Indian car buyers. We all are shocked and disturbed by the quality of products, auto manufactures market in our country. What am sharing below might be controversial to some, but best, discuss as compared to shoving things under the carpet.
As per SIAM, here are the “Vehicular Safety Standards & Regulations”. While I am no expert, do notice that these are the minimum qualifications, an auto manufacture needs to abide by for launching a car. These so-called minimum requirements should contribute to the relative safety to the passengers in the vehicle and to the environment, the vehicle shares the road with. No such collective specifications are given (do correct me if am mistaken). Hence you have manufactures (no names) who consistently put out zero-star products with impunity and gets away with “abiding” by the so-called government norms.

Should we be shocked? NO. Its because, our government and SIAM keeps the bar so low that anybody can theoretically manufacture a car that meets such low standards. For comparison, here is the US, UK & German. Compare these (am definitely not qualified to compare and summarise) to what SIAM’s website shows. Our so-called guidelines are so pedestrian (could have used a more colourful word but was scared to be booted off the forum &#128522 as compared to other countries. No wonder, manufacture’s get away with murder while legally they tick the right boxes.

Let’s be honest. Companies are here to make returns for their shareholders. PERIOD. Now how they go about doing it is what makes some companies average and others awesome. I for one will show my ire at the Maruti’s, Hyundai/Kia’s (frankly, Kia, perception wise, in most markets are considered amongst the lowest of auto companies) of the world. They manufacture & market products that appeals to a lot of Indians who put bling and other needs above quality & safety. Its been happening for many years and will continue for many more years until regulations are made more stringent and implemented in the same measure. This is true across sectors and many “big” companies have been guilty of treating the Indian consumers with much more lower standard than other markets.

Phoren is better than desi – This is an age-old problem. Hopefully, with some brilliant vehicles from our Desi manufactures, the concept is changing. Too slow for my liking, but hey, to each his own. Am not here to change the world.

GOI considers cars as a luxury buy. Recent interview by Toyota’s Shekar Viswanathan clearly articulates this. Other key officials for other auto companies unofficially share the same thoughts. So, clearly, we can deduce that Auto is not a sector of importance for the gov.

Stretching a bit (possibly off topic), what I find consistent, is the sheer apathy towards implementing basic guidelines in India. Be is giving us basic roads (despite paying tax, road tax, registration tax, tolls etc), proper testing before issuing licenses, getting vehicle fitness done for commercial vehicles (I dare say that 90%+ of the currently trucks plying on our roads will never pass a vehicle fitness test), road safety messaging (warnings on roads/highways) and getting our insurance sector to comply by sticking to norms (rather than harassing us every time we present a claim).

[AutoNoob]

Originally Posted by GTO

As if the crash test rating wasn't bad enough, Maruti's response is even worse

Hi,

PFB Maruti Suzuki India Limited statement on GNCAP ratings. Request to kindly use the same in your story.

"Safety is a critical issue and is therefore closely regulated by governments around the world as they are responsible for the safety of the people in their countries. It cannot be left to the opinion of any self proclaimed party. The Government of India has recently increased the stringency of car crash test standards and made them identical to European standards. All products of the company are fully compliant with these global standards and duly tested and certified by the Government of India."

Woah Woah. Sheer arrogance in that statement. Tells a lot about their mindset.

It's not self proclaimed party, but globally acclaimed agency. I wonder what they will call 'The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)' ?

[Abhi5868]

Originally Posted by blue_pulsar

Meanwhile, Ford making the most of this news:

This is plain stupidity by Ford. I know the EcoSports is very well built, it's likely to get a 4 or 5 star crash rating if tested. But until they don't, the company shouldn't make such claims. If their car is really over and beyond the 5Star rating, then please get it tested ASAP. As for the footage of truck crash, I'm pretty sure even Maruti/Hyundai may have one or two similar instances where the passenger got out unscathed miraculously.

[v_safari]

I am so proud of myself and TATA for the NEXON.
I own and drive one of the safest cars with 5 star safety rating.

Mods, please mention the safety ratings on each review for the current cars being sold in India.

Please mention "Safety is a Hit or Miss" for XXXX cars, the same way "After Sales remains a gamble" is mentioned.

Safety should be a major criteria while purchasing a car.

[self_driven]

Couldn't resist sharing this Instagram comment I saw on Global NCAP's post:

[ROG_AK]

It was almost comical the way the Seltos was getting praised and revered ever since its launch. It was just assumed to be safe because of all the safety tech and no one really questioned it in any way. Afterall, it looks the part for a safe car. When you go to buy a car and ask the sales rep about safety, they will spew out the usual jargon about airbags, ABS etc. Is there ever any mention of the body structure or GNCAP? Hell no! So, to the average user, all these airbags, ABS etc is what makes up safety. 6 airbags are better than 2, so my car has to be safer, is what a average consumer thinks.

My in-laws jumped on to the Seltos bandwagon at the beginning of the year, and I have spent a fair amount of time with that car (HTK+ 1.5 NA). To me that car is not impressive by any means (apart from all the gadgets). Their criteria for buying a new car: 1) Had to be an 'SUV' (since that is the trend) 2) Had to be something different / new. Something that no one else had. 3) Had to be petrol. I had suggested City, Nexon, Harrier and Ecosport. The City was shot down because it was not an SUV, the Nexon / Harrier was a no go since it was a Tata and the Ecosport was dismissed since someone down the road already had it and they did not want the same thing. So, as you can see with this logic, safety was never really in the picture.

When I stressed on safety, it was not taken very seriously and got a statement that all cars have aribags now and are safe. At this point I left it and told them to buy what they liked. Enter the Kia Seltos. Everyone went ga-ga over it and the car was booked immediately. They even waited 4 months for it. I never liked it and kept my opinion (never buy a first gen product) to myself. Why burst someone's happy bubble?

There you have it, a 17 lac car was bought because it was new, fresh and no one else had it. I am sure this would have been the case for many Seltos buyers. The need to be different seems to be greater than the desire to live!

So, I got my hands on the car for the first time and it is hard not to get awed by the gadgets and gizmos. This died down pretty quickly though. Driving the car, nothing really stood out. The 1.5 NA engine is adequate, suspension was stiff and the steering was vague. Taking fast coners didn't really inspire much confidence, for that matter the entire car didn't really inspire much confidence. The more I drove it, the less I wanted to. I always felt uneasy driving it and told my wife several times that I don't want to drive it anymore.

I am not one to talk about value and VFM etc but I just kept wondering ALL the time, how is this worth 17 lac? I couldn't really find the answer to that. With this news, the car shouldn't even be worth half that! To add salt to the wound, the car refused to start a few days ago and it took KIA 2 whole days to send someone to look at it. This was after 100s of phone calls to KIA and the service centre. So, this was my little tale with the Seltos

[GipsyDanger]

Originally Posted by blue_pulsar

Meanwhile, Ford making the most of this news:

What an absolute cringefest

Honestly all the lines seem to be written by a typical YouTube keyboard warrior type, as if they took one glance at the comment section of our Seltos video and made this....thing.

The video mentions with great pride, every single thing not to associate with quality, as proven quite spectacularly by the Seltos: door thud, YouTube accident videos and inconclusive photos.

And then they go full typical PR stuff, claiming it's more trustworthy than tests organised by unbiased individual bodies who mostly buy cars with their own funding.

If Ford was so damn confident of its product, then what's stopping them from contributing to the tests?

Instead, they expect us to blindly believe all those poetic words they conjure up in the website.... you know, exactly like how Kia and Hyundai did, among others.

This is exactly how Kia salesmen fooled buyers with the false prospect of being well put-together, and material feel.

One can only hope the next EcoSport will learn a thing or two from their collaboration with Mahindra.

[RoadMonkey]

Come to think of it, we Indians like our cars much like how we like our smartphones.

- They must be BIG. India gets barely any decently sized smartphones and... decent hatchbacks. Everything's gotta be an "SUV".

- Longevity rarely matters. In absence of emphasis on how long something lasts, the question of reliability goes out of the window.

- Has to have latest "features", what we call bling. I was told not to go for a "decade old" Polo and wait for the new i20 as if the car's a gadget. You evaluate the merits of the product, not their age, it's not short lived like tech.

- Little care for established brands. People don't really appreciate Toyota/Honda here and would for any brand which offered more bling at less $. (See Realme etc)

As such, safety is not an issue with smartphones, so it does not register with the average buyer even in respect of cars.

I was told to wait for the new i20 instead of deciding between the Jazz and Polo, I feel more and more vindicated having rejected all Hyundai/Kia products.

[2000rpm]

Wow! 24 pages in one day!

I saw the video day before and was very surprised. I feel proud that I prioritize my purchases basis safety rating now.

Makes sense to retain a Polo Highline (with 4 star rating) rather than buying such new cars, except the Nexon!

Really proud of Tata and Mahindra to be achieving such great engineering feats on all fronts!

[jithin23]

Originally Posted by PetrolheadRup

Extremely irresponsible and misleading advertisement. By such a campaign Ford is doing exactly the opposite of what standardised crash tests aim for: creating awareness among the consumers to ask for cars proven to be safe. A nice sounding thud doesn’t mean a safe car, it just leads to a fake sense of security.

If they are so confident of their product, why haven’t they sent their EcoSport for crash testing in these 7 years it has been on sale?

I would also like to remind Ford of this:

https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=vGWhVSjiUFU

Originally Posted by blue_pulsar

Meanwhile, Ford making the most of this news:

I think you guys have misunderstood that it's Ford whose talking about the door thud and all. Actually its customer testimonials and feedbacks which Ford has collated into a video by leveraging the situation

Plus the accident video in the Ford video happened in Bangalore airport road last September in an ecosport. Agreed the freestyle/figo has fewer starts but most of the owners have thanked their stars as well when they met with an accident in their Fords. P.S I'm referring to live examples which have happened and I've witnessed some of the accidents as well

Here's a post from Ford itself regarding the video

[Rambo-RS]

So the Ford India marketing team took this as a great opportunity to market their Ecosport!
Here is the link of the latest video just released on "Ford India" Youtube channel at 2:00 P.M on 12 November

https://youtu.be/DvHdX57Qqg8

At 0:16, they say : "All other cars are tin cans compared to the Ford quality"
(Taking a dig at Kia,Hyundai this time? Because Brezza has already scored a good 4 Star so no point of calling it a 'tin can')

At 0:25, they say : "You saw the video of a truck crashing into Ecosport, and the driver coming out unhurt. That is safety in real life, way above 5 stars"
(Taking a dig at Mahindra, Tata ?)

[Amyth Prabhakar]

Having seen a couple of accident pictures of Indian Seltos on online platforms like Facebook groups and wats app, and the ratings that it had obtained globally, I was under the impression that the Indian variant would score at least a 4 in the worst case.

But the final test results are truly disheartening to know especially being an owner of the top variant and a fanboy of Seltos.

I had recommended Seltos and Sonet/Venue to my friends and relatives and a couple of them bought it too. But today I do not have the courage to show my face to them and I have to be ready to take all the bashings :(

In India where there are no stringent laws and enforcements by government, it is very difficult to control such intolerances, unless the car manufacturer decides to do something about it out of honesty and integrity.

At the end of the day, everyone wants to own a car as it is a sense of pride, big or small, that fits their budget and this is giving a lot of playground to the manufacturers to mix and match to meet the Indians requirements.

How many customers really pay attention and care about all these NCAP and platform stuff and make an educated decision. In India cars are purchased purely on the basis of budget, looks and features, if I am not wrong and that is what the car companies are relying upon and are catering to that need by having a variant at every budget.

I really wish this information brought out by NCAP, puncture the sales of sales of Hyundai-Kia and teach them a big lesson that India is not dumping yard.

But however, Don't be under the impression that NCAP 5 rated cars are super safe and it doesn't mean that people can do all kinds of circus. These ratings apply to certain speed limits beyond which everything goes out for a toss.

Accidents are not simulated environments like NCAP tests and it can happen in ways that you really cannot imagine.

In real world scenarios, Nobody survives a real high speed crash and even if they do, their lives will be disastrous and I don't wish that to anyone.

I have seen examples of both extremities and this is a very relative subject to talk about.

I have known and seen real examples in my own family. My Uncle owned a Baleno and miraculously survived a very big head-on collision and my cousins survived a roll over crash in the previous generation Honda city with some minor injuries. All of them are perfectly alright today. Those cars were also not rated 5 by NCAP and this does not mean I am saying it is OK for KIA to churn out rickety cars.

On the other hand, there are instances of solidly built NCAP 5 rated cars like Range Rover Evoke toppling at high speed and killing all the occupants and also examples of cars flying from opposite direction and landing on other cars.

The NCAP tests are done at 64 kmph. This is very much a controllable speed for any good driver. What if someone is over speeding and doing triple the test speed figures ? Do these ratings still come to your rescue ?? Definitely not. These ratings are mere numbers in a high speed crash and nothing else.

I see lot of people asking for top speeds on various platforms and some doing it and even posting videos of the same and encouraging others.

I am not advocating or promoting KIA or any company for making cars less stable but just want to bring out the point that not everything will be under your control when go out there to drive whether you have a NCAP 5 or 0 rated car.

Absolutely no excuses and Hyundai-Kia should definitely be taken to task for what they have done in India.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by RoadMonkey

- Little care for established brands. People don't really appreciate Toyota/Honda here and would for any brand which offered more bling at less

Toyota sells rebranded Maruti Suzuki cars now. Would it be wrong to expect a full two stars for the Glanza and 3 stars for the upcoming Ertiga rebadged car?

Honda was only tested once with the Mobilio that had an average show as well with 3 stars, which clearly was behind their international variants like the ASEAN B-RV that scored 5 stars.

Considering the safety angle alone - how easy is it to trust these two brands? From blindly trusting the Koreans to blindly trusting the Japanese - what else really changes? Hard to 'trust' any companies blindly now - unless it is either an import (CBU / CKD) or is a tested product.