[TusharK]

Brendon Carpenter, Manager – Brand Marketing, Suzuki Auto South Africa, has stated that the S-Presso sold in the South African market is much safer than the India-spec car.



The S-Presso sold in South Africa is built in India. But, unlike the India-spec car, it gets dual front airbags and seat belts with pretensioners and load limiters as standard across all variants.

However, it must be noted that the S-Presso sold in South Africa is yet to undergo crash tests under the Safer Cars for Africa programme.

Carpenter was responding to concerns about the S-Presso's safety raised by South African buyers on social media after the car scored 0 stars in crash tests conducted by Global NCAP.

Source

Link to Team-BHP News

[logicalidiot]

We have seen this in the past as well. MSIL produces cheap quality products for India while the international variant of the same car are of a much better quality.

I hope Global NCAP crash tests the international variant of the S-Presso soon. If it performs any better than the Zero Star, the public can hold MSIL for good and shake their grounds. If media covers it, I'm sure MSIL would be forced to pull up their sleeves and apologize for putting Indian lives at risk.

[BANDHAV]

Look at this engagement between a SA customer and SA Suzuki on a social media platform

[tharian]

Just like how the Government woke up one day and decided to leap frog to BS6 norms, why can't they implement stringent crash test standards?

After all, at the end it results in loss of lives just like pollution.

[S15]

The South African S-Presso is akin to our VXi (O) s-presso.

The VXi (O) and the LXi(O) has front seatbelt pre-tensioners and 2 airbags as standard. The non-optional variants come with 1 airbag. The price difference is a measly 7 thousand.

Is maruti wrong in selling a car with one airbag? Yes.
Is Global NCAP wrong in picking the variant with one airbag, when there's a variant with 2 airbags and pre-tensioners merely 7 thousand rupees away? Also yes.

[saur95]

Originally Posted by S15

Is Global NCAP wrong in picking the variant with one airbag, when there's a variant with 2 airbags and pre-tensioners merely 7 thousand rupees away? Also yes.

I don't think GNCAP is wrong here. They test (usually) the base models of popular cars to check what is the baseline safety level for that model. It might be just INR 7000 away but I'm not sure how many people actually care enough to pay extra just for these safety features. Very few IMHO. Considering that the cost to manufacturer would have been way less than that, they might as well have made it standard.

[Nalin Kumar]

Global NCAP to become tougher for Indian manufacturers as per Autocar India report. This would also close gap between Euro NCAP and Global NCAP. It says,

GNCAP to include side impact test on all cars
New testing protocols to also consider active safety measures.

https://www.autocarindia.com/car-new...tougher-419312

This is going to be more comprehensive as some manufacturers resort to just adding rigid steel only in those areas where impact is felt in a simulated scenario, and passing with flying colors. I dread to think what happens when a heavy truck rams from behind. Anyway, a welcome move IMHO.

[Starfire]

Originally Posted by S15

Is Global NCAP wrong in picking the variant with one airbag, when there's a variant with 2 airbags and pre-tensioners merely 7 thousand rupees away? Also yes.

I can't entirely agree. Every life matters, not just of those who buy cars of higher variants. Choosing a higher variant for a crash test will give a false sense of safety to those buying lower variant cars which may mislead them when purchasing the car in the first place and might end up costing their life.

7 thousand rupees may be nothing for you, but it can be a whole month's worth salary to a poor labourer who's saved up for 5 years to buy a car.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Some facts before jumping to conclusions -

1. SPresso tested for India had driver airbag.
2. It had poor protection for two regions - passenger's neck and drivers chest received 'poor' protection as well!
3. Pre-tensioners could definitely have helped here.
4. But just having pretensioners and passenger air bags won't make it a safe car. It still had only weak protection for tibias and marginal protection for knees, the body shell was unstable and not capable of further loadings as well.

Unless the South African SPresso is built much better - this is probably just PR coverup from Suzuki. As seen with the Ignis in the #SafercarsforAfrica campaign - Suzuki isn't all that focussed about safety there as well! They're talking better protection - but the end result might just be a 1 or 2 star car instead!

[charanreddy]

Pathetic to say the least by Suzuki. The lease they could have done is not demean the consumers of their largest market !

@Suzuki, please make these standard in India too. If the price difference is Rs 7K then all the more reason to do it.

Till you get your act straight, I hope the onslaught from Tata continues. As a popular anchor keeps repeating, The nation NEEDS to know !

[rajshenoy]

Single Airbag definitely is a hack by Auto makers to cheat the norms which mandate Airbag in the car.

Increasingly it is becoming a trend for all makers to follow Maruti and offer India specific models which severely compromise safety norms. If everyone is doing this and getting away, need to introspect our system.

It is high time we focus on the NCAP like ratings along with our traditional ARAI fuel economy/pollution based tests(not an expert here, does ARAI perform crash test ? if yes, why not publish them)

[S15]

Originally Posted by charanreddy

@Suzuki, please make these standard in India too. If the price difference is Rs 7K then all the more reason to do it.

Actually 6K.

Which is why I'm more offended by the pursuit of sensationalism by NCAP, instead of a useful rating.

[drmohitg]

Shouldn't we be directing our anger and criticism towards the government rather than individual car makers? After all, they are not wrong in saying that their cars pass the standards set by the government of India. I fail to understand why we target all our anger at the car maker and expect him to care for safety etc. in line with global standards and yet don't even bother to address the root cause of the issue. Bring in stringer norms and each and every car maker will need to abide by it.

[JithinR]

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Shouldn't we be directing our anger and criticism towards the government rather than individual car makers? After all, they are not wrong in saying that their cars pass the standards set by the government of India.

Easy enough. India is a corrupt country. It has always been so and will continue to be so for atleast a few more generations (I was naive enough to think that we were improving on this front during my college years).

As such, any push for safer cars will always be resisted by the car manufacturing lobby SIAM here (otherwise how can we explain why BNVSAP being so opaque in its process and how a car that supposedly meets European like crash test norms fails to clear even the for-developing countries GNCAP).

So, if we want change, we need to attack the ones holding the purse strings to our ministers illicit income (guys travelling in Mercs and BMW don't care two hoots about the safety of our budget cars anyways). This combined with increased awareness and demand for safe vehicles will hopefully get us to the point where even below 5L vehicles can at least get stable structures.

[shibujp]

Originally Posted by tharian

Just like how the Government woke up one day and decided to leap frog to BS6 norms, why can't they implement stringent crash test standards?

After all, at the end it results in loss of lives just like pollution.

Originally Posted by drmohitg

Shouldn't we be directing our anger and criticism towards the government rather than individual car makers? After all, they are not wrong in saying that their cars pass the standards set by the government of India. I fail to understand why we target all our anger at the car maker and expect him to care for safety etc. in line with global standards and yet don't even bother to address the root cause of the issue. Bring in stringer norms and each and every car maker will need to abide by it.

+1 to both. Car makers aren't doing philanthropy here and left to their own devices would have rather implemented a safety definition that sold their cars. As is evident from the Autocar India live chat with Hormzad on Nov 30 even Tata and Mahindra are using this as a clever marketing exercise, actually sponsoring the tests so that their higher variants are used for the test and using the results as marketing collateral.

The norms in India currently needed for a car maker to put his car out on the road is a UN regulation (UN Regulation 94) so it is not like the manufacturers have completely ignored it all.

GNCAP by it's own admission does not consider active safety which is about crash avoidance. And they are going to make amends https://www.autocarindia.com/car-new...tougher-419312

And lastly for all the furore directed at Maruti, how many of us are ready to pledge to drive safety. Safety is not just about your car protecting you, it is about avoiding accidents in the first place. I am unclear for all the heated arguments how a safer car structure is going to seriously bring down the daily fatality rate of a life every 4 minutes. Food for thought indeed.

Yes, I drive a Baleno RS and feel as safe in it as the Polo GT TDI I previously owned. I am as nervous in both of doing speeds north of the ton primarily because of the unpredictable nature of our roads more than anything else. Simple things like well delineated road lanes, cats eye reflectors have been a huge aid to me in driving. Even ensuring that trucks mandatorily have taillights (I came across at least 10 yesterday in a 100km distance driving at night) and stopping violators from proceeding would itself have saved many more lives lost at night...and the list is endless. By un-necessarily blowing the GNCAP tests out of proportion all of these are being swept under the carpet which is the saddest aspect of it all.

Drive on,
Shibu