[vDragon3]

Having witnessed car manufacturing in India, Thailand and Europe, certainly feel that the quality of every single part that goes in varies greatly between India vs other countries. Primarily because of huge taxation for cars in India, have a look at your ex factory price without GST with on road price. Taxation is relatively lesser in other countries plus customers are willing to pay a higher price for a well built car. A well built car certainly feels new even after 6 digit miles on the odo. Roads, pollution and traffic do contribute like maybe 30 percent to why Indian cars age fast but certainly the major factor lies in the quality of parts put into it.

[VVN]

As others have already pointed out. India receives inferior quality products. The export versions are almost always better than what is sold here. I also feel that poor driving manners add to the wear and tear. But you can't really blame the owners. I just moved back from Bangalore to Bombay. The difference in road manners is huge. A 10Km drive in Bangalore will tire the driver enough to not really care about how he or she drives. Things are slightly different here. I drive 35Kms one way now and I don't feel the strain. You don't have cabbies or the feared Tempo Travelers cutting into your lane like maniacs (Experience based on my drive on the WEH). So yeah, poor road manners do play a part.

[parth.jain]

Well, rapid aging of cars could attribute to the climate here, the road conditions, untrained mechanics and stingy owners.
I can highlight one issue of my ownership experience which will show how the mechanics are untrained in our country.

I own a Tata Zest Diesel. Last year, around May there was an immediate plan to go to Jodhpur (from Delhi) by car, with family. As soon as we set off towards our destination, within a few kms, the car's AC shut off and the engine temperature guage was displaying 4 LEDs (out of six & it has never shown more than 3 whatever the circumstances). I had to borrow my friends car for the trip & my car was sent to the ASC (Concorde)

When I returned, I went to the ASC to pick up the car. The SA told me that it was "normal" for the temperature gauge to cross the halfway mark during summers under full load but they have washed the radiator from outside to be on a safer side. I knew what he was saying was utter rubbish.

Then after a few days, I had to hit the highway again. Whenever I went above 80kmph, same phenomenon repeated again. Temperature gauge would show 4 LEDs and AC would shut off for a few minutes. Then I went to the ASC of my destination city, they also repeated the same process. They washed the radiator from outside and said everything was fine.

But the problem was not solved. Whenever the car was under pressure, the AC would give up & the temperature gauge would start climbing. Then I went to the ASC again. I took 3 people from the ASC + me, took the car for a test drive and this time I drove. I also asked them to hook the diagonstic computer for the drive to check the coolant temperature. The problem repeated itself in front of them and IIRC the coolant temperature was around 115 degrees at one point of time during highway speeds(AC had cut off and the temperature gauge was rising).

Then we went back to the ASC .I kept on insisting to take out the radiator and check it, but the mechanics were hell bent on removing the water pump, temperature sensors etc. Only the SA was convinced that the radiator could be the culprit, but the mechanics were not listening to him also!! (It was a small workshop in a Tier II town). Finally by 5 pm, they took the radiator out and half of it was completely choked with dust! They washed it and flushed it thoroughly, and since then that problem has not resurfaced again.

This shows the callous attitude of the mechanics here, even in the ASCs. A minor problem like this should have been fixed when I went to the ASC for the first time. I drove more than a 1000kms with an overheating engine and I wonder how many kms worth of life of my engine has been reduced due to this!

[sgiitk]

More than anything else our road conditions are far worse. So the wear and tear is more. Our crazy traffic also does not help.

[shrjun]

The thread lacks pictures!
This is a more than 4 year old BMW F20 in Singapore.Well maintained and regularly waxed .I wouldn't be able to keep it at this level of maintenance in India.

[nirmaljusdoit]

Below are some key factors i have observed

- Dust - present everywhere,gets everywhere and creates havoc over time. Paintwork, leather, plastics all suffer due to the abrasive effect

- Road conditions, pathetic condition of city and highway roads. Imagine the shock to the components when hitting speedbreakers, potholes, bumps and dips at speed

- Stop and start traffic

- Indisciplined drivers everywhere. Our traffic conditions are some of the worst in the world.

- Fuel adulteration & improperly trained mechanics

- Compromised quality by manufacturers

Accelerated aging is a given in our conditions, completely unavoidable.

[ringoism]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

Contrary point of view here
I'm in a town in connecticut, and the roads here are not singnificantly better than india - the freeways are the same quality as that of the NH's in india, the main roads in town are actually worse than the average main road in chennai or TVM, but the smaller roads are better than the local roads in india.

Cars here age very fast - the salt they use in winter eats up the bodies, and its hard to find older cars in good cosmetic condition. Bodywork is mega expensive here, so especially in the poorer neighbourhoods, you see a lot of cars with such majorly jugaad repairs, that no bribe would be big enough for an indian cop to let you drive that on indian roads.

Yeah, I grew up in the American "rust belt" and it wasn't always a pretty scene... cars like my 280ZX Turbo (Datsun/Nissan) actually were prone to developing severe structural problems on account of corrosion in the frames/unibody structures - saw strut towers completely detach in a case or two, and my petrol tank was in danger of falling out, or looked to be - only a somewhat disreputable mechanic would allow it through annual inspection (state safety inspections were privatized in that state). If any car was too bad for even the disreputable types, in my city at least, fake inspection-pass window stickers were very much available in, eh, shadier parts of town, if one was willing to brave those particular streets... Oh, and in some shops in the case of cars that wouldn't pass pollution testing, the convenient solution was to back up another car to the door and fit the sensor in its tailpipe instead... I won't tell you how I know all this...

Ah yes, and even in the more posh downtown areas, many streets were almost comically heaved/sunken/rippled, the glorious stuff of 200-300 year old thoroughfares. I rode a dual-sport motorcycle from the Mexican border almost to New York, and joked that the suspension never got a proper workout till driving through West Philadelphia (home of Will Smith, incidentally). And yes, even out on the Interstates a deep and frankly dangerous pothole is not entirely unknown... The infrastructure in the Northeast is aging, all the freezing/thawing in winters is really hard on roads, and I suppose that even there under the cover of the world's largest economy, state highway departments can get a little cash-strapped (New Jersey, for one, has courted bankruptcy at points - and actually eliminated their state vehicle inspection program as a cost-cutting measure).

There were poor designs / materials in vehicles there, too, like the early Ford Escorts which cracked cylinder heads all the time, Ford Taurus with notoriously bad automatic transmissions (still best-sellers, though), or Chevrolet Vega and the early Mazda rotaries, which had fundamental engine issues.

Re: maintenance, in (East) Texas where I lived several years and where there were no safety inspections at all, I saw on a friend's pickup a ventilated disc brake rotor worn all the way through the friction surface to the cooling fins... and it seemed as though that was the only working brake on that old pickup! On my own old pickup I had a partial brake failure not long after purchasing it, and discovered a rear brake drum had similarly worn all the way through the metal - the hub part was turning nicely, undeterred by the friction-ring which was held firmly stationary by the brake shoes!!! The truck was 25 years old at the time, still had the original shockers on it, and was burning oil / smoking badly. Just about every part in that engine (pistons, rings, crankshaft, valves, etc) turned to be completely worn out and needing replacement, and about half the paint was simply gone, surface rust showing through everywhere - but the guy I bought it from had been driving it daily like that for years!

In either place badly dented vehicles were entirely tolerated, a lot of the younger crowd drove around in cars with nothing but matte-finish / patchwork primers covering the bodies (or maybe a completely mismatched fender/hood from the junkyard), and moreover I pretty often used to see the bumper sticker there: "A clean car is the sign of a sick mind"...

Granted most of this was at least a couple decades ago...

But I was amazed upon coming to India how frequently cars were typically washed... and how few (well, outside the NCR) were truly banged-up... I was actually shocked to find out that here one could be challaned on the basis of a car's exterior cosmetic condition!!!

Till today I could scarcely care less about the cleanliness of my bikes or the Jeep (just gonna get dirty again anyway!) - while my good Indian wife goes out and washes / sweeps out the latter pretty regularly...

-Eric

[rangarx]

Roads are the single most reason IMHO. Also, the Speed breakers are another thing. Sudden braking and acceleration.

I see minimum 8 speed breakers in the distance of 500 meters near my home. This is because of 4 VIPs staying on the road. Without permission, on their will the supreme elites have dug the road and constructed crude speed breakers. Guess a car braking and accelerating 8 times within 500 meters twice a day. Also, the pot holes, dust conditions, vandalism and lack of traffic sense make driving inside cities a nightmare. Last four days I have been driving inside Chennai for some intense shopping and had to take a day off to office, despite driving an automatic car.

The water tankers stop and splash water all over the signal stops creating pot holes like moon's craters and the traffic takes more than 120 seconds to crawl through 30 meters of this carpet bombed tarmac. Signal jumping, road rage, tailgating and lack of road manners - the reasons are many. But if I have to single out a reason, it is the awful condition of the roads.

I have decided after having my supposedly solid car rattling that owning a car in our country is not for the lighthearted.

[jinu_joseph]

Also i believe that the standards are more relaxed in India compared to other countries. Eg: of this is the skoda cars have a body corrosion warranty of 12 years abroad but in india its only 6 years if i remember correctly. I am sure other car manufacturers are also making cars that match Indian standards only to keep costs low.

[Kosfactor]

Do they? Let's put it this way.

In big cities in India, cars need a lot more maintenance to keep them fresh, I remember in one year I spent more money on paint work than everything else combined in BLR.

Back in early 2000s when I visited Delhi (I'm from down south - cars were in general good condition and clean), I was shocked to see how poorly the cars were maintained, most vehicles I saw had damage to body work. One of the drivers told me that due to heavy traffic, no one bothers to stop even if you had a small dent.

So I guess dense and unruly traffic is the cause for damaged body work contributing to the old car looks.

[azm@bpl]

I have a 2007 swift (diesel) with 1.7 lakh kilometres on the odometer.
Believe me, other than minor rattles and regular calliper pin noise there is absolutely nothing to complaint about. Still the speedometer needle glides effortlessly to the right sight side of dial all upto 140 mark.
As far as regular service is concerned, engine oil change every 7000km, gear oil 10k, diesel filter 15k and air filter every 5000 km.
Suspension service depends upon the road conditions.

With proper care and love (yes you need to have this bond with your machine) your car will not age but mature alongside you.

[Guite]

Two possible reasons I can think of are:

Aweful speed breakers. Some are made like a pipe laid across the road. The readymade ones are no better. They all give a sudden jolt to the vehicle and its occupants, unless you cross it at less than 5kmph. It affects physical health of both occupants and car.

Dusty environment. All that dust I am sure affects the car in multiple ways. Dust on movement joints, dust on brakes, dust on engine.

[wildsdi5530]

Originally Posted by azm@bpl

I have a 2007 swift (diesel) with 1.7 lakh kilometres on the odometer.
Believe me, other than minor rattles and regular calliper pin noise there is absolutely nothing to complaint about.

I travelled in a swift in Thailand with 3.4 Lakh kms on it and there was no rattle at all. I have no doubt about the condition of our engines, what I'm concerned about is the way bits and pieces go to bits and pieces. The small rattle that we take for granted, the loss of the new car smell and feel, the wearing out of the pedals and carpets, the discoloration of paint and dash.

[bharatbits]

Originally Posted by VVN

I just moved back from Bangalore to Bombay. The difference in road manners is huge. A 10Km drive in Bangalore will tire the driver enough to not really care about how he or she drives. Things are slightly different here. I drive 35Kms one way now and I don't feel the strain. You don't have cabbies or the feared Tempo Travelers cutting into your lane like maniacs (Experience based on my drive on the WEH). So yeah, poor road manners do play a part.

Absolutely! I moved from Hyd to here and that's the first thing i noticed. I have been here for 1.5 years and that's the first thing my family, who visit us occasionally, also notices as soon as they get picked from the airport. Road manners and discipline is higher here be it trucks, cabs, personal cars. No abusing each other, cutting lanes, pointing hands etc.

I need some time getting used to the zig zag driving, lane cutting etc when i go home for holidays.

[Fillmore]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

More than anything else our road conditions are far worse. So the wear and tear is more. Our crazy traffic also does not help.

+1 to that.
If you consider the tyres, over here there is a puncture shop every 1km , and all of them are doing good business. Whereas outside India how often does your car get punctured ? Maybe twice in the entire lifetime of the car.

While the puncture guy may fix your tubeless in 5min.. it is still not the same as the original tyre. Post that you will observe that every week you loose about 4psi of pressure. So every week you need to top up the air. Whereas outside India I have seen people check air maybe once in 3 months on an avg.