[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by RajaTaurus

Please, absolutely no offense whatsoever intended to Maruti owners. My points here only highlight Maruti's Strategies to be the market leader by miles than the second.

Every company aims to be the market leader in its chosen market of interest, so I admire Maruti for doing that consistently; it proves both how good their strategies are and how well they are executed.

Those that say they aren't competing with Maruti are saying this to cover for the fact that they are unable to at this time. Given a choice, they would love to be in Maruti's place.

As to being unsafe, it isn't fair to proclaim a car as so just because the doors won't close with a thud; in fact in that case it is a claim out of ignorance of what makes a car safe in an accident. Nor is how a car looks after it has been involved in an accident conclusive of anything at all. The only objective criteria arise from and are tested in well structured and carried out crash tests.

It is for the government to impose such tests as it thinks fit as a legal requirement and as long as Maruti meets every such requirement, it is playing a fair game.

PS: the way a heavier car can kill you while a lighter won't is if the former has poorly designed crumple zones compared to the latter. After an accident it will remain intact, but the consequent energy transfer to the passenger would have left him/her mutilated or dead in a way that the lighter one would have not allowed by letting itself be destroyed first. Just physics, that.

[RajaTaurus]

^^Agreed. And same goes for Hyundai as well. They too followed closely Suzuki's Strategies in cost cutting and keeping safety as minor criterion in India and got up to second in volumes. Yes, both to be admired for their product placement in this market.
And those who want safety as prime thing, can go buy a Volvo and no one is stopping them.

[rajshenoy]

Love it or hate it, one can't deny the fact that Maruti has been very instrumental in raising the bar and their offerings today are definitely much better in every aspect compared to what we saw a decide ago.

Dzire in it's 3rd avatar is by far the best looking one and built compared to it's rivals.

Airbags, ABS etc are standard across the range. I don't know why some of us are so crazy banging their car door and proving the thud and tank like build quality. We all know about the VW scam !! So let's move beyond the sheet metal

If I were in market today for qualities such as performance, cheap price, fun to drive, features, resale, reliability etc.

Either I need to pick one or two of these attributes with say VW, Hyundai, Ford etc or Maruti which though not the best ticks most number of boxes

Infact maruti are no longer cheapest to own , mostly due to greedy MASS trying their luck with first time buyers.

Maruti sells because they are proactive about customer feedback and market analysis, while others such as Toyota don't find us worth their global offerings. Suzuki with it's tiny R&D footprint is doing a good job I feel

[Sawyer]

Originally Posted by RajaTaurus

And those who want safety as prime thing, can go buy a Volvo and no one is stopping them.

The entire safety and features subject is very complex. Let's say that 4 airbags are safer than 2. Does that mean the car maker should not provide 2 in the lower trim versions? What about things like traction control and other similar features; the same questions arise. And like it or not there is a trade off between safety, lives and costs - even the aircraft makers know this and make choices based on these trade offs.

Finally, there is the driver and his responsibility for the safety of all that he influences by just bringing out, under his control, what potentially is a lethal weapon on the roads. No amount of features can address consequences of his actions at all times.

I am also pretty sure that although over 300 people die on Indian roads every day, there is no analysis available of this toll breaking it down into what vehicle was involved, as one line of analysis, breaking that down further into that as a percentage of all such vehicles on the roads every day. So all that is usually said about which car is safe and which is not, is anecdotal.

It would also be wrong to accuse the public of being ignorant of these issues or reckless of the safety of themselves and their families; the public isn't as stupid as some would think it is. What it did to the Nano was for various reasons, but the catching fire thing must haven been a prominent factor.

By the same token, Maruti has stayed the biggest because many more people trust it than any other make and have kept doing so for many years. A very big achievement.

[balajisv]

It's ironic that the new DZire is hardly seen on Bengaluru roads! It's more Brezza and Baleno ruling the roads along with DZire yellow boards.

[jpcoolguy]

Originally Posted by gauravdgr8

Read in an article, out of the 32k sales of the Dzire, the old model sold to cabbies stood at 17k and the new was at 15k.

This is surprising, since in the previous generation (2nd generation), normally the cab model (Dzire Tour - 1st gen) used to sell around 3,500 - 4,000 units per month and the actual 2nd gen model sales would be around 10K-12K per month.

But, yeah I guess the above statement should be true, since Dzire is back to its almost original level of 20K last month (20,610 in Oct '17) which is where I think the new Dzire might settle down.