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-   -   Rumour: FCA will be discontinuing the Fiat brand in India (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/206182-rumour-fca-will-discontinuing-fiat-brand-india-8.html)

To be fair to the Indian customer, I dont think Fiat did have a car that was the best in segment and yet it failed. When the Punto was launched, it had to sort of beat the Swift in every way. And while it had certain great characteristics, the same Multijet engine felt lacklustre in the Punto whereas in the Swift it was more than sufficient. Its down to the weight, we know, but then Fiat should have launched it with the 90bhp version from day one. Secondly, the Swift also had a fantastic gear box, and while the one on the Punto was just ok. Apart from having better driving dynamics, the Punto fell behind the swift in most aspects, and the 1st gen swift was also considered fun to drive, so even a lot of enthusiasts bought the swift over the Punto.

Second comes the Linea, a real beauty, but again very uninspiring engines and gear box combinations. And its turning radius made driving in the city a pain. Also, just around 2011, VW launched the Vento, and in 2012 the Rapid. If you ask me, the customer base for both Fiats and VW Skoda are almost the same bunch. And from 2011 until 2019, the Rapid and Vento have been selling at least 1500-2000 cars every month. Well, thats the same customer base who should have bought the Puntos and the Lineas instead of the Polos and the Ventos. VW may have done many things wrong in India, but they did most things better than Fiat and thats why they were able to command 11 lakh for the Polo GT Tsi and still get away with it.

So Fiat did not necessarily put its best foot forward, and even when they did, like the TJet and the Abarth Punto, it was a little too late.

Having owned the T Jet for a little over 5 years now, and having driven close to 72000kms, i am among those who will buy another Fiat, given a chance.

Of course, I expect the service to be better.

So, I can't say whether Fiat will be successful or not, but I believe there will be people who will buy Fiat cars (though they are not large in number).

One day we shall see Fiat Pandas, Tipos, Argos running on our roads. :D

There hasn't been one car by Fiat that was launched in the country and was even remotely average. Sold in huge numbers or not, they gave us fantastic products, be it the 1100, 124, Palio, Uno, Punto or the Linea. All were fantastic, fun to drive, solid and all still have a number (small or big) of die hard loyalists. There's an X factor that connects the Fiats with their owners in a way that's not easy to explain. Fiat owners literally love their cars.

Once I met a guy who brought his Fiat Avventura all the way from Dehradun to Noida for regular servicing because there was no other Fiat service center active anywhere in between. For 90% of the time that we chatted, he just kept on praising how much he liked the car and how good his decision of buying it had been. He did complain about no presence of Fiat service centers and Fiat winding up business from the country but mostly he was happy just because of his love for the car. Had it been any other car brand, that guy might have been busy cursing the company and shooting emails to top management.

I just hope we see a Fiat revival sooner or later :)

I am a lifelong Fiat fanatic. Our first family car was a Premier Safari, converted to Padmini after a few years. In 2003 I purchased a 1998 Uno, one of the first lot with Weber carbed 1.0 FIRE engine. Today I own a Palio Stile 1.3 MJD and a UNO 1.2 SPFI. Both are fantastic cars.

I also regularly drive a Punto MJD 75 BHP belonging to a friend. Both my Palio and the Punto have identical engines and the same tune. I have never felt any problems with the Punto shifter, but the ratios are not the same as the Palio. The third is rather tall, there is hardly any difference between that and the fourth. So you need to quickly drop down to the second if the momentum is lost while in higher gears. On the Palio, it is just flooring the accelerator and rocketing away in most situations :)

My comments about FIAT brand name are borne out of my love for their cars and whatever little experience I have gathered in nearly thirty years career of automotive sales and marketing. My plan for FIAT would be bring in cars from the Novo Uno to the higher range under a new brand name that does not have any past baggage to contend with in the Indian market. e.g Lancia.

Regards,

With no offence, I would like to disagree with many of your points regarding Swift to be a better hatchback. Not to take anything away from the swift, it is a lovely car, however Punto was equally talented. So keeping the better car topic aside, I feel, it simply boils down to the baggage it carried. If we had the Punto with a Suzuki badging and related benefits, it would have been a blockbuster hit with the mass market even with a poorer gearbox. Though 1.2l petrol wouldn't have a chance even then with the "kitna deti hain" mania. However, I wonder, in that case the existing Fiat owners would have never bought one of them. That Fiat logo has a very different charm for them, that is hard to describe.

Now, VW had a "premium" factor associated with it which helped initially, and for sure they kept updating their lineups, someway or other all the time. However, it was not the same customer base in my opinion. Most of the customers who ended up choosing a Fiat over a VW/skoda equivalent, might not have able to compromise with that hydraulic steering feedback, most of the time, apart from the Fiat logo that they were already in love with.

And yes, you are right, Fiat did not put their best foot forward, however, launching the T-jet and Punto Abarth was not one of their better ones, when the management had failed to improve A.S.S and dealerships across the country and kept selling the same models for so many years, while the fiat lovers kept dreaming of all the Bravos and Tipos.

On one hand, manufacturers are dishing out BS6 cars and some of them are even bringing in Petrol variants who didn't have them before, on the other hand, we have a manufacturer who has discontinued the complete lineup of hatch, sedan and has become a 1-car company, the cheapest base model of which costs almost 20 Lakhs OTR Bangalore.

Now, go looking for a good petrol driver's car around 10-12L, there are hardly any in the market. what an irony....:Frustrati

Why FCA wants to be a 1-car company, when it has had a hatch and a sedan, that's beyond me.

Maybe because they fail to achieve even double digit sales every month? Cars like the Punto and Linea are hopelessly outdated. You cannot even sit in the rear seat of a Punto without feeling cramped. The Tiago is safer, faster and has better interiors than any version of the Punto. Fiat launched just three models in India- the Uno, Palio and its variants like the Sienna and the Punto with its sedan and c-SUV versions. In contrast, a recent entrant like Renault launched the Logan (a Taxi favourite), a highly successful Kwid,a couple of desirable but not successful SUVs and now the superhit Triber.

Fiat did not care about India.

While their cars were solid and very good buys in the used market, it is always a pain to find spares. They did not optimize their supply chain despite producing the most popular diesel engine in the history of India, catering to Maruti and Tata.

I used to be a fanboy, but frankly, it seems like enthusiasts care more about FCA than their executive management, and that's why they deserve every bit of market share loss they get.

Today, a Tiago is far safer and more capable than any Punto derivative,despite being more fuel efficient and cheaper.

Concentrating on Jeep was a strategy best explained by their consultants. By doing so, they excluded most prospective customers who were looking for a solid car at an affordable price.

Thankfully, Tata and Mahindra now offer those options.

Fiat Brand Is Here To Stay In The Indian Market, Jeep Will Be The Focus.

FCA will not pull the plug on the Fiat brand in India.

SUVs under the Jeep brand will be launched in the India.

Fiat will provide aftersales service and observe market demand in India.

Partha Datta, President and Managing Director (MD), FCA India has very evidently simplified the rationale behind the approach towards both brands and has affirmed that Fiat is here to stay.

Today, demand in the marketplace in terms of body styles is SUVs. Everybody and anybody wants an SUV and whether is B segment or C-segment, it doesn't matter. And here we are with the preeminent SUV brand in the world. So for the immediate future we're focusing on SUVs. Fiat continues to be an important brand of the FCA portfolio and it is not exiting the market.

When the time is right and there is demand and opportunity, we will consider product of Fiat brand as well. For now, the focus is Jeep.

That said, existing Fiat customers do not have to worry either as the doors won't be shut in India like Chevrolet did in 2017 and Fiat will continue to provide after-sales as well.

"I can tell you for sure that the Fiat brand is not exiting the market and for the owners, your after-sales have been taken care of and you have parts for the next decade," Datta added.

https://youtu.be/yYhwW6YimoA

https://www.carandbike.com/news/fiat...-focus-2215733

Glad to know that FIAT has no plans of exiting the Indian market. Some very good models from the brand, and the Fiat brand is one of the earliest movers in India. Was so close to buying the Palio and later the Punto, but for the could not care less attitude of the sales team.

Do hope that Fiat launches some of their current linup, maybe the Tipo-Sport

Focus is fine, I wish they were serious about it too.

Compass was launched in 2017, and we are in 2020.

I think FCA is driven purely by excels and as long as the numbers made sense, they cared less whether its a car they are selling or an engine.

I wonder if there is no one in FCA who can actually appreciate and value the brands they have. Without direction, India is a lost cause for FCA, how much ever they try to "pacify" people with these words.

With no BS6 products on sale and no immediate plans either- the reality is that it is already discontinued.

FCA will, of course, continue to provide service and spares - because they will still be around with Jeep. But otherwise - FIAT is done, for now.

My take is that post COVID markets like India, if already not a key market, will not get any traction or probably be axed for many of these brands. We ar staring at huge financial burdens and loss of sales.

Agree with Crazy_Driver - like it or not, announce it or not, I feel brands like FCA, Nissan are done with India sooner than later. Their plans that relied on India being a growing market with aspirational buying power will probably not work at least for next 2yrs.

The problem with many of these brands is overpricing for what they offer. It doesn't matter to the buyer what is imported, what is locally assembled and all that. As far as the customer is concerned, product A and B are comparable, and A offers a much wider service network. With A, if I drive to a hill station I can expect to find an authorized service center. With B, there are only one or two service centers in my city, and if it's a smaller town there are none at al. Now as a buyer, there is a monetary value to that service network. If B isn't priced to account for that lack of service network, I'm not paying for that product. I couldn't care less about how the company does, how it expands over time and all that. It is just another profit-making company, so all that matters to me is what the company/product offer for my paisa.

I know this is all obvious, but for some reason foreign companies don't seem to get it, they try to walk around with a halo and then are disappointed when their business doesn't reflect that halo. Maybe staring at too many excel sheets makes you oblivious to basics? It beats me why so many foreign companies don't get this: another example I'm looking at is Benelli, expecting their brand to just take off and shine when they have one service center for an entire metro. Like, really? I like the bike and all but why would I ride 30km to get it serviced? It doesn't make any rational sense to buy one.

When foreign companies put in the effort to price their products correctly and expand their service networks, the market is accepting of their brands. Example: Hyundai, Honda, KTM.

These statements for Fiat is more to control the panic that may impact the Jeep Brand. Re-emphasizing that they will provide services and spares support to Fiat is to build an image rather than the car for the brand itself. The reality speaks something else especially if you need parts apart from the regular service.

Hope they are speaking the truth than fancy brand image exercise.

I second Crazy Driver here, Moreover In my opinion, it just doesn't make sense to revive Fiat anymore. The reasons are simple, Fiat doesn't have a suitable product for the Indian line up, the Panda will not be accepted well here due to it's odd van like design, the 500L or X variants will prove out to be expensive and are more of a lifestyle product. I can only see the potential in Tipo for an Indian market launch but a brand cannot sustain on just one product, moreover the segment it's catering to is already saturated with enough players.

Fiat has understood the Indian market sentiment finally with the success of Compass and now knows what the Indian consumer truly desires, SUVs. Hence, Jeep with it's rich SUV heritage makes much more sense in India. Furthermore, it takes the competition up the ladder, positioning itself as a premium manufacturer.
The ones with the right portfolio and brand value are the only players seeing some numbers in these segment hence I am sure Fiat would want a pie of the same because they can see the volume these segments drives in for the manufacturers. For e.g Kia Seltos, Toyota Crysta, Fortuner and even Ford is selling 600-700 copies Endeavour. The Compass too had an excellent beginning.
With the addition of AWD & 9 Speed AT, it just becomes even more desirable.

I just hope FCA doesn't messes up the game this time and keeps launching new products, they're late to the party but If they enter with the right guns, it can gain that market share quick.