[TusharK]

The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) has directed Toyota to pay a compensation of Rs 32.07 lakh to an owner after the airbags in his Innova failed to deploy in an accident.



The NCDRC found that the Toyota Innova sold to Sunil Reddy was defective. As compensation, the NCDRC has directed the carmaker and Nandi Toyota Motor World to either return Rs 15 lakh with 9% interest or give a new Toyota Innova to Reddy.

Reddy had purchased an Innova VX Diesel 7-seater on March 11, 2011. It was involved in an accident on August 16 of the same year. The front portion of the vehicle was severely damaged in the accident. However, the airbags failed to deploy, causing severe injuries to the occupants.

The car was handed over to the service centre in Bangalore, which Reddy claims, proceeded with repairs, including welding works on the vehicle’s body, without providing any estimation or intimation.

Toyota did challenge the order in the State Consumer Commission, but the appeal was rejected.

Source: ET

Link to Team-BHP news

[asit.kulkarni93]

13 years? Wow! He deserves a better compensation just for his patience. These airbags issues are going to haunt toyota for a long time.

[jazzy]

Indian courts are way too linient. Compensation should be at least 5x or more so that carmakers never dare to let such mistakes creep in their products, after all their cars' defects are directly responsible for people's lives.

[prajwalmr62]

Mahindra should take a note of this. I have heard too many horror stories of Mahindra SUVs not opening air bags even in severe and sometimes fatal accidents.

[dmaheshkumar]

Hi,
13 years is a very long term to get a judgement for such cases. All these time, the company keep on selling cars and there need to be a strict protocols from Government.

Stress on running the case will be more on the customer side.
Even though the Judgement is in favor of the customer, it was a very long time and the compensation is on lower side.

Its like fining a wealthy person 1000 INR for over speeding in his Ferrari. He will pay and drive it fast again. Flaws from the company side need to taken very strict to make the QC strict on their side.

[svsantosh]

I opened the image of the Gen-1-ova and was wondering what I am missing.

Now I get it, am not surprised. Yet another Justice Delayed is Justice Denied case.

[m8002?]

While the delayed justice is at one end, what about the trust in the functioning of the airbags in general across manufacturers?

This is not something we can test before buying. We are becoming more conscious of safety with 6 airbags now. But what is the point in having 6 or 10 airbags if they don't deploy in an accident when needed?

[SaiSW]

13 years to get a judgement wow. Not many would have the heart to continue fighting the good fight for that long. Many would rather take their losses and quit.

This reminds me of that infamous Skoda case involving one Mr. Harish (if I remember correctly). That took about 6 or 7 years if I'm not wrong.

This ruling gives an idea to stealerships and manufacturers about the kind of turn around time for cases. They can probably now bully a majority of the victims to favourable settlements citing cases like this.

[summerisland]

Hats off to Mr. Sunil Reddy for his patience and dedication for the cause.

It is indeed too little too late. Although no price can be put on life, at least should have been in eight digits considering failure of life saving product, injuries due to that and 14 years of fight.

[Chetan_Rao]

If it takes 13 years to hand out a judgment that's too small to even register as a rounding error on the manufacturer's accounts, there's only one winner and it ain't the aggrieved customer.

[Bit]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

If it takes 13 years to hand out a judgment that's too small to even register as a rounding error on the manufacturer's accounts, there's only one winner and it ain't the aggrieved customer.

And TOYOTA CHALLENGED that decision too to save those 32 lacs too.

Talk about rounding errors SMH.

[Smartomotive]

Originally Posted by Bit

And TOYOTA CHALLENGED that decision too to save those 32 lacs too.

Talk about rounding errors SMH.

They likely challenged to save their brand image, not the money as we all know that is nothing for them.

They would have to spend more for damage control but if they had gotten the judgement in their favour, it would discourage other customers from even attempting something like this and no one would talk about this anywhere.

We're discussing about this case and got aware because it was passed in customer's favour.

This itself will have much larger impact because imagine all the existing customers getting worried about whether their vehicle also has defective airbags and the countless accidents in the last 13 years with n number of similar cases but gotten closed by blaming on other factors without taking any responsibilities. There's a potential they'll wake up and come back at them.

We've seen many cases of simply recalls where people have rushed to the service centre just after reading about it online...people panic quick, we don't get to see but service centres feel it. I remember Mahindra's one such recall, service manager was getting non-stop calls the next day after the news broke and was out of capacity to take any vehicles even tho the recall didn't require the urgency that people did. Now if we read about defective airbags, it's a whole different concern and that too a proven one!

[beemer5499]

Originally Posted by jazzy

Indian courts are way too linient. Compensation should be at least 5x or more so that carmakers never dare to let such mistakes creep in their products, after all their cars' defects are directly responsible for people's lives.

And this too Toyota challenges back in court to avoid paying. 30 lakhs is peanuts for a company like Toyota.

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by TusharK

The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) has directed Toyota to pay a compensation of Rs 32.07 lakh to an owner after the airbags in his Innova failed to deploy during the accident

An appeal lies with the Supreme Court under Section 23 of Consumer Protection Act, 1986, which provides that any person aggrieved by an order of NCDRC, may prefer an Appeal against such order to Supreme Court I am sure TKML will try this option too. Some appeals from the NCDRC have been entertained by the Delhi High Court invoking its writ jurisdiction under article 227. But thus needs to be made within 30 days.

The owner Mr Reddy has been made to run from pillar to post and let's hope he gets justice.

[NomadSK]

Originally Posted by TusharK

 The NCDRC found that the Toyota Innova sold to Sunil Reddy was defective

This NCDRC Quasi-judicial Commission must have gone in the technicalities for the failure of the deployment of the airbags during an accident and came to the conclusion of compensation, even though after 13 years, then why these judges haven’t ordered for the Recalls of the vehicles from that year/batch. Or such things are out of their jurisdictions.

Aren’t they supposed to take the proactive actions.

What about others who are currently driving the same model cars with faulty airbags