Quote:
Originally Posted by adimicra I understand your point.
Yes, the Swift which scored 5* in EuroNCAP was made in Europe.
The Indian Swift scored 0* or even worse actually.
From Suzuki's (Europe ) point of view , it's actually a downgrade to see the newer car with supposedly superior technology having inferior ratings compared to the older model.No?
Now, coming to the Indian Baleno vs the Indian Swift, I think the Baleno will do much better as the Indian Swift fared really poorly in the crash tests. But, just because the car is made in India or the body weight being similar, it is not fair to assume that the Baleno sold in India will fare exactly the same as the one sold in Europe which was tested. (We have had lots of arguments in Team BHP about this and it is inconclusive as there have been several cases where export versions of the car having better build quality etc). The only way to ensure that will be to perform the same tests on the Baleno sold in India.
Comparing Baleno to some of the competitors, the European Baleno clearly is behind some of its European competitors as I mentioned above. This is the only apples-to-apples comparison we can make. Whether the Indian Baleno will be better or worse than those competitors sold in India is anyone's guess. We can't assume that the Indian Baleno will have same quality as the European Baleno whereas the competitors will have inferior quality than the respective European models just because the Baleno is exported from here. And we can't assume the other way as well. |
Thank you for putting up your point of you but mine strongly differs from it.
Yes, the Baleno that has scored a 3 star rating at the Euro Ncap tests is equipped with 6 airbags so the story is going to be different with the indian spec car but the body shell is made of the same materials as the car is made in india & this has been confirmed by many people on this forum by inquiring with maruti officials. Further, leading automotive websites have also mentioned the same and weight is a measure to understand that the metal used on the vehicle is the same.
To give a few examples of the European rivals you mentioned -
1. Honda Jazz - India (1044kgs), Europe (1100kgs)
2.I20 - India (1066kgs), Europe (1100kgs)
3.Polo - India (1033kgs), Europe (1035kgs)
So clearly other than the Polo, the cars are using different metal in the two countries keeping us clueless about how are they going to perform in India whereas the Baleno weighs exactly 890kgs in both countries. Now unless Suzuki is using Duralumin for building the European Baleno it is impossible to achieve the same weight & a tougher build than the Indian version & that said they definitely cant use Duralumin because that would catapault its cost to almost 3 times the usual.
Coming to the zero stars on the Indian swift you mentioned, I'd like to point it out to you that the swift which scored a 0 was the lxi version without the airbags or ABS. Eventually when the zxi version was tested it was rated a solid 4 stars by ASEAN Ncap standards.
Next as to why have I taken the swift as a benchmark is because -
1.firstly I know how would it perform in a crash in India which is not true for the Europeans
2.I could choose the Polo for a comparison but that is outright unfair given the fact that its in a different league of safety altogether but that's not the only thing you want from a car is it? If a car is safe enough to save your life & heavy injuries the rest lies on the driver & a bad driver can crumple a polo like a beer can too. Now am not promoting unsafe cars here but what I am saying is if a car scores 90% on adult occupant safety but offers nothing else is not exactly what a practical person would buy against a car offering 80% adult occupant safety with a lot more (comparing the polo petrol with the Baleno petrol here, polo diesel, gt tdi and gt tsi offer bags more than the Baleno in terms of functionality).
3.The number of polos in our country is not even half the number of swifts/dzires & so there could be a higher number Baleno-swift crashes than Baleno-Polos.
Lastly on why Suzuki has degraded from the swift's 5 star to the Baleno's 3 star in Europe, I agree to you. But I am buying my car in India and to my eye, the Baleno has a more stable body shell than the indian spec swift.
Also, with all due respect to a senior BHPian, i20 is from korea and jazz from Japan, its only the polo which is the European rival here, however, I presume you meant to say European spec cars of the three.