[ajmat]

Great review!

Why did they even bother with the 1.2 for excise savings? There is no sign of any thing passed onto the customer. I like the design and would consider it at that price but the engine size and equipment deficit sucks IMHO

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Trapezio

Just to give you an idea... I work in the auto industry. Do you know that one particular brand was rumoured to rent cars of the opposite brand and park it in busy areas with the bonnets open.

Hey Trapezio,
is it possible for you to disclose the name of the brand in question?

Originally Posted by Guna

Dealer said the response is not good. They have managed to deliver 3 cars but many are canceling the bookings!

May be a T-BHP effect .

Originally Posted by anilkalvani

BUT i got something no one has... 10 Cup Holders... and 'Magic' seats.
...
But conversely... I went with a friend of mine and his words were "My next car is definitely going to be a Honda". I asked him why? He said Status Symbol hai.

There you go. I secretly wish that we have a Topgear kind of program here and they rip apart all these marketing gimmicks. Think of Jezza coming with a kilo of carrot and placing each of them in 10 cup holders to demonstrate its use.
Not just against Honda, but all other Manufactures try to clear the stock by putting a sticker on the body and selling a model as "Sports limited edition" version should be made fun of on a TV programme.

Peace.

[Guna]

Originally Posted by Guna

Dealer said the response is not good. They have managed to deliver 3 cars but many are canceling the bookings!

Originally Posted by Matt

May be a T-BHP effect .

It is dificult to conclude.
When I went to pick up my car in the evening, there were at least 3 Jazz cars with ribbons wrapped, waiting to be delivered. May be the response is not up to the level dealers had in mind but it seem to be doing considerable numbers.

[csnanjappa]

Bangalore: The automotive slowdown has prompted
Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) to put its new assembly plant operations on hold and also pause hiring employees for its plant at Tapukara in Rajasthan. This comes even as the rising yen and dollar compelled the company to price the new hatchback model Jazz higher than what it had hoped to.

Honda puts Rajasthan operations on hold- Automobiles-Auto-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times

[StarVegabond]

Originally Posted by Trapezio

Just to give you an idea... I work in the auto industry. Do you know that one particular brand was rumoured to rent cars of the opposite brand and park it in busy areas with the bonnets open.

I know this incident, it used to happen on Mumbai-Pune Highway
but the brand (of car) in question, handled the situation better
and you see the cars on the road everywhere now.

disucssing the brand names in public forum is not a good idea as this is quite old incident

[rajneeesh]

Originally Posted by ajmat

Great review!

Why did they even bother with the 1.2 for excise savings? There is no sign of any thing passed onto the customer. I like the design and would consider it at that price but the engine size and equipment deficit sucks IMHO

HSCIL has given the Jazz a 1.2 litre engine so that it can make bigger profits. Honda is a very reactive company. They do engineer the cars well but do not provide any feature/benefit to the customer till competition compells them to do so.

I hope Toyota and Nissan launch their small cars soon. Once that happens Honda will be forced o be more competitive or ready to lose marketshare.

[prince_pervez]

Originally Posted by rajneeesh

I hope Toyota and Nissan launch their small cars soon. Once that happens Honda will be forced o be more competitive or ready to lose marketshare.

Till that happens Honda would have raked in enough profits, and then will go the customer friendly way by giving more value.

[aseem]

Originally Posted by amit

As for the Linea niggling issues, only 2 owners are talking about falling plastics in that thread. And the whole thread talks about poor plastics and chrome strips coming off. Not a single owner has spoken about mechanical problems yet the car gets a dedicated niggling issues thread.

In the recent past, if any car deserved a thread like this it's the SX4. My car has had engine mountings, drive shaft and clutch replaced within the first year of ownership. I'd take poor plastics and chrome strips coming off over all that anyday!

The argument is scewed. Why should a new car owner be forced to choose between poor quality/falling plastics or poor reliability. As far as I am concerned a new car should have neither of those, PERIOD!

Honda charges a premium upfront but at least I havent heart stories of engine mountings, driveshaft, clutch, plastic, chrome strips replacement from Honda owners in the first few months of ownership.

Bringing back the point, that manfacturers should not compromise on quality by building a car to price. I think they have better options:

1) Charge a higher price upfront and not compromise on quality

2) Reduce the number of features for better quality. Given the choice I would rather go for a car without climatronic, but which is manfactured with good grade parts that just dont fall off in the first few months of ownership.

I think the strategy by some manfacturers for India is to throw a good looking product with poor plastics, boring engine options, at a relatively LOW price to get the sales charts ticking initially. But what happens is that over a period of time, with ownership reports pouring in, the dent to the image of the company sets in, resulting in low resale value!

[vasudeva]

Just a comparison. Whether I like Honda Jazz or not is immaterial. However, I sincerely wish that Grande Punto gets the volumes. Not because I admire Fiat, but because the higher the competition, the better for us.

Linea is to be credited for at least beating the erstwhile industry leader for more than 5 months now. Sooner or later, Toyota/Honda will have to do something, which will also be good for us.

[amit27]

Without commenting on Honda Jap companies in general tend to price their products ( Maruti being an exception ) this is a combination of so many facotrs Yen appreciation being the major culprit . other culprit being that they have lost edge in manufactring and R & D which they had . Lastly they don't trust non Japs so they tend to stuff their co.'s with all kind of Japs eventually pushing up the cost .

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by aseem

The argument is scewed. Why should a new car owner be forced to choose between poor quality/falling plastics or poor reliability. As far as I am concerned a new car should have neither of those, PERIOD!

Well your reliability argument has no takers! Almost all cars available (even good ol 800) are super reliable. I have friends driving Santros and WagonRs for 6-7 years without any problems!

As regards to plastics and all - would you rather pay 2 lakhs more for better plastics? Probably that is the big Q!

Honda charges a premium upfront but at least I havent heart stories of engine mountings, driveshaft, clutch, plastic, chrome strips replacement from Honda owners in the first few months of ownership.

Again havent owned Honda so no idea about all this. A friend of mine has the NHC and once a Qualis scraped by driver's side taking off his rear-view mirror. Replacement cost him ~ 3000 rupees and that he had to pay from his pocked as it was more of less equal to no claim bonus. Hondas can be expansive to maintain as well

Bringing back the point, that manfacturers should not compromise on quality by building a car to price. I think they have better options:

1) Charge a higher price upfront and not compromise on quality

2) Reduce the number of features for better quality. Given the choice I would rather go for a car without climatronic, but which is manfactured with good grade parts that just dont fall off in the first few months of ownership.

Quality is a very subjective thing and Honda has no sole copyrights on it. You seem to imply all the other cars in India except Honda will just fall in parts at the next instant. It isint the case. The climatronic in Swift works fine for years. And then there is one in Civic. Does it fall apart after few months? If it can be offered in Civic then why not in City or Jazz? And that Hondas farcical argument about alloys. They are not needed in smaller cars like Jazz/City!!! Its nonsense.

Its like having a 100 rupee Daal Roti plate for 1000 in a 5 star restaurant and feeling satisfied!! What was premium about it?

I think the strategy by some manfacturers for India is to throw a good looking product with poor plastics, boring engine options, at a relatively LOW price to get the sales charts ticking initially. But what happens is that over a period of time, with ownership reports pouring in, the dent to the image of the company sets in, resulting in low resale value!

This is not really true. I guess almost all manufacturers offer more exciting engine options than Honda (remember 77 bhp NHC engine! it was super exciting Right?) ANHCs plastics are also poor (compared to NHC), Honda is going backwards with its new launches (just living on early goodwill). Both ANHC and Jazz are disappointing (compared to what Honda had earlier). Lets see how well they continue doing in future. Goodwill generally holds only for a certain time.

[PatienceWins]

Great review!!

Originally Posted by roms

'Dead pedal' is nothing but a foot rest that is made available on the left hand side of the clutch pedal, so that you can rest your left foot on it for longish drives or even otherwise. In the absence of this foot rest, one tends to rest the foot on the clutch pedal itself, thereby causing premature failure of the clutch. So the benefit is two-fold. Its just called a 'dead pedal' because it is shaped like a pedal. Very few manufacturers were providing this foot rest or 'dead pedal' earlier, Palio was one car in the hatch category that had a dead pedal from day one. Nowadays though, its almost expected that every manufacturer should provide this basic but important feature in every car.

This is a very important feature for me. One of the reasons why I went for Getz instead of Swift.

The palio we had also came with dead pedal.

[akhilesh51]

IMO, Not a wise strategy by Honda on this car.

For people raving about Honda quality of plastics and parts, Please be assured Honda is not chaste and their are cases of Honda faltering just about as much as another brand and you will find enough such reviews on our forum.

Further, Pardon me for ignorance but, Isn't Honda the cheapstakes car in Europe, so much so that the same Grande Punto is positioned way above Honda Fit (Jazz) and yet is a market toppper. So the argument that Honda believes in best quality is farcical. Every brand tends to play to its market.

With Indian market, while Honda has been quite spot on with their previous models, they seem to have missed the target here and no level of justification in terms of quality can cover the mistake.

Fiat have studied the market and learnt from their past to bring a car that hits right chords with actual customers. And there are compromises made for sure, but all looking towards the market. You have to provide what market demands, Period.

[rajeevn]

Originally Posted by GTO

Just a note : The smaller pictures are actually thumbnails. Click to view a larger version.

Very very nicely done, GTO. Thanks—this is, indeed, extremely comprehensive and informative.

[sridharps]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

Just a comparison. Whether I like Honda Jazz or not is immaterial. However, I sincerely wish that Grande Punto gets the volumes. Not because I admire Fiat, but because the higher the competition, the better for us.

Great Point. I would go a step further and hope that the i20,Punto and others in this segment thrash the Honda Jazz hands down.
Before others jump on me, I am not a Honda hater. Far from it. However, some of the recent moves from Honda smacks of outright arrogance. To name a few:

• The Honda Civic Sports S pricing and features were laughable for a so called "sports car"
• The Honda Civic Hybrid pricing was a shocker. And then dropping the price by 8 lacs was a bigger shock.

And now the Honda Jazz pricing is atrocious. Doubtless, Honda is a great car maker. My cousins/relatives own Honda Cars and I have always been impressed with the refinement and reliability of their vehicles.
But the company has begun to take the Indian customer for granted. That shouldn't go unpunished.