This Week's Driving - Feb 26th, 2000 - Log 18

This one is a very personal edit's log. We have to start getting personal now, and why not? With the business media full of stories on how motoring sites are doing boomtime, let us tell you our side of the story, too.

Every week, maybe oftener, we are approached with offers for "participation". Now we don't mind accepting money, clean money, but strangely, the offers come with strings which are:- a) editorial control. b) no hard cash but instructions on "brand building" by advertising.

To the best of our knowledge, our brand is that we are your site, that we fulfil a need for the Indian automobile customer for a place to let others know the power of the medium. You've been shafted long enough whenever you owned, operated or bought an automobile. Our writers and contributors are you, and do so without compensation or reward. So why should we part with editorial content to money with strings? Edit control is yours, write what you want, and help each other out.

Isn't that enough, actually? Money we can always make elsewhere? I mean, now airlines want to advertise on our site with cheap and best fares? Watch this space, soon we'll announce free air tickets as prizes . . . cool, hunh?

We rock, because of you, we've completed a year, we aren't making a loss, and our graph looks like this, upwards ho. You tell us, do we need to get on the business pages or do we stay with you? So, too bad guys, thanks for the offers, but we are not parting with control over editorial content which belongs to our readers and they just said.

No.

War! While reports on how the automobile market is booming flood the media, with planted stories on waiting lists and high sales doing the rounds, truth, as always, rolls out elsewhere. In showroom after showroom, once again, it is that time of the year when the only thing not rolling out are new cars! Leading the brigade is Maruti with every car in its stable off the shelf and with discounts, too. Even the poor Wagon-R, she of the excess high-roof like the late lamented though equally excellent high-roof van, is available should you want it. As for the rest, this editor is out shopping for a new car and, done incognito, is pleased to discover that every make and model is available either at par or at a discount. Hyundai, Tata, Daewoo, GM, Honda, Mitsubishi . . . the works. Claim waiting lists but deliver off the shelf. The only honourable exception being the Ford Ikon.

So where are all those fancy growth numbers coming from, then? Are the dealers buying up and stocking? Or is it the finance companies this time? Whatever, fact remains that there is suddenly another dull spell in the motor market.

One reason is that apparently large numbers of people had held back buying decisions due to the year 2000 factor, ie: they wanted the year 2000 on their registration books.

Another reason is that buyers are expecting discounts again, now that the flurry over the launch of the Ford Ikon/Hyundai Accent/Opel Corsa/Maruti Baleno has blown over and people discover that like ships that pass in the night, all these cars feel, look, drive and sound pretty much the same, which is boring.

A third reason is that there is a ground swell of anticipation for the forthcoming used car import scenario. With more than one manufacturer actually quietly preparing for such a move by getting dealers and sub-dealers organised and noting the number of e-mails we receive lately from Japan on this subject, we would like to hazard a guess that we can look at about 15-20,000 cars every month from Japan for starters.

Fourth reason? People are out buying infotech shares! Yes, we get offers. No, as of now we are very closely held and making just about enough money without disinvestment!

Time to dust out that old article on car carriers, it would seem. Meanwhile, people may forget but we won't: what will our great car manufacturers do about export obligations? Make like the cell phone licencees and go crying to the government of the day? In "national" or maybe "notional" interest?

Watch this space for direct reportage from Delhi on the great Indian automobile sweepstakes. No longer will big fish swallow small fish, but fast fish will out-run slow ones. Meanwhile, thank you Mr. Phil Spender. I'm truly glad your Ikon is proving us correct. Now all we need is that small hatchback you've been hiding for so long, what's it called, Demia? And that entry into the public transport business nobody's been talking about again, for a while . . . way to go, cobber!

When we bought a Maruti Zen almost four years ago in 1996, we paid much more for it than we would if we were to buy one now, today. Fact apart that we as a family probably won't buy another Maruti product for a while for a variety of reasons, logical question that arises, Mr. Jagdish Khattar, is:- was the car better then and worse now, which is why the price is less, or was your company ripping off customers whilst it could?

All I know is that I've been talking to lots of people who are floating around in showrooms of makes other than Marutis. The one thread that emerges, apart from the "old technology" one, is when they say that after the last experience with MUL, they would be fools to buy another one.

They may be right. In less than 4 years, our Zen at about 40000 kilometres has had the roof lining fall down twice, the fuel pump replaced once and due again, the tubes have all been changed once as the tyres sandpapered them from inside, the rims have gone bent, the drive shafts have ben through one change and most of all, the colour, which was a metallic MR Blue, is now dull purple. The car, ofcourse, wheezes and pants through a morning start worse than the '67 Ambassador parked next to it.

I remember similar sentiments being expressed by people in the early '80s when Maruti launched their 800, and PAL continued to trot out minor variations on the Premier Padmini as well as churned out the Premier 118NE. History does repeat itself, MUL is still offering a pathetic 1 year warranty in India while the industry standard has moved upwards and worst of all, even their dealer "test" cars don't feel "correct" during test drives. And they want us to buy their car with their same old tired ad camaigns? I mean, can you make out any difference in the campaign for the Baleno and the Esteem?

In Indian parlance, this is because "permanent ho gaye hain". Well, 51% is not bad enough, it seems. Just for the heck of it we held a spot survey of about 50 college students from one of the best colleges in Delhi, and only 3 of them were going to buy a MUL car if they had to buy one tommorrow, and those were boys who opted for the Gypsy King. Incidentally, the chief of MUL and their ad agency both hail from the same college, too! Oh tempora, nil mores?

Prices of tyres. Downwards, thanks to el-cheapo imports. Prices on accesories. Downwards, due to ditto. Prices with performance improving gear. Downwards due to emerging market and volumes. So why not the price on automobiles? Because we don't bargain, that is why.

There is no such thing as a sticker price for automobiles, and we have said that before and we are saying that again. Please negotiate for discounts from manufacturer, discounts from dealer and finally increased warranties from both! And after you have done this, leave your visiting card behind and go home and wait for them to drop prices further?

One of India's largest private sector automobile manufacturers has very strange habits. Seems senior management are dead set against using e-mail, so if you send them one, the procedure being followed goes like this:-

Secretary opens the e-mail and does first sorting, taking prints of all messages.

Takes another print of what is found interesting and puts it in an "in" tray.

Files all the messages.

Sahib comes and takes a look at print-outs, marks responses on some, discards some.

2nd round of discards gets filed.

Summons secretary, gives dictation.

Secretary passes dictation to stenographer.

And so on and so forth.

Which company? That we won't tell you for now, but as at the end of any message on the road, it is "OK TaTa" for now, blow horn. pumpum!! And if their response time as well as after sales service sucks, well, you know why?

Dumb ad of the issue award will go to:- Mahindra Quadro! Apart from some highly forgettable copy and visuals by "Enterprise", it also carries a byeline that claims rather hopefully that the Quadro is an extremelypowerful vehicle with remarkable capabilities and that Mahindra implores you to drive carefully and stuff like that. And then they go and fit bull-bars on the relic, the better to kill the rest of us with. Safety of other road users? Not on their minds, it would seem. Sad.

Drivers Log
Veeresh Malik
The Edit Team


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