This Week's Driving - April 4th, 2000 - Log 21

This one begins the easy way, tail-winds behind you and fair seas ahead. Reader's views, unexpurgated, on the current state of ad wars confusing the Indian buyer.

""HI guys, what do you think of the advt war currently on between Ford and Hyundai? I think its really ridiculous. Ford as usual is claiming that Hyundai's advt "The Santro ends Ikons josh" is because Hyundai is running scared from the success of the Ikon. If you remember, when the Ikon was just launched, the Siena had run a comparison chart telling people how underequipped the Ikon was, and Ford's reaction at that time was the same. It seems that whenever someone tries to tell the public how poorly equipped and overhyped the Ikon is, Ford says thay're scared.

Pity is that the sales figure support their claim. The truth is that both advts (though a bit exaggerated) were absolutely right! The Indian consumer nowadays has been completely swamped by the new cars and I really dont know how many customers can really compare all the cars offered and make a judicious choice of the best deal. Such a customer is extremely susceptible to advertising and several car makers are exploiting this weakness. The "advice" of so called auto experts is not helping. It seems, just like the Indian car industry, Indian car customers too have some way to go before they attain the maturity to look beyond glossy full page adverts and rigged car ratings before they make a decision. And Cybersteering hopefully will lead the way in telling the customers the truth!! ""

Yes Sir, we've always maintained that automobile advertising in India is depressing. This letter just re-affirms our views. Please go right ahead and ignore the car of the year, season or junket kind of results the poor buying public seems to be subjected to. We used to get the pressures and refused to bow to them, and we still do. As you will see from our editorial policy, we do not accept paid ads, and that takes care of most of our problems.

Another reader writes in to tell us about the problem Opel/General Motors are facing in U.K. Here is an extract:-

""Saw this on the AutoExpress UK about Astra's Massive Recall For Old Astras

3/4/2000 - More than 600,000 old-style Astras are being recalled in the UK by Vauxhall over fears about brake quality. Engineers have discovered that there is a chance brake fluid could become contaminated with water, reducing the effectiveness of the system. A spokesman said: "We will be writing to all owners of Astras built between 1992 and 1998. This covers around 620,000 cars. We will be asking owners to visit their dealer to get the brakes checked." He said cars were not being recalled immediately as the fault was not a safety issue - brakes will not fail and still meet European standards. "We prefer to call it a customer care initiative," the spokesman added.

Wonder if they would extend this customer care initiative to India? Doubtful, and not just GM alone, but the whole lot of mercenary carpet-baggers! Chances are that if you took your car to a dealer, the dealer would make sure the brakes didn't work!

Opel in India, incidentally, aren't doing too well with the Opel Corsa, either. Their only hope now lies in running with the fact that a smaller brand name like "Maruti-Suzuki" will do better. But can they accept it? Watch this space as the discussions between GMIL and MUL reach a fever pitch.

Strong-man Raval bowed out of TELCO very suddenly, as did many other people from the same company, especially the purchase department types. Rumours obviously abound, but it was and is no secret that the levels of corruption in this company are on par with that in any other large organisation, like the much reviled government ones. Was Ravals' departure a signal that this sort of stuff won't be tolerated anymore?

We would like to tell everyone that if we Mind-a our own business, then we would not have readers. Those who read between the lines, do so, why blow horns to say "TaTa"?

Or did he have to leave because of certain, err, strange habits, and we are not talking about e-mail either!

Poor Raval! The only man to ever tell me that he did not want to come on tv as he was scared of being mis-quoted! Wonder where and on whom the chopping block falls next in TELCO?

We are being flooded with press releases on who sold how many cars. Everybody is a winner, it seems, with more cars being sold than are good for us, at high prices which have no relevance to reality. Everybody breaking out the champagne, it would seem, except the poor baboon also known as "customer" who is increasingly getting stuck with obsolete junk.

Will car prices fall? Watch this space and remember where you read it first. Downwards, once the 2nd hand import starts. Bingo!

And before we wrap this edition of driver's log, a special thank you to our special mole inside SIAM. How would we know about the cartelisation agreement between manufacturers on prices, otherwise? But the pity is that everytime they agree, one manufacturer goes out and discounts. Just proves: they are making money hand over foot in India.

Time to return some of it!

Dumb automobile ad of the issue goes to Hyundai who have really blown it with their "we are better than everybody else" series of ads. Yeah, we know, the Santro is better than everything else on this earth, even jacket potatoes, but why compare? Does anybody really believe that Shah Rukh Khan drives a Hyundai Santro? So if all advertising is about brand building and to be taken with a pinch of salt, then this series also? Remember, Subbu Sahib, who woke you up and told you that you had forgotten to put the islands in your ad showing the map of India? Well, this time around, too, I think your ad agency goofed. Your car the Santro is good enough on its own, why confuse the prospective buyer and lead him towards the competition? Better to work on fixing that a/c drainage outlet which falls on a member . . . no?

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Drivers Log
Veeresh Malik
The Edit Team
bluepencil@cybersteering.com

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