This Week's Driving - September 28th, 2000 - Log 29

Editslog apologises for this long gap which was largely due to ill-health and other such reasons. Furthermore, work of the sort which keeps body and soul together, which is separate from the forum we call "cybersteering", your forum, took precedence too. But back again, with all the news and very few of the plugged views and absolutely none of the sponsored dues that most automobile manufacturers seem to expect as just another ruse to fix the poor customer by as he or she to buy an automobile stands in a queue.

Or stood in a queue. But with some companies, habits die hard, and not Bruce Willis either. Used to having "customers" spend time and effort collecting their ration of four-wheelers from their favourite ration shops, the sheer lack of enthusiasm from the motoring public on the launch of their Alto has got them worried. So soon after the equally dismal performance by their Wagon-R and Baleno, inspite of price cuts and other lollies.

Serves them right! Frankly, my point of view is that I have a lot of friends who own cars, some from my Merchant Navy background, others from elsewhere. Now I did a very quick mental survey of about 4 dozen of them who have bought replacement cars in the last 3 years, and what emerges?

1. All of them, every one of them, used to own an MUL product.
2 .Not one of them has replaced or added with an MUL product.

There is a lesson in this somewhere, but would MUL be listening to their customers? Or are they still under the impression that the dealers are their customers? Warranties are still 1 year, when the industry standard has moved on to 2 years, in some cases 3 with a little extra payment. After sales and repairs are still shoddy, I myself had my 4-year old Zen car returned with defective brakes from their Maruti Service Masters flagship workshop.

And as for attitude? Well, if the media can be controlled, call them, give them advance previews. Everything. If they can?t be controlled, too bad, sorry!

On the eve of the launch of the Alto, what is new? Nothing much, depends on the price. If the 800cc Alto is anywhere too far away from the price of the Maruti-800 then maybe MUL have really played their last card. Because after this, only General Motors can save them!

But then again, they may reduce the price after a few months, like they did with the Wagon-R. So if you are in the market for a Maruti Alto, or any other product, good sense would be to wait for another price cut!

Two station-wagons launched in the last few weeks, and we haven?t really covered them, wonder why?

Well, the Maruti Baleno station wagon, called the Alturo and the Fiat Siena stationwagon, called the Weekend, are fairly lost case vehicles. Initial sales, or lack of sales, reports indicate that these variants are not exactly setting the showrooms on fire with their speed of departure to customers garages. The reason is very simple, it is quite a well known fact that mileage achieved would be easily 30% worse than the same vehicle in its sedan version.

If you have to use a vehicle with space in the rear every now and then, it makes more sense to rent a taxi for a few days!

If readers want, we will give our reports on these two vehicles but we feel they are just not worth it. We managed to drive both, the Maruti Baleno Alturo was underpowered and could barely lug the huge cavern in the rear along while the Fiat Siena Weekend has something wrong with it, two of the 15 vehicles given to the media for test were wrecked on the first day alone in surprising accidents on clear roads.

We at cybersteering think that India needs efficient cars, not blunder-buses from another era. Station wagons were just fine when the oil crisis referred to hair-baths.

Stocks on unsold cars build up at manufacturer yards and dealer stockyards all over the country as people wait for the 2nd hand car revolution, the real car revolution, to really hit India. Why, therefore, are second hand cars and other motor vehicles good for you and me? To answer that, let us see what industry has to say about why they are not good for us:-

1. Second hand vehicles will have a problem with spare parts. As though cars "made" in India do not have one! Try to get spares for old model Maruti cars, or Peugeot 309s? Or see whether you cannot get cheaper spares for Mercedes-Benz "E" Class or Honda City cars from the open market?

2. Second hand vehicles will cause emission problems. This is truly hot! On one side the Indian manufacturers get away with all sorts of malpractices, like getting vehicles passed basis reference fuels and within their own premises and on the other hand they will demand that imported second hand cars of a newer technology be banned as more polluting?

3. Second hand vehicles will destroy the local industry. Imagine, which industry, the kit industry? Because that is what most of this industry, in India, is all about anyway! How many of the car manufacturers even have a press or stamping shop to make a simple thing like car bodies? Honda, Mitsubishi, General Motors, Mercedes Benz, Daewoo, they don't.

On the other hand, fully built up second hand motor vehicles, if permitted, will totally revamp, to start with, the public transport industry. Even a 10 year old bus from Japan is a few decades ahead in technology than our WW-2 wonders.

Next, a totally new industry around revamping second hand cars will bring in native skills and talent into the small scale, like it did in the infotech industry. Can you imagine where we would have been as an infotech power if the grey market and "clones" had not supported us. We would still be buying PC-AT as that would, apparently, "protect" local industry for sure!

And finally, even a second-hand car, imported, is likely to be better than some of the junk we get here in the guise of "new".

What everybody misses is, what is good for the customer? The people of this country? Or is this only a country for the industrialists to continue to try to bleed? Leftist rhetoric? Not. You just have to look at the IT industry to see what I mean.

Let market forces decide, put a fair rate of duty on the imported second hand car slightly over the duty on the "kits", and let the best product win.

As for after-sales service, forget it! Have you seen any decent after-sales service from any of the manufacturers lately?

A very interesting survey in the latest issue of the Intelligent Investor on the Internet responses from about 3-dozen assorted companies included responses from half-a-dozen car manufacturers to. The beauty is that none of the car manufacturers responded! Wonder what they spend so much money and time trying to perfect net strategies on? Holidays in Silicon valley?

The real truth is that for most manufacturers, the customer is still the dealer. The actual operator of the vehicle is just somebody whose pocket has to be picked. Maybe the slowdown in sales will finally force manufacturers to look for and reach out to the customer. The true customer?

Interesting question is why don't the manufacturers actually reach past the dealers, straight to the customer?

The answer, surprisingly, lies in the simple fact that car manufacturers usually make more money out of financial services! And therein lies a tale . . .

And finally, time for goofball ad from the automobile industry, selected by us after immense research . . . the Toyota "know-you" "know-how" ad starring Roshan Abbas of all people . . . just what does it mean? Why would knowing if a lady model has lemon juice or likes dancing have to do with buying a car? Something is very wrong somewhere with the Qualis, and it is not just the axle . . .

We shall be regular. Promise.

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

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