Safer Renault Kwid For Brazilian Market (And Not For India)


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Renault has made new Safer and Heavier Kwid for Brazilian Markets. Renault Kwid for Brazil gets structural changes to make it safer than the Indian version. Will be 140 kg heavier than the Indian Kwid owing to chassis strengthening.

To conform to strict safety and crash protection laws in Brazil, the Brazilian-spec Renault Kwid will specifically be made safer than the India-made Kwid. This involves chassis strengthening and equipping the Kwid with a number of active safety features.

For starters, the Brazil-spec Renault Kwid will be 140 kg heavier than the India-made Kwid, owing to structural reinforcements with increased usage of high-strength steel. It will now weigh 840 kilos, around 20 per cent heavier than the Indian version. Additionally, the Brazil-made Kwid will offer ISOFIX child seat anchor points, four airbags and ABS as standard. In contrast, the India made Kwid offers a driver’s airbag and seat belt pre-tensioner as optional extras in the top-end grade. With the safety improvements, the Brazil-spec Kwid is expected to fare much better than the Indian version in NCAP crash protection tests, for which the latter scored a 1-star rating after repeated attempts (Yes the Kwid scored 0 in few earlier attempts Renault Kwid scores zero stars in Global NCAP crash test).

The sheet metal used in Kwid is wafer thin and airbags would do more harm than good if buying in a car like Kwid IMO. Cars produced before May 2016 are highly unstable and weak. According to the testing agency, the Renault Kwid’s structure has indeed been modified, however, Renault has done the modification only on the driver side and not the passenger side. Renault reportedly started producing this version of the Kwid (with better structural reinforcements) from May 9, 2016.
Renault has played an unfair game for 1star rating by providing structural integrity only on the driver side.

Even other manufacturers (like MS, Hyundai etc) have given inferior Indian versions compared to European versions but this is even more "cheating" since a better version is produced in India along side the "unsafe" Indian version and the difference in the cousins is huge. The difference in Indian Swift, for example, is there compared to European version but not huge. But in case of Kwid versions its really huge and shows Renault's profit making strategy in India. 660-700kg weight and a wafer thin body for a car like Kwid is disappointing. Even a 14-15L Duster used to have no airbags or only 1 airbag in RXZ.

Now, to be fair No A class car is safe by any standards but then again the difference in foreign version and Indian version is not so huge either. Instead of putting money into that 7inch touchscreen which is not a big feature IMO, Renault could have well improved the body strength by putting in a high tensile steel.

Source - Renault Kwid for Brazil gets structural changes to make it safer than the Indian version
Renault Kwid scores zero stars in Global NCAP crash test
Reinforced Renault Kwid with airbag scores 1/5 in crash test
 
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Re: Safer Kwid for Brazil (and not for India)

Time has come for government to enact laws on safety features and minimum structural strength norms for cars. Otherwise manufacturers will keep playing this game.
 
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Re: Safer Kwid for Brazil (and not for India)

Renault has made new Safer and Heavier Kwid for Brazilian Markets. Renault Kwid for Brazil gets structural changes to make it safer than the Indian version. Will be 140 kg heavier than the Indian Kwid owing to chassis strengthening.

To conform to strict safety and crash protection laws in Brazil, the Brazilian-spec Renault Kwid will specifically be made safer than the India-made Kwid. This involves chassis strengthening and equipping the Kwid with a number of active safety features.

For starters, the Brazil-spec Renault Kwid will be 140 kg heavier than the India-made Kwid, owing to structural reinforcements with increased usage of high-strength steel. It will now weigh 840 kilos, around 20 per cent heavier than the Indian version. Additionally, the Brazil-made Kwid will offer ISOFIX child seat anchor points, four airbags and ABS as standard. In contrast, the India made Kwid offers a driver’s airbag and seat belt pre-tensioner as optional extras in the top-end grade. With the safety improvements, the Brazil-spec Kwid is expected to fare much better than the Indian version in NCAP crash protection tests, for which the latter scored a 1-star rating after repeated attempts (Yes the Kwid scored 0 in few earlier attempts Renault Kwid scores zero stars in Global NCAP crash test).

The sheet metal used in Kwid is wafer thin and airbags would do more harm than good if buying in a car like Kwid IMO. Cars produced before May 2016 are highly unstable and weak. According to the testing agency, the Renault Kwid’s structure has indeed been modified, however, Renault has done the modification only on the driver side and not the passenger side. Renault reportedly started producing this version of the Kwid (with better structural reinforcements) from May 9, 2016.
Renault has played an unfair game for 1star rating by providing structural integrity only on the driver side.

Even other manufacturers (like MS, Hyundai etc) have given inferior Indian versions compared to European versions but this is even more "cheating" since a better version is produced in India along side the "unsafe" Indian version and the difference in the cousins is huge. The difference in Indian Swift, for example, is there compared to European version but not huge. But in case of Kwid versions its really huge and shows Renault's profit making strategy in India. 660-700kg weight and a wafer thin body for a car like Kwid is disappointing. Even a 14-15L Duster used to have no airbags or only 1 airbag in RXZ.

Now, to be fair No A class car is safe by any standards but then again the difference in foreign version and Indian version is not so huge either. Instead of putting money into that 7inch touchscreen which is not a big feature IMO, Renault could have well improved the body strength by putting in a high tensile steel.

Source - Renault Kwid for Brazil gets structural changes to make it safer than the Indian version
Renault Kwid scores zero stars in Global NCAP crash test
Reinforced Renault Kwid with airbag scores 1/5 in crash test
Why do we Indian buy these tin cans even after knowing that these companies are fooling us.
 

allhyundaicars

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Re: Safer Kwid for Brazil (and not for India)

Why do we Indian buy these tin cans even after knowing that these companies are fooling us.
Not everyone knows about the safety aspect.
Anyways company is not fooling anyone. It may not be ethical to provide an inferior product in a region but sure is profitable.

Anyways i have repeated the same thing many times, a manufacturer will produce according to the consumer's preference. Indians want low rates with more mileage and we all know how the companies are accomplishing this.

Anyways i don't know why there is so much hate towards the kwid ?

Did alto pass the safety test ? Still people are buying it.
The point is competition is good for the consumers. Slowly but surely maruti will add features to the alto because of the competition and so will renault to their kwid and one day abs and airbags will be standard in these entry level cars.

For the time being you can just tell your close ones not to buy this because of structure instability. That's all you can do.

Anyways come October 2017 and bharat ncap will make sure cars meets the minimum safety standards.
 
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Re: Safer Kwid for Brazil (and not for India)

Not everyone knows about the safety aspect.
Anyways company is not fooling anyone. It may not be ethical to provide an inferior product in a region but sure is profitable.

Anyways i have repeated the same thing many times, a manufacturer will produce according to the consumer's preference. Indians want low rates with more mileage and we all know how the companies are accomplishing this.

Anyways i don't know why there is so much hate towards the kwid ?

Did alto pass the safety test ? Still people are buying it.
The point is competition is good for the consumers. Slowly but surely maruti will add features to the alto because of the competition and so will renault to their kwid and one day abs and airbags will be standard in these entry level cars. "
For the time being you can just tell your close ones not to buy this because of structure instability. That's all you can do.

Anyways come October 2017 and bharat ncap will make sure cars meets the minimum safety standards.
Exactly my thought when Aspire's NCAP results were out people just started bashing Aspire, they forget how many stars indian Swift has scored or i10 Grand scored or even Scorpio. I think these are easy-pickings for people
 
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Re: Safer Kwid for Brazil (and not for India)

Exactly my thought when Aspire's NCAP results were out people just started bashing Aspire, they forget how many stars indian Swift has scored or i10 Grand scored or even Scorpio. I think these are easy-pickings for people
Sandy AFAIK last version of top model Indian Swift scored 3 stars against 4 stars for the European version and there was no structural difference between the two. Now even Alto is as weak as Kwid but the reason Kwid is singled out because the exported Alto too is same as Indian Alto (structurally) but not in the case of Kwid.
 
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Re: Safer Kwid for Brazil (and not for India)

Not everyone knows about the safety aspect.
Anyways company is not fooling anyone. It may not be ethical to provide an inferior product in a region but sure is profitable.

Anyways i have repeated the same thing many times, a manufacturer will produce according to the consumer's preference. Indians want low rates with more mileage and we all know how the companies are accomplishing this.

Anyways i don't know why there is so much hate towards the kwid ?

Did alto pass the safety test ? Still people are buying it.
The point is competition is good for the consumers. Slowly but surely maruti will add features to the alto because of the competition and so will renault to their kwid and one day abs and airbags will be standard in these entry level cars.

For the time being you can just tell your close ones not to buy this because of structure instability. That's all you can do.

Anyways come October 2017 and bharat ncap will make sure cars meets the minimum safety standards.
I said why we Indians buy these cars, I never said anything about Kwid or alto specifically, am against Alto or Maruti tin cans anyways.

My comment was for the mentality and not caring about safety aspects of our society and coming to point that people are not aware about safety aspects? Ask anyone and they would tell you how flimsy are the Maruti cars and they are well aware that in accidents these cars fair worst. So its the thought process and no seriousness about our own safety.

We cant always blame manufacturers but can appreciate those who are not compromising on this aspect and recommend them to others.
 
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This is sort of a controversial topic. We can't blame the government nor manufacturers for the quality of automobiles released in India. As long they meet minimum requirements laid down by ARAI, that vehicle can be registered and used in public.

As long as people/customers are willing to buy a product which meets minimum standards, OEM's will comply to it. If people demand a change, OEM's are forced to change. Best example will be Porsche 911, they said as long as people willing to buy MT they will keep on making 911 MT rather than to follow other manufacturers who have moved to DCT or DSG or AT.

So finally in short, Customers dictate the market.

[Another example Nissan Skyline series in USA]
 
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Well in Brazil Fiats and VAGs sell like Maruti and Hyundai sells in India so that says a lot about the priorities in the Brazilian market. Indian mango man is just bothered about FE which leads to such weight cutting measures. Just imagine people showing their concerns over Fortuner's FE for which the owner has already paid 30+ Lacs [surprise]

So yes as said by Krishna in the above post: Customers dictate the market.
 
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kkn13

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Re: Safer Kwid for Brazil (and not for India)

I said why we Indians buy these cars, I never said anything about Kwid or alto specifically, am against Alto or Maruti tin cans anyways.

My comment was for the mentality and not caring about safety aspects of our society and coming to point that people are not aware about safety aspects? Ask anyone and they would tell you how flimsy are the Maruti cars and they are well aware that in accidents these cars fair worst. So its the thought process and no seriousness about our own safety.

We cant always blame manufacturers but can appreciate those who are not compromising on this aspect and recommend them to others.
Structure etc matters more than sheet metal etc
Am not saying Alto or Kwid are safe but how do you know if the heavier , thicker metal cars wont harm occupants??
Design etc matters much more for safety
Otherwise Ambassador should be the safest car on the road but it isnt so

Japs design their cars to crumble whilst keeping the occupants safe (exceptions include Alto and Wagon R)

The unfortunate perception of Marutis having poor safety was started by cars like Alto,Wagon R etc being maxed out at 140 etc when the car shouldnt cross even 80-100kmph ideally speaking

Even Indian Polo scored zero stars without airbags in NCAP
Zest too, in fact Tata made a redesigned zest to pass the crash test but they dont sell the redesigned zest

Points being-
-All manufacturers are to blame in Indian market not just Maruti or Renault
-"Tin cans" arent necessarily unsafe, structure design etc matters more
-Notoriously unsafe cars like Datsun should be ignored until they pass crash tests
-Safe speeds and driving sense is lacking
 
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No kkn, you need better quality materials and that is at least important than having a good structure. You can't do much with the car structure and structure without strength is of no use. The structure *MUST* be made of high tensile strong steel. Just making design changes is not going to do any help. Anways cars mostly have similar structure design. Apart from that having a better steel strength always helps. Its no brainer why German besties like BMW, Mercedes employ better sheet materials with best quality steel in the structural part. Even for the Brazilian Kwid, the structure was made of high tensile steel and the whole sheet material was also better so it resulted in a full 140kg addon. Design is very limited in car structure and of no use if quality is just tin can or plastic rather. Its very hopeless to say Better stronger materials don't matter especially keeping other things as constant.
 
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It is a combination of efficient design with effective use of correct materials that makes up a good safe car. Automobiles have a combination of steel alloy and aluminium alloys with is used for body. Good quality and composites always costs more which contradicts cost fixed for a car by upper management.

@AbhisekVerma, like you said Brazilian kwid has better grade steel alloy so it's heavy. As a result it costs ~3-4 lakhs more for a base variant when compared with Indian Kwid. Just imagine how many people would be willing to buy a kwid base variant for 6 lakhs in India. So design engineers are forced to use lower grade steel alloy in order to meet the price per vehicle laid down to them.
 
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It is a combination of efficient design with effective use of correct materials that makes up a good safe car. Automobiles have a combination of steel alloy and aluminium alloys with is used for body. Good quality and composites always costs more which contradicts cost fixed for a car by upper management.

@AbhisekVerma, like you said Brazilian kwid has better grade steel alloy so it's heavy. As a result it costs ~3-4 lakhs more for a base variant when compared with Indian Kwid. Just imagine how many people would be willing to buy a kwid base variant for 6 lakhs in India. So design engineers are forced to use lower grade steel alloy in order to meet the price per vehicle laid down to them.
While I agree on your point but I believe the difference in cost won't be 3-4L. May be 30-40k for them. Brazilian Kwid costs more because of import taxes and better equipped. Someone into manfacturing can shed more light on the cost.
 
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3-4L INR as in Comparison with base variant of India and brazil. I know that brazilian kwid base variant is better than Indian Kwid top variant. Final diff considering all features btw variants would be around <1L.

Most citizens of our country value more about touchscreens and alloy wheels than safety standards of their car. Hence most of Indian normal hatchbacks are on danger side irrespective of manufacturer.

Only somewhat true safer car will survive in market from OCT 2017 [If Bharat NCAP is not rigged]. May be then Renault India will release current brazilian kwid in India as a "whole new level safe kwid".
 

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It is a combination of efficient design with effective use of correct materials that makes up a good safe car. Automobiles have a combination of steel alloy and aluminium alloys with is used for body. Good quality and composites always costs more which contradicts cost fixed for a car by upper management.
Exactly !! Drawing design matters more here because using heavy metals etc without design can actually harm occupants
Light cars, Thin sheet metal etc dont matter much at all as long as they pass the necessary crash tests and dont harm occupants
There are cases where occupants are trapped in the car and evacuation is more difficult

@Abishek
Also I wouldnt use Germans as an example especially after numerous emissions scandals that started with VW and went on to affect Mercedes and BMW too plus the unreliability,part failure rates etc. Also VW cars are also different in India and abroad [;)], see NCAP for Polo etc without airbags- 0 stars.

My point stands-
1. All manufacturers do double standards in India, dont blame 1 or 2
2. Structure design matters most
3. Thin metal =/= unsafe
4. Driver awareness/education/road sense
^Most important
 

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