Your Most Hated Cost-Cutting Measure on Any Indian Car


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Cost cutting / cost reduction is one of the key focus across OEMs now. Out of which few (sometimes many) leaves the customer with a big dissatisfaction. Worst part is the feature deletion. Feature itself is available in the system / vehicle and only the communication channel is deleted, on seeing which I feel like killing the one who proposed this idea and who implemented it [frustration]

To list a few,
1) AUX facility is available in 1st gen Civic (I mean the 1st gen for India sales) & Linea but the OEMs didn't provide a cable that worth few bucks. Customer paying 10L+ hesitate paying those few additional bucks?

2) Lot of MID features were available in Chevy Beat which the customer couldn't enjoy just because of the absence of a simple push button switch

3) Linea's ECU had Cruise control feature, and adding few wires and the control stack could do wonders

4) Fixed head rests [frustration]

5) Spare key being a conventional key (without remote control)

6) Spare wheel being steel wheel / under sized (I have seen few cases the spare wheel lost their life without being used. If it is alloy + same size, wheel rotation could have helped)

What else? Please do add your views.
 
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Re: The worst cost cutting measure that you hate

My votes go to
1) ABS
2) integrated Head rest
3) Proper MID

my grand lacks all those[clap]
 
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Re: The worst cost cutting measure that you hate

In Manza the side mirrors are not getting fold electronically after paying 8+ Lacs for Diesel ABS!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

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Re: The worst cost cutting measure that you hate

Smaller alloys as compared to European models.

Makes the wheel arches look huge.
 
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Re: The worst cost cutting measure that you hate

In 2010, the manza 'new aura' model use to come with adjustable steering wheel & rear central arm rest. After March 11, they removed these features but retained same name 'new aura'. [anger]

@sm, electrically foldable mirror is a costly thing its absence can't be called as cheap cost cutting measure, but I agree with manza 's width it is really annoying to fold or unfold them from driver' s seat.
Also, the manza doesn't come with a sun glass holder.

Universal cost cutting measure taken in India which I hate from bottom of the heart is absence of the mud flaps & foot mats.
 
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Re: The worst cost cutting measure that you hate

4 alloy wheels and spare wheel alone is steel rim and 1" smaller,
single wash wiper blade
no rear wash wiper or defogger
 
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Re: The worst cost cutting measure that you hate

The worst cost cutting measure car companies make in India is to remove front airbags in all but the top most variants of the cars (sometimes even thats optional at extra cost) and thats just because in India airbags are not a mandatory stipulation by gov.

Since the crash testing of a few Indian cars a few months ago by Global NCAP , I have been reading about the cost of front airbags in internet articles and forums and the costs involved are in the 10-15K range only. For volume car makers like Maruti or Hyundai, the cost would be even lower.

Still what the car companies are doing is this: provide airbags on only the high priced top variants so that a customer is also forced to buy non essential stuff like alloy wheels, start/stop button, music system and what not - just to get a couple of airbags.
 
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Most important- removing ABS/Airbags
removing structural members to reduce weight
using light sheet metal
 
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My stand would be:

1) Using a less wattage headlamps (as in verna fluidic)
2) Fixed head rests
3) integrating gear lever into dash (as in i10, evalia...)
4) skinny tyres (as in i10...)
 
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-height adjustment for seat I wonder how they expet people to suit themselves argonomically.
-On most of the low end cars the body panel sheet sizes are so thin that you can push them by thumb- check this on Wagonr door panels.
-Integrated head rests.
-Airbags

Coincidantly todays TOi has an article about the compromised safety features by car makers
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...firms-focus-on-sales/articleshow/38939948.cms
 
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1. The MID in Beat has been disabled due to the absence of some tiny components and a push button.

2. Vanity mirrors on both sides

3. Thin tyres in Alto 800 and some others

4. Only driver side outside mirror.

5. Fixed Head Rests

6. Small displays in Base models

7. Rank 1 goes to Go's music system
 

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