Vehicle Recalls: Should R&D Be Blamed?


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Akash1886

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Team,

Being a expansive automotive community in India, we have kept an eye over the smallest of the development in the Indian Automotive Sector. One of the major concerns these days has been the rapid recalls issued by various automotive brands existing in India on scale of 1000.

The recalls not only dent the image of the car brand but raises questions in the minds of the buyers and owners alike. I am unable to understand the fact that, why is the R&D section of the brands here in India not paying full attention to technical/ mechanical attributes of the models that are sold here?

Reputed brands like GM, Maruti et al have been facing the recall issue. We often discuss that a brand recalled X number of vehicles due to a fault, but do we ever realize that at the core of the recall lies a unspoken inefficiency of R&D department.

Do you all believe that in recalling of vehicles by automotive brands, the R&D has played a big role?

Regards

Akash
 
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Hi, its failure on testing and quality control department part. sometimes its not directly related to manufacturer but supplier. anyway car is machine and any machine can breakdown ! we should thank them for atleast taking responsibility to recall !
 
Thread Starter #3

Akash1886

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Hi, its failure on testing and quality control department part. sometimes its not directly related to manufacturer but supplier. anyway car is machine and any machine can breakdown !
I agree with you on failure part to some extent. But what I actually want to understand is, why the due precision is not followed by testing/ R&D department when they are dealing with technical/ mechanical aspects?

When the brands test cars (test mules) don't they come across such issues? or they lack the foresight about them?

Why is it always happening that after selling the models, one fine day the recall gets issued and the customer has to bring the car to the ASC for necessary repairs (though free of cost)?

Are the brands not sure about the technical competency of their models? or Do they simply leave it on the time to tell?

Take example of GM, so often they have been issuing recalls about their models that people really have started doubting them and think before being associated to GM.

When a machine fails seldom it is acceptable but when it often gets repaired for manufacturing faults then its not at all acceptable.

Regards

Akash
 
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Well if you feel that you can show them how I am sure they would happily hire you so please advise them and we will have no more recalls.
 
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Why is it always happening that after selling the models, one fine day the recall gets issued and the customer has to bring the car to the ASC for necessary repairs (though free of cost)?
Thank God now they accept their manufacturing defect or faulty spare part, & issue recalls free of cost. Otherwise this was unheard thing in India.
 
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Vehicle recall, IMO, is a very healthy trend and no one should be blamed for that. Definitely not the R&D department.

Recall is not always for ALL the cars manufactured. Usually it is for a particular batch or a set of batches. The component for which recall is issued might not even be manufactured by the car manufacturer.

A particular batch of a part (small or big) sourced from a external vendor could have a defect. In those cases, the manufacturer of the component, if they identify it first, might raise the issue with the car manufacturer.

So, all the initial tests might not have this issue. The manufacturer might find it during random tests or similar customer complaints or even due to same issue reported in most Service Center reports.

Only if there is a design fault or manufacturing defect, the R&D, design, manufacturing and testing team of the car manufacturer should be blamed.

One fact we all agree is "Nothing is perfect". And we should probably appreciate those who officially accept the fact and try to correct them.
 
Thread Starter #7

Akash1886

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Well if you feel that you can show them how I am sure they would happily hire you so please advise them and we will have no more recalls.
Well in the interest of the community, If ever I get a chance, I'll surely like to put forward this point. Too much recalls by any brand is harmful for its existence and image.

Regards

Akash
 
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Half Baked products and Recalls.

After reading this news, was a little heart broken why companies play with people who have high expectations and shell out lacks of rupees of hard earned money of theirs to purchase once in a life time dream car. But just after some short time it proves that its a half baked product just push onto our throats. Companies recalling them for faulty clutch, faulty brakes, faulty engines, faulty this, and fautly that. How fair is this?

I am quoting one recent example of Maruti Suzuki Ciaz. Now company is recalling 3,796 Ciaz Sedans for Suspected Faulty Clutch with in the launch of just few months. This leaves the question "How good are the companies testing their products?"

Country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India has recalled 3,796 units of its recently launched mid-sized sedan Ciaz, manufactured till November 7, to replace a faulty part of clutch operation system.

"Maruti Suzuki India Ltd will proactively undertake a service campaign to inspect a suspected fault and replace the relevant part of clutch operation system of a batch of 3,796 Ciaz (manual transmission) cars," Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement.
Starting this thread to keep track of all sort of recalls from all segments in the Indian auto market as these recalls have become so called "FASHIONABLE" for the manufacturers. Feel free to post all such incidents.
 
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Re: Half Baked products and Recalls.

I suppose this (Ciaz recall) is the earliest recall in India immediately after the launch(not sure though) Recall could be seen on 2 different views
- Loss of trust towards OEMs : as they flood the market with faulty products and then recall them to rectify the issue
- Builds more trust on OEMs : They are more concerned about the customers and get their issue rectified before it is being reported (by many)

It is upto individuals to have their view.

PS: Mods, we have several threads on recall from many OEMs. Shall we have brand specific threads and the link about different recalls (in various posts) being populated on the initial post?
 
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In my opinion, it won't be right to blame it all on to the R&D division.

These days OEMs outsource lot of work related to mechanical functioning of car to the companies who have gained expertise in that particular field. For e.g. OEM may buy the transmission from supplier rather than investing time to develop it.

Rather OEM's prefer to invest more on to the design part of car which is unique to the company.

As Vignesh_k mentioned many times its also the vendor who may not be following the quality practices, the product may fail. I agree that OEM too has the responsibility to check onto the quality part but in the world where the pressure to deliver quarterly performance in financial numbers is immense these issues may come in as OEMs will be tempted to lookout for the cheapest option available.
 
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Most of the times R&D is not the culprit for vehicle recalls. The research team plays a pivotal role for the development of a particular feature on a very high level. Most of the times these development could be on a PC based platform and in few cases it reaches to an actual system but in a concept level. Once the feature freezes this is passed to the production team who will be responsible for supplier sourcing/development/testing and finally mass manufacturing. In my view its the testing team who needs to be more careful while making the Quality checks.
 

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