Debate: Is it End of the Road For Maruti Suzuki Dominance?

[Sam Dinkar]

Not. At. All.

With the market moving towards smaller, more fuel efficient cars, Maruti has a long way to go before it calls off. Though I agree that it makes drab cars, the Indian car buying populace cares two hoots about passion and flair (Fiat, who?) and would always go for VFM. WIth depleting fossil resources and the ever increasing price of fuel and cars, the demand for VFM cars shall rise and THAT is what MSIL does best. Look at the market share. The No 2 manufacturer slot s occupied by Hyundai/Tata with around a 14% market share which is nowhere near MSIL's market share. Out of top 10 best selling cars in India, 5 are from MSIL's stable. MSIL is the only company with 4 models that sell more than 10000 units per month, month after month. The kind of Brand Equity MSIL (and it's Brands) enjoy is something the Germans, Americans and Koreans could only dream of. Of course, the present tense is no substitute for future tense and MSIL's products, vision and focus shall be the things that decide where this company shall be in the next 20 or 50 years. But as Murphy's fourteenth law states - "the possibility and probability of an event or activity happening or not happening in the future is directly proportional to the length of time in the past that event or activity has been happening or not happening", Maruti as a company has all that is takes to remain a market leader in the future, unless it comes out with consecutive dud cars and starts hiring TASS personnel, which it won't

 

[jayadev]

As Currently both are performed well as we know.
But according to Suzuki performance I think Suzuki Will face losses in future.
In short Suzuki need to improve Quality with customer service.

chances definitely exist but what I have observed is they are playing it very smart without major investments with increasing production capacity pressuring more work shifts et al leading to worker strike and such undesirable .

 

[mukeshus]

@Prads: Where you drop the vehicle Sagar or Pratham Automobiles.

Pratham Automobiles is worst.

Sagar Automobiles near MN Krishna Rao park is not a good one too.

 

[Prads]

@ Mukeshus

Mandovi JP Nagar 3rd phase Bannerghatta main road,i had checked out a few years ago on another automotive forum it had the best ratings & i have to say they were very good until this month(labour charges have increased also thanks to increase in taxes),i have emailed them complaining again under 10 days ,I am quite fussy about my car so dont mind huge bills as long as the car is perfect (if it seems worth)
but looking at the few instances i feel i am being ripped off
,the car had been serviced 3000 km back in December,i had told them to change engine oil then itself which they did not ,so just cos the engine oil was due for change i sent it back again for service this month (April) & this is what it has led to as i felt most of the things like engine flush,brake pad change were unnecessary as these were done around 15/16000 km back.

I learnt most of the trained labour is circulated so you cant rely on the dealership reputation anymore.

 

[MSN1]

Market is getting stabilized monopoly is over
both local and international manufacturers are here (almost all) so competition is too stiff

To keep the lead position maruti suzuki need to maintain quality and deliver more quantity of vehicles on time and good servicing where they are also facing labor unrest frequently.

so its sure their market lead share have to fall further as rest of the manufacturers are coming with competitive offers

 

[Swapnil]

What is the number of petrol-only cars that Maruti or Hyundai make? May be due to that Maruti and Hyundai always leads the table ..

 

[autosafari]

I am facing alot of irritating issues with Maruthi thanks to one recent service for my Swift Petrol(48600km) before which everything was perfect,

My bill was 7500 odd

They destroyed the wiring on the battery terminal during service,as a result,car did not start next day but clutch brakes were fine


car pulls to the right(in-spite wheel alignment,etc was done) & clutch is hard & brakes are hard & have no affect(new brake pads had been installed & it was good the previous day),they say this hardness is regular,i was fuming & left.

took out the spare i realized to my horror there was an old tire there where before giving for service there was a unused tire with markings & everything on it,i ask them to check the other tires & i realized 2 tires which do not belong to my car are there among the 5 as the dates on them dont match with car & remaining 3 tires.

So 7500 for the service on a car that just needed an oil change,i asked to check brake pads & they said its gone,but car had done 16000 km on the new ones & later when i checked they were in good condition & was unnecessary to change them,they screwed up the wheel alignment ,
switched an unused spare tire & a decent tire previously running on the car
Shorted the music system which will cost me 4000 to rewire

Oh & the second time my car did not start

And this is the best rated Maruti service center in Bangalore

Issues faced by you are really serious and demand a seperate thread in dealership reviews. Start a new thread.

Contact Maruti Suzuki immediately and report this.

 

[S Class]

Not. At. All.

With the market moving towards smaller, more fuel efficient cars, Maruti has a long way to go before it calls off. Though I agree that it makes drab cars, the Indian car buying populace cares two hoots about passion and flair (Fiat, who?) and would always go for VFM. WIth depleting fossil resources and the ever increasing price of fuel and cars, the demand for VFM cars shall rise and THAT is what MSIL does best. Look at the market share. The No 2 manufacturer slot s occupied by Hyundai/Tata with around a 14% market share which is nowhere near MSIL's market share. Out of top 10 best selling cars in India, 5 are from MSIL's stable. MSIL is the only company with 4 models that sell more than 10000 units per month, month after month.

As said before, these are the cars bought by those who upgrade from 2 wheelers. And most of them are altos. How many cars does Maruti sell above 6L ? It is here where it is dead. And remove the Fiat diesel engine from Swift, & demands drops by almost 80%.

The kind of Brand Equity MSIL (and it's Brands) enjoy is something the Germans, Americans and Koreans could only dream of.

You means Maruti is better than VW, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda ? Ofcourse, I am not bringing in German marque.
In our circle, Maruti is the least respected brand, ofcourse there is no doubt that no. of a.s.s is more for Maruti.

 

[Prads]

Issues faced by you are really serious and demand a seperate thread in dealership reviews. Start a new thread.

Contact Maruti Suzuki immediately and report this.

Yes autosafari,i had to leave Bangalore for some work,i took my car to them on Monday morning,the service adviser shows me that all my tires are the same(fooled) & puts the car for re-alignment as i was complaining & on the screen i could see the right side shown in red with +55,they say everything is fine but i know its a lie but i was in a real hurry as i could not delay work(had to leave town) & left directly from there,my steering does not come back to the center it stays angled to the right & even my mom complained that my car drives weird.

You know how the smart service adviser fooled me,he showed the manufacturer licence codes or what ever they are called(not the tire size markings am not that dumb),he told me they were batch numbers,well i checked the dates & two are from 2007 & 3 are from 2008 which is the make of my car,so the tire guy who warned me was right & i myself when i fill air have seen my unused spare tire which is no more with me a week before giving it for service(my spare was never rotated),he showed a tire with a bit more thread & said that is my spare tire(Ha ha). I am quite a polite person so i dont yell so telling him over & over again did not work & i really had to rush.
Car Service advisers & sales executives
are such liars so Beware !
Now i cannot tell you how much i feel betrayed so will be going there tomorrow to talk to a friend in the company & have a word with the superiors if possible. Well we have many threads so i will make a check list & start a after service checklist thread!

 

[vaibhav]

Maruti customercare sucks big time

Maruti cusomercare is crap

I have been mailing them for last 10 days to know the official waiting period of Dezire LDI in Delhi but they keep on sending automated replies like

Thank you for contacting Maruti Suzuki Customer Care.
We have received your communication regarding delivery of your booked car.
We regret the inconvenience caused to you.

We are forwarding your query to the concerned department for appropriate action. You would hear from them soon.


Please feel free to revert in case of any query or clarification.
Regards,
ANY TIME MARUTI

I think maruti is going downhill... God save poor customers in India

 

[threeace777]

after resent shutdown
there is lill hope that this market can survive
nice time for ford and mahindra to launch in

 

[Gurrala74]

After reading lot of threads about Maruti A.S.S and its present situation of Manesar, I feel like Yes within next few years Maruti is going to loose its dominance in the country.

I personally feel that one of their strong feature was Service and according to my personal experience its quality of service is coming down from past few years.

I am a loyal Maruti customer since so many years and I could see the difference of their customer care and service. In those days of my new Maruti 800 the customer care used to be very good and really they used to call me so many times to check whether the service is good or not, do I have any problems and even some times, their technicians used to visit me voluntarily wherever my car is located and used to check it and if there is anything is wrong they used to take to the workshop and correct and bring it back.

Today I see lot of difference in that approach with all the Maruti authorised dealers and service and is mainly due to the number of cars they sold in past 5 to 6 years and they are flooded with cars in the workshop, so what happens !! it is just simple their head weight got increased and started taking everything as granted.

In between these years, it is not very new in sales&marketing field that you need to be very cost effective while selling a product and then try and gain the money on its service and spares, but it has gone to a such extent that the SA's at Maruti are being pressured to sell more spares during service, huge targets for spares(This I have seen with one of service of Maruti where the service adviser happened to be my friend, who revealed all this to may saying their targets are much difficult than the sales guys targets these days)

So with all the above, one can expect that the quality in various areas is coming down and Maruti will get this heat very very soon !! and other side competition is very active these days with more more models and establishing more number of sales and service set ups. Most of them have also learnt the Maruti mantra " Kitna deti hai(how much it gives)". Whenever I watch this Maruti advertisement, I always feel that we Indians are being treated as fools some how and they know how to tackle the cost conscious fools !!