Fiat India - Sales Thread

Amit,

Well said, forward this post to Mr.Rajeev Kapoor, at least we can expect some action to be taken for the Launch of Linea T Jet. I would like to see the T Jet with a good fit & finish interiors even if the is a delay in launch. Well the plastic parts will not improve until they are depedent on TATA's, Fiat has to do it on their own.

Sales aspect Fiat should have a seperate showroom, in my personal experience when I went to buy a Fiat car I was forced to look into the TATA's Manza, why should this happen. If there was a seperate showroom then the concentration in selling will be for Fiat cars. A seperate showroom will also make the marketing of Fiat cars agressive, as for survival they would have to sell.

Service also should be seperate as most of the concentration is given to TATA cars, therefore people are fedup in waiting for their turns even if appointments are fixed in advance. If there is a sperate service center then I feel these niggles can be avoided & mostly all required spares would be available.

The Fiat cars if not are fun to, but are safe to drive unlike the Japanese cars. I would vouch for safety than fun.

All car manufactuers have niggling issues, but Fiat cars niggling issues are blown to propotions. I can give you a lot of examples as follows.

Rust formation under the front right hand side door of New Honda City(my bothers cars)
When car was delivered it was informed that it had an engine protection gaurd, was not fitted & only when Honda was informed the dealer fitted it.
Engine oil was changed to synthetic during the 2nd service, when it went for the 3rd service wherein there was no requirement for oil change the oil was changed & was charged for.
Brand new Inova's spare wheel came loose when the car was taken out of the showroom and just ran for 5 kms, hit a Skoda which was coming behind & the repair charges had to be paid. What would have happened if the spare wheel would have hit a two wheeler. :shocked

I can go on quoting lot of things like above said.

Regarding your appreciation of VW I will not agree, because they are cheating us. An entry level car in Germany Polo is branded as a new version & priced very heavily & sold. If the fit & finish, service & agressive marketing of Punto was there then Polo would have not survived here in Indian market. Same is to be said for Vento vs Linea. Sadly all these three has not happened & expecting things to change.

Expecting the best to happen for FIAT herein India. I hope your prediction will not happen for Fiat in 2011.

 

Continuing on the Fiat sales, it's festive time - Ganesh Chathurti , I have seen even Honda & Toyota advertising their cars for sale during this time. Just today I saw a small 'blink and you will miss it' advt in HT about 45K off on Linea and 48K on Punto for the festive season. Who does Fiat think they are? Are they selling Ferrari's that they dont' need to slug it out in the market here?

Just see how Toyota is already promoting the upcoming Etios. They even had a newspaper report on trial production starting next month for the car! What does Fiat do? They delay the launch of the Linea T-Jet saying the Punto 90bhp has just been launched and they can't have 2 cars launching so close to each other! What are they running? A baniya dukaan! Now compare what VW did with the Polo and Vento launch. Both these cars were launched right away with deliveries starting after a few weeks / months. Did that hit their sales? When you have a company postponing launches on silly excuses, it seems like they are not confident about themselves and their product. VW comes across as a company on a mission to grab the Indian market by the scruff of it's neck. That's the attitude that's required. Dilly dally your feet on the floor and be a loser. If you are not sure of what you want to do, how can you expect people to put in 9 lakhs of their hard earned money on a lame duck?

One could argue that the Polo sales are the initial hype. Maybe they are. Maybe it's the 10K+ backlog they are clearing but the difference between a winner & a loser is that a winner maintains the hype. Despite barely 50 dealerships and just 6 variants, Polo sales have crossed 3,000 units. With 130 dealerships and God knows how many variants, Fiat can sell barely 1000 units. And this is happening for months together and they are still sleeping! They launched the 90bhp and maybe even Rajiv Kapoor didn't know the car was launched! How will sales improve?!

Fiat to me seems like a confused company. Even after the Tata tie up they are confused and lost. They are just running aimlessly like a chicken without head.

Maybe it's time they took a call. Either step into our home fully and beome a part of our family or just get out. Decide. One way or other.

 

Amit looks like you are too much pissed off with Fiat, cool down man a bit, in anger people gets blinded and can't see whats right and whats wrong.

 

Precisely what I am saying. If Fiat has again failed to position their product and talk about the USP whose fault is it? VW did it, Fiat didn't. They deserve to fail then. Even Toyota talks about Quality Revolution and how stringent checks are in place to ensure a defect free product despite Indians worshipping anything that has T or H on it. Why can't Fiat take some efforts to position their brand and products then?

Before VW switched to the Das Auto punchline, their punchline was Driver's wanted. Just two words. That's all that are needed to put an entire message behind a brand and product effectively.

As for QC, it's a joke. If we go by the QC at Fiat then Punto MJD E PK should be selling at 4 lakhs and Fiat should still be making good money on every unit sold. It's time Fiat saw that the market is fast maturing. People will readily pay more money for a product with visible good quality.

 

I agree to all Amit's posts here. Let's get honest here:

Fiat brings all the good emotions when you are driving the car and when you own one, but brings all the bad emotions when you have to keep running to the service center for niggling issues. Come on, why compare this with other brands when I know I have paid a premium to own this car.

I need to have hassle free ownership and I need better quality. Period. Nothing more, nothing less. How can you have a customer waiting for a month just to have the boot light replaced???

And please do not think that I am pissed off with Fiat , but when I have paid, I expect better stuff...

Vroom

 

Guys, I was also pissed off!!

But now things are good in terms of service quality and part availability as I got a very good FASC here in Delhi.

I think you guys should find a good service center in your city.

All in all Punto and Linea are good vehicles. I drove my 1.2 active at 160 kph with any abnormal feel. I also get good mileage. I find my car very comfortable. Pickup is also not that much bad. How many times we are chasing a vehicle in city? And I can screw same segment cars on highway.

I am not against you guys but I say what I feel.

You can understand my condition when Fiat took 7 months for proper rear bumper painting even after 7 attempts. I was really very fed up. Do you think any other company can paint bumper 7 times for 1 time cost. We can directly talk to top management of Fiat and they listen us, can we ignore this?

I read a topic that Honda dealer sold a old accidental vehicle as new, and Honda's top management is not at all worried about this. Is it really Honda?

Innova's tyre came out after 5 kms of driving from showroom, is it really QA from Toyota.

Problem is , people even don't consider Fiat when they buy new car. According to me, Fiat should look into adv area. How they can leave message about Punto\Linea to all over India rather that 7-9 hi-tech cities. By the time they are not selling their cars in small cities\town, they can't increase sale by good numbers.

 

Still trying to find one in Mumbai mate

Agreed!! But also the problem is I am scared to suggest a Punto to a prospective buyer blindly.. I tell them what problems I have faced, positive points etc and let them make a decision. The problem is most of them get scared away with being honest ::V

Vroom

 

More than anything, I feel the guys providing consultation to Fiat have got it all screwed up. Somehow, these guys seem to have decided that Cricket is where Fiat will get the max visibility. Where? in Sri Lanka? unless Fiat is planning to go solo out there, it was waste IMHO. Although the amount of publicity that was generated during this telecast was huge, but what is the target audience?

The initial ad of Linea about a middle aged guy falling in love at first sight was absolutely well targeted. Hatchback targeting has to be absolutely rip roaring. It can't be positioned in a basement with hardly any lights, like it shows in current Punto ad.

I somehow believe that Fiat is definitely interested in keeping their India chapter alive, but I do not know what business model of positioning and publicising are they following. It appears the whole management is still quite apologetic about the whole historic mess. The effort to change is visible, but that change is not happening in the product line.

Since the launch of Linea in 2009, three issues have dogged Fiat consistently; Tag of underpowered, Tag of poor plastics, Tag of poor A.S.S.. Personally I agree only with tag of poor plastics, but still, market perception has to be taken into account and correction need to be made. IMHO, A.S.S is one tag that Fiat has been able to shrug off to a very large extent. The removal of other two tags depends purely upon strategic decisions as to where Fiat wants to be in India. If they want to capture the market, they have to go hammer and tongs.

Probably they have such plans, probably we as Fiat enthusiasts are a bit too anxious or impatient; but there is no denying that Fiat got to do some visible marketing and some loud talking.