Mar 19, 2012 07:42 AM
14063 Views
(Updated Mar 19, 2012 07:46 AM)
Toyota has spent 0% of their time in actually doing a market research [Or they may have outsourced it to some team, which has presented them a rCTRL-C, CTRL-V eport.]. Either way, they have no idea about the market requirements.
Toyota makes a fundamental flawed assumption in designing the car, i.e., India has roads! This assumption has lead to a series of flawed designs which in the end makes the product absolutely useless for an Indian consumer.
For starters, they have not designed a car for India. They had a European design, which, first they CTRL-C, CTRL-V ed followed by engine capacity reduction to meet the Indian price points. The fact that the design is not Indian is so obvious when you see that the airbag warnings are in English and French! Not Hindi, the national language of India, not any of the 16 recognized languages, but FRENCH! Are you Kidding Me?
Next, the engine power is pathetic, especially if you have people in the car [may be the pickup is better, if there is no one in the car, but I have not tested that:)]. What this means is that you cannot cross the simplest of humps in second gear/third gear without stalling the engine. You will be forced to down-shift to the first gear. This cannot be good for the fuel-economy(I will come to that later).
In a normal Indian design, this would be rather trivial to fix, just increase the idling on the car. Currently, the engine idles at around 1000 rpm. Increase it to 1200 rpm, this problem should go away, right? No wrong! Toyota has a ECU whose firmware is centrally controlled. They would like to maintain a single firmware with single default configuration, as it is EASY for them. hey would not like to change the configuration to help individual users. This would mean that for users like you and me, the pick up problem cannot be solved. Toyota offers zero customization of the ECU based on user needs.
Thirdly, the suspension appears to have been inspired by a race car. You will be able to feel every pothole/hump as you maneuver on Bangalore roads [now you see, why the assumption India has roads is a very bad one]. My back croaked in a couple of days. My mom, sitting in the back had a stiff back for 2 days after I negotiated(rather unsuccessfully) a hump. Again, with an Indian car(and with every car that I have owned in the US), this is rather easy fix. The suspension should be softened. This will impact stability at high speeds, but in city traffic, this is a easy trade-off to make. Except, the way Toyota has designed their car, suspension stiffness cannot be softened! OMG! What kind of cost cutting have you done? We cannot change stiffness of the suspension!
Lastly, the fuel economy. It is simply abysmal. They promise a fuel economy of 14 in city and 18 on highway. What they don't tell you is that either they ran the test at 2AM in the morning in a city like Delhi OR ran the tests in a city in Europe. Because, you definitely do not get the kind of economy they are talking about. I get around 9 km in the city. I have not done enough highway tests to comment on their highway economy.
I was an ardent Toyota fan throughout my stay in the US. I had owned and cherished their best car Toyota celica for more than 3 years. Most of the my friends in the US owned a Toyota and they were so happy with the car. When Toyota launched a car in India, I simply went with the brand and this is a terrible mistake. This car is a prototype, not a finished product. It should not have even been cleared for external testing, let alone actual sales.
In conclusion, Toyota has definitely lost a customer in my form. I will get rid of this car ASAP and find a Indian replacement.
