All About Cars

A world class car

2011-05-02T16:23:00.001+05:30

The Volkswagen Passat has been launched in India at a price of 20.80 lakhs (ex-Delhi).

What you'll like:

• Well built, solid & safe construction
• Loaded with technology (Regenerative brakes, Self-Park, rear view camera and more)
• Smooth 168 BHP engine and DSG gearbox. Refined noise levels
• Balanced ride and handling package
• Interiors boast typically German detailing, great ergonomics and A+ driver visibility
• Aggressive entry-point pricing strategy for the Trendline

What you won't:

• Same platform as outgoing Passat. Interiors are nearly identical
• Superb still has more legroom for chauffeur-driven sahibs
• Electric power steering takes away tactility. Keen drivers won't like understeer bias
• Climate control just about coped with Goa heat, at the back
• Long-term ownership costs & reliability are yet unchartered territory
• Highline variant goes into BMW 320d, X1 & Mercedes C Class price range

The Passat comes in three variants, all with the same 168 BHP diesel engine. Compared to the Highline that I tested:

Trendline Variant : Sold with a manual gearbox. The features are not finalised at the time of writing this review. Expect no wood trim, regular headlights and manual adjustment on the seats. I am not sure if the stereo could be upgraded, but a Trendline with a stereo upgrade is worth a look if you want to have fun. Be prepared to stir the gears a lot as it might have very tall ratios.

Comfortline Variant : Differences vis a vis the Highline:

Beige leather upholstery, monochrome MID, 16" Perugia alloy wheels, and a steel spare wheel. Capture from VW website below:

The Highline offers in addition:

Black Nappa upholstery
Colour multifunction display
12 Way electrically adjustable front seats
Driver seat with 3 position memory
Front Climate seats - active air-conditioned front seats
Exterior mirrors have auto-dimming on driver's side, with memory
Tyre pressure monitoring system
Rear View camera
Park Assist (self parking system)

Colours : Black, Dark grey, Mocha Brown (our test car), White and Silver - not very exciting. Product manager told me that no one in this segment wants loud colours.

The bottom line is, if you are a competent driver and can get comfortable with the lesser seat permutations, the Comfortline would do fine. 2 lakhs more for the Highline to park itself and cooling your derrière is an individual decision. If you really like the black trim, one lakh of the two saved could remedy that. But consider that the extra amount still gives you a car which has features of far more expensive cars.

Running Costs : VW are attempting to keep running costs down. Service intervals are annually at 15,000 kms, though I would press for an oil change every 7,500. Remember, these engines guzzle oil when new. I would expect bills to be around Rs 15,000 per annum for the first three years. Various services packs are on offer, as also protection packages covering alloy wheel damage and rodent appetites. No indications of costs were given. Period.

The jury remains out on the long term reliability. The ability of the dealer network to handle the complexity also remains to be seen. I have had to resolve niggles in my Skoda by myself since the dealer lacked the basic diagnostic capability. They had the code readers, but not the ability to go beyond and understand possible causes. The fear is that they might merely review fault codes, replace parts and the same thing happens again. VW parts are well made and durable, but they are not cheap.

So what else could a buyer consider in this price band:

Honda Accord
Recent facelift makes the front end look like the last Honda City. It lacks presence, and high speed stability not as good as the Europeans. Rear seat is very comfortable, and air conditioning is a chiller. Oh, and it has rear audio controls! A given is that the car is reliable, fuss-free to own, and if you are located far away from a service point, it is worth a look. So consider an Accord if you are chauffeur driven in town or located in a remote area where reliability is paramount. Apart from that, Honda needs to be radical if it wants success in the next Accord.

Skoda Superb
The Petrol makes a lot of sense price wise. Although a cousin of the Passat, the interiors are more "olde world"; more wood trim compared to the wood chrome of the Passat. The Superb felt lighter, both to drive and in build quality, and the longer wheelbase slows things. As we know, the Superb's strength is in its rear - rear legroom is stupendous and it has a versatile hatch. You know about their service! Improving in parts, but deficient overall.

Audi A4
Why would I spend approximately 5 lakhs more for a smaller car, 30 PS less power, an inferior CVT transmission and less equipment? Well, it looks good, comes in red and the Audi badge. Thats it! Oh, and you don't have to rub shoulders with simple Polo men during service.

Mercedes C Class
A strong if expensive all rounder - Badge, great handling, slightly brighter interiors, but less space inside, big price, big bills and maybe big costs unless the new C Class is actually more reliable than its predecessor.

BMW 3 Series
Only if you are a focused driver and don't need the space. The ride might shake your dentures though. Again this car is due for replacement later this year. The driving dynamics are almost beyond reproach.

choose to cruze

2011-05-02T16:14:00.000+05:30

What you'll like:

- Funky front-end styling
- Stonking performance; most powerful diesel sedan (in this segment. 0 - 100 in 9.8s)
- Solid build quality
- High level of standard equipment (top variant)
- Respectable fuel efficiency at all times
- Excellent braking ability
- Excellent Fit and Finish (exterior)
- Price (10.99 for LT and 12.45 for LTZ ex showroom Delhi) dsegcars.xls

What you won't:

- Significant Turbolag (annoying in bumper-to-bumper traffic)
- Interior space not class leading. Cosy for the C+ segment
- Interior fit & finish have rough edges
- Firm ride at low speeds
- Aggressive clutch pedal (return action)

Reported Fuel Efficiency:

- 10.7 (City) / 14.5 (Highway)

The Cruze LT variant pricing starts at 10.99 Lakhs ex-showroom Delhi.

• 3 year / 100,000 kms warranty is standard.

• "Chevy promise" : Service costs will not exceed Rs. 36,000 total over the first three years. Service interval at every 10,000 kms.

• 60 liter fuel tank will ensure a realistic 700 - 800kms highway range. ARAI fuel efficiency = 18.3 kpl.

• We Indians are the first in Asia (after Korea) to get this car. Not even launched in Thailand which is the normal place for first launch.

• No matter how you wring her, or how much you floor the right pedal, she will always manage 10+ kpl!

• Indians love chrome. And the Cruze has dollops of it, inside out!

• Actually a replacement for the Optra worldwide. Sold as the “Holden Cruze” in Australia. Already on sale in Europe. North-American debut expected next year.

• The reverse light is disappointing (brightness), but the parking sensors make up.

• Clutch lock system : Engine won’t start until clutch is pressed.

• One of the most well built cars in the segment with excellent exterior fit and finish. On the flip side, interior fit and finish are so-so.

• No beige interiors!

• Boot size = 450 liters.

• The gearshift is smooth, especially by GM standards. Not quite Jap-slick though.

• On the highway, this car is a rocket, and in the city, even a snail will feel better. If you want to experience Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this is the car.

• As long as you stand near the car, anybody can open anything (boot, doors, fuel lid etc.,). Not sure if this is a good feature to have in India!

• GM sells the Cruze with traction control in most markets (not offered here). Indian variant could have used it, what with all that torque going to the front wheels!

• Even though the engine itself is not very big, the compact dimensions ensure a cramped engine bay. Lift the heavy well-insulated bonnet, and you realize there is no hydraulic auto lift. There is no light inside either, which means that in the dark, you struggle to find where exactly to hook the long support bar in. The engine bay looks neat, albeit cramped. All parts are marked properly and reek of quality.

• The windscreen washer has three jets instead of normal 2. A nice touch.

• Engine feels very petrol-like at speed.

• Brakes are amongst the best in class.

• The central cubbyholes cum cup holders can’t really hold a coffee cup when the Cruze is in motion. Strange. If there is one thing American companies get right, its the cup holders

• Kit levels rival those of cars in much higher segment.

• Due to the cosy interiors, the center armrest cum storage bin (which sits underneath) has been put in such a position that it’s unusable by the driver. And is of limited use to the front passenger as well.

• Italian engine maker VM Motori has designed this 2.0 common-rail diesel.

• An after-market powerbox for the Captiva results in 170 BHP + 370 NM of torque. We’re already getting ideas!

• Expect 3 year standard warranty coverage.

A simple car which will make headlines Toyota Etios

2011-05-02T15:54:00.000+05:30

The Toyota Etios has been launched in India at a price of between 4.96 - 6.86 lakhs (ex-Delhi).

What you'll like:

• A practical family sedan. Realistic pricing too
• Spacious interiors can easily carry 5 adults
• Stunning in-city driveability. Torquey engine & nice gearshift
• Well-tuned suspension. Safe handling and flat ride
• Cavernous 595L boot swallows holiday luggage
• Toyota’s excellent after-sales service

What you won't:

• Dated, plain-vanilla styling. Lacks contemporariness
• Missing equipment (climate control, height adjustable seat, electric ORVMs etc.)
• Economy-grade interior quality & unconventional dashboard
• Cost-cutting glaringly evident in many areas
• Buzzy engine over 4,500 rpm. Doesn't like the redline

The dynamics of the 5 – 8 lakh rupee market are completely different from what Toyota India has been accustomed to. For starters, the customer here is particularly price sensitive. A lower price point generally equates to slimmer margins. Then, the competition is fierce with the largest number of players vying for a slice of the pie. Indeed, this will also be the first time that Toyota is going up against Maruti head-on. Let's get one thing out of the way : The Etios is aimed straight at the Dzire, no two sides to that. Even the pricing is bang in Dzire territory. I feel a major draw will be the brand itself; a Toyota sedan for 6 lakh rupees is enough of a selling point for many out there.

FEW GOOD FACTS:-

The Etios feels like a “well-engineered” Toyota, albeit not an “over-engineered” one (as say, the Innova does).

• Standard Toyota philosophy reflects in the product : Does some things really well, most things satisfactorily and nearly zero things poorly.

• Current level of localisation is 70%.

• The Etios may be "made for India", yet will be sold to other parts of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India & China) regions eventually.

• 3 year / 100,000 kms warranty as standard. No extended option.

• Toyota’s sales outlet expansion in preparation of volumes : 97 in 2009 to 150 in 2010.

• Note to Toyota : When you get the diesel, ensure that the massive turbo-lag is reduced. The Altis D4-D was quite a handful in the city.

• I think it's fascinating how Tata & Toyota are entering previously unseen segments; the former recently launched a 15 lakh rupee MPV, and the latter a 5 lakh rupee sedan!

• No NCAP testing. But then, neither are the Dzire and Manza.

• As if to take a dig at the Dzire & Manza, Mr. Toyoda says that the Etios is a true sedan (and not a boot pasted onto a hatchback).

• 6 colour options : White, Black, Silver, Beige, Bluish silver and a Dark red.

• There are some accessory packages on offer, which include a combination of mats, door visors, steering wheel cover etc. More details on Toyota's website.

• Fuel tank capacity = 45 liters. ARAI rating : 17.6 kpl.

• The short-throw clutch will take you 2 minutes of getting used to. Once done, you’ll grow to love it.

• The interior rear-view mirror on our test car came off a couple of times! The bonnet-holding rod got detached, and there were innumerable plastic clips & rubber bushings left by previous reviewers in the cubby holes. Not the Toyota we know. Our car was a pre-production example. Lets hope there are no such issues once the Etios starts rolling off assembly lines in the 3rd week of December.

• The front seat has a generous travel range (fore & aft). On the other hand, the steering tilt adjustment range is rather limited (rough estimate = only 2 inches of travel). Some will complain that it doesn't tilt high enough.

• Thin backrest of the front seats liberates that much more knee room for rear passengers.

• Rectangular storage places on either side of the handbrake are long enough to hold pens. They even have cut-outs for exactly the purpose.

• All three passenger grab handles have bag hooks.

• The driver has decent all-round visibility, including whilst reversing.

• Cost cutting : Between the boot and the rear seat, there is no partition to speak of. It’s merely a piece of black cloth hanging around. Further, the instrument cluster illumination isn’t adjustable.

• Sometimes, between the 2,800 – 3,200 rpm range, we could here a faint whistle from the engine. Obviously, it ain’t no turbo-whistle.

• Large rear windows don’t have a quarter glass. Greenhouse is generous. No feeling of claustrophobia at all.

• Rear seat cannot be folded down for when cargo carrying flexibility is required.

• Foot room for rear seat passengers is generous. Those with XL sized boots won’t have any trouble fitting in.

• Stereo can play DVDs. If you aren’t the iPod type, you could easily carry upto 4.7 gigs of MP3s on a single disc (dual-layer single-side DVDs go upto 8.7 GB).

A perfect hatchback with world class features

2011-05-02T15:09:00.002+05:30

What you'll like:

• A well-built solid European hatchback
• Clean and contemporary styling. Absolutely no quirkiness
• "Big car like" ride quality. Suspension setup ideal for Indian roads
• Neutral handling & mature road behaviour
• Fuel efficient range of engines
• 280 liter boot. Figo-like & substantially larger than direct competition
• Short-throw slick gearshift (petrol especially). Amongst the best in India

What you won't:

• Commuter 3-cylinder engines. Neither hits the sweet spot nor matches the segment benchmarks
• Some niceties missing. Climate control, USB / AUX audio input, electric ORVMs etc.
• Ordinary rear bench legroom. Comparable to the Ritz
• Thin 40 dealership network
• VW's cost of ownership is yet unknown territory
• 1.6L 104 BHP petrol variant some time away

Reported Fuel Efficiency:

•1.2 Petrol : 11.4 (City) / 15.0 (Highway)
•1.2 Diesel : 13.3 (City) / 17.8 (Highway)

Akhilesh mehtas Review:-

Excellent brakes, in terms of ability, responsiveness and modulation
Handling that does exactly what you tell it to, even when pushing hard
A levelled and non-bouncy ride even at the back
A gearshift thats a pleasure to work with
Electric power steering makes it easy to throw around, though theres barely any feedback. Also, when slowing down whilst turning (eg. into a hair-pin bend) the sudden change felt in the weight of the steering can be a bit unsettling
The 1.2 Petrol is surprisingly revv-happy and eager - though fairly vocal
The 1.2 Diesel is terribly lethargic below 2,100rpm and nothing special past that. On paper it might have looked like the winner, but in reality the petrol seems like the better pick
Rear bench legroom is at a bit of a premium
Solid build. Even though cost cutting is evident there is no loss in terms of the quality of the product

All in all, the Polo doesn't have a glaring weakness that will stop prospective customers dead in their tracks. Sure, enthusiasts would have liked a better engine (and might get one) but for the majority - the car does everything its supposed to do, and does it very confidently. How the Indian masses take to this car - with its clearly euro styling is yet to be seen. The enthusiasm and spread of VW's dealer network, initial tales of cost of ownership and fuel efficiency will all greatly determine the Polo's future in India.

The doors open & shut with a mild thud and via a 3-stage action (a la European cars). Thanks to the lower stance of the car, you don’t walk into the Polo as you do with the tallboy hatchbacks; instead you have to “sit down” inside. The elderly as well as those with back problems would do well in making note of this factor. The Polo is well-screwed together. There’s not a single uneven panel gap, or anything at all that feels loose on the inside. The interiors feel durable and fully capable of handling abuse. As an example, there’s no way you could break the glove box lid, even if you tried! The design is straight-forward in a very German way.

The colour combination of black, beige & chrome accents is sheer class and will keep both camps happy (the ones who like black or those who prefer beige). A generous greenhouse lends an airy ambience to the Polo's interiors. Lateral support from the driver’s seat is A+.

The dashboard looks good overall, with the center panel tilting subtly toward the driver for that cockpit effect. All crucial controls are within an arms length.
Boot space at 280 liters is amongst the largest from this segment. The boot is nearly identical to that of the Figo (284 liters), yet substantially larger than the Swift (232 liters), i10 (225 liters) and even the Indica Vista (236 liters). The rear seat of the Comfortline / Highline variants splits into a 60:40, or can entirely fold away for added load flexibility. No 60:40 split on the base variant though.

Allow me to dedicate a paragraph to the poorly thought out door locking mechanism. Firstly, the doors don't auto-lock when you start driving. To add to it, there isn't a visible lock / unlock knob sticking out of the door panels, reminding you to lock the doors (some cars have an orange marking on each door lock / unlock latch, others have a lock / unlock stalk that sticks out at the top. However, only the lock icon is illuminated, not the unlock one. A Maruti 800 with a 1,500 rupee central locking kit offers a more practical lock / unlock solution.

The Polo's air-conditioner is extremely chilly, even on the petrol variant. I was sitting on the backseat and, with the blower setting only on position 2, the ice cold air was hitting my face. Further, the interiors are well insulated from external sounds. The minute you roll up the windows, the outside world stays outside.

Review of Ford Figo

2010-05-26T20:14:00.000+05:30

Why the Figo?

The main factors that I was looking for in a car were
* Diesel - My daily commute is 50+ KM
* Price - 5 Lacs
* Hatchback - We are a family of 3, going to become 4 soon.
* Solid Build - My last car was 5 year old used Ford Ikon 1.6 ZXi, but still felt quiet solid without any rattles.
* Fun to Drive - Again, thanks to my previous car, this was a must.
* Built in Music system, Central/Remote Locking, etc
* Should be available in Black Color

The options that I had apart from the Figo
* Fiat Grande Punto - Punto is a fantastic car and met my criteria except for the price factor and the active model which was in my budget was lacking in features.
* Maruti Swift - Did not consider it as I find it quiet common.
* Maruti Ritz - Did not consider it as I hate the looks.
* VW Polo - Way above my budget and currently not available
* Indica Vista - Did not consider as I don't like the build quality or driving experience of Tata Cars

Last year when the Figo was announced, I sort of made up my mind to go for it. The pricing announced in March was perfect and had decided to go in for it after the test drive.

The Buying Experience

I decided on the EXi model as it had everything that I was expecting as far as features is concerned and did not want to stretch myself for the Titanium.

In Navi Mumbai there is only 1 Ford dealer - Bhavna Ford, so did not have much choice as far as picking up the dealer is concerned. I had second thoughts after I read the review of Iceman and his experience of dealing with Bhavna and thought I would also approach Wasan. However, the SP at Bhavna, Swapnil Sawant was very helpful and hence did not face any issues with the overall buying process.

I was pleasantly surprised when I went to Bhavna to see the there were 4 Panther Black 1.4 EXi models readily available with them in stock. I wanted to check out the color as I had not seen any black color cars in the showroom. The SP obliged and asked me to goto the stockyard and check the cars out. I went to the stockyard and choose the car that I wanted after a brief PDI and noted down the VIN number. Gave the same to the SP and made some payment to block it. I had to wait for 1 week for my bank loan to get processed. On 16th I got the balance payment from the Bank and went to Bhavna and paid them the complete amount to start the registeration process. The SP was suggesting me to pick up the car only after full registeration was complete and they were facing some issues getting cars registered in Pen RTO for folks who were living in rental accomodations. But I was adamant, I wanted to take the car as I could not wait anymore. On 17th, I was in Powai with my clients and got a call from the SP at 3PM, he was ready to deliver the car on a temp registration as my docs were OK and he felt there will be no issues with the registeration process.

It took me 3 hrs to come back home, pick up my family and goto the dealer to pick up the car. I arrived at 6PM and saw my black beauty all clean and shinny waiting for me. Met the SP, he gave me the user manuals, invoices, Temp reg doc, etc. He mentiond that the mud flaps would be given later as they were out of stock. Went down immediately and was ready to leave the place when a person gave me a brief demo of all the features and a 5 lt slip to get fuel from the nearest pump. Drove straight to the pump, got the tank filled and had a pleasant drive back home.

The Cost

Ford Figo 1.4 TDCi EXi - 4,72,900
Depo Charges - 2,000
Insurance - 13,500 (Got a 20% discount on the dealer pricelist)
RTO - 38,603
Temp Reg Charges - 1,000
Accessories - 6,168 (4.5K for the fog lamps and the rest for the essential kit)
Extended Warranty - Free (Corporate Discount)

The Car

There is a lot said about the car already on the forum so I'll stick to things I like/Dislike.

Positives
- Well proportionate design, I especially like the (mini CRVish) back design.
- All black interiors with decent plastics and upholstery used. I hate Beige or Gray interiors.
- Fantastic diesel engine with almost no turbo lag
- Spacious interiors and the fantastic boot
- Big car like ride quality and fantastic driveability
- Tacho available, even though it's a EXi model
- Sound Quality of the OEM music system
- Small things like Vanity mirror, small storage bin below the steering for my Ciggis, boot opening capability on the remote, electric boot open right on the dashboard, air vents design.

Negatives
- Ride quality especially at low speeds is very bumpy. Thought it might be for the Tyre pressure, but even at 30PSI, it is quiet bumpy at low speeds especially on concrete roads
- Rear power windows absent. usually not a problem, but sometimes my 6 yr old son plays with the lever and I have to stop to close them again
- Accessing the toggle switch on the speedo while driving is quiet a challenge
- Bonet release switch is on the passenger side

Finally some pics of my Panther..

2009-12-19T08:39:00.000+05:30

Dad had booked the Ritz Zxi some weeks back and it finally arrived. Here's the story.

Chronology:

Wednesday (Aug 5): Got a call from the Maruti dealer that our car has arrived in the stockyard. I had already told him that I want to do a pre registration inspection so I will need to see that car *before* he sends it for registration to the RTO.
He had already given us the engine and chassis number as soon as he was informed of dispatch by Maruti so I thought that was a plus on his side and there would be minimal chances of trying a switcheroo on us. And since Ritz is a new model there would be very less chances of getting an older model (Also I knew the dispatch date).

He said that we had 2 options - either we could go to the stockyard or he would get the car to the showroom anyway so we could see it there.
We opted for the second option since the stockyard is very far away.

Thursday (Aug 6): Went to the dealer and saw our car standing there. Did a thorough visual inspection plus checked the engine and chassis number as well as most of the points mentioned in the pre reg inspection thread on team-BHP.

The odometer was connected and showed 27 KM which I thought was pretty reasonable since the stockyard is at least 20 km away.

I had seen on one of the threads that some chap got a non alloy 5th wheel with his Zxi, so I made sure to check the spare as well.

Talked with the sales guy and he said that the car would be registered the next day and we could pick it up by evening if we wanted to. I told him that I want to do a thorough inspection and would like to take delivery in the morning. He agreed to that.

Saturday (Aug 8): Went in the morning at around 11 o clock with family. Did the paperwork in terms of getting the insurance note, receipts etc.

The sales person called a maintenance supervisor over to give us a demo. It was fairly detailed and covered most of the points in the PDI checklist. I covered the remaining points on my own and noticed a small scratch on the rear bumper which he promised to take care of. Rest everything seemed ok. Note the stress on "seemed"!

After the photo session we took the car and filled in 5 litres petrol for which they had given a coupon.

I had decided to change the stock tyres from the existing JK tyres to Michelin XM1+ (Thanks to Nikhilb2008 for his help and advice). So off I went directly to the tyre shop.

Imagine my consternation when I saw that one of the tyre rims was slightly bent!!
And this despite my so called inspection!!

So I obviously didnt upgrade that tyre and instead kept it aside and showed it immediately to the Maruti dealer. He agreed that it looked like a manufacturing defect and asked me to come with the tyre on monday and get it replaced.

Now for the driving experience:

After driving a WagonR for almost 10 years and 800s before that, this car feels very different. As many have attested, the engine is super smooth and quiet and peppy as well.

Things I liked:
1. Feeling of space in the cabin
2. Engine smoothness. As Ada mentioned in his review, one needs to look at the tachometer to reassure oneself that the engine is indeed running
3. Have to really keep a light foot on the accelerator. Speeds of 80-90 kmph are reached effortlessly
4. The tyres are really good and inspire confidence while cornering (hmm or is this due to the Michelins?)
5. The gearshift is good and each gear falls into place properly. Only reverse seems a bit stubborn at times.
6. Driving position is very comfortable and the height adjustment lever is a boon.
7. The steering to handles well and isnt as light as some other cars. It does allow you to feel the road and hence feel more in control.
8. Quality of stock ICE is average but it didnt have any trouble playing a number of MP3 CDs I had burnt.
9. The looks are suprisingly appealing and even the rear which is everyone's favourite bugbear looks much better in real life than in photos and it has started growing on me already.

Things that could have been better:
1. Clutch seems a bit hard and has a lot of play. Might be a problem with just my car. Can other Ritz owners please provide feedback.
2. I dont know if its the ABS or something else, but braking occasionally produces a kind of groaning noise.
3. The headlights are a big let down. Though the front and rear fog lamps are a plus.
4. Where's the engine temperature gauge???
5. I would have preferred a regular fuel gauge than the digital one
6. The boot space or rather the lack of it (yeah I know, and I want the moon too!!)

Overall its a very good car and well worth the money spent. I think Maruti has a winner on its hands. Now time will tell whether it ages gracefully or develops issues (read rattles and squeaks)

One interesting thing I learnt from the sales person was that its the Petrol top end model which is more in demand than the Diesel variant.

Next steps:
Accessorize, Accessorize, Accessorize: I just got the rubber mats and mud flaps from the dealer.
Follow up with Maruti dealer to get the tyre replaced
Follow up with Maruti dealer to get the scratch touched up or bumper replaced
Check out the FE
Oops. I missed the color - Its "Silky Silver" as dreamt up by the Maruti marketing Guys!
Will post some photos soon.

2009-09-29T01:40:00.001+05:30

hiiii friends ..i am soory i couldnt upload the latest content but wait for a day i will upload every thing and keep u updated

Spotted Toyota Fortuner

2009-07-27T20:17:00.000+05:30

guys.

Saw this car on Hosur Road when I was driving into Bangalore yesterday.

Tried hard to get closer and take better pics but the driver seemed to have noticed me doing so and sped away.

Regards

New Volkswagen Polo revealed

2009-07-27T20:15:00.001+05:30

seen here for the first time in a billboard advertising outside the Geneva auto show venue (which begins tomorrow) is the first picture of vw's all new polo hatch, a version of which will also make it in india by VW from their chakan plant.

Maruti Ritz!

2009-06-18T09:33:00.000+05:30

Maruti is on a roll; the Ritz is their 7th new launch in 4 years (after the Swift, Zen Estilo, SX4, Grand Vitara, Swift Dzire and A-star). Maruti doesn’t seem to have a problem with product overlap either : The Ritz is the 7th Maruti hatchback you can buy today, and the 6th in the 3 – 5 lakh rupee range (2.5 lakh 800 excluded)
The Ritz is built on the same platform as the Swift. Let me simplify this entire review for you. In one line : The Ritz is a practical modern alternative to the Swift. While the Swift pulls the strings to your heart, it is the Ritz that’ll make sense to your head. This car is a genuine i10 competitor (though I expect it to pull a lot of potential Swift customers as well). The i10 has the advantage when it comes to sheer interior quality, but the Ritz has a killer weapon in its arsenal : The 1.3 DDIS diesel engine. The brand new K12M petrol engine is outstanding too, but more on that later.

The Ritz’ front end is mature & looks neat. Suzuki obviously wants to maintain a certain family look; in fact, if you half-shut your eyes, you’d think that the front is that of a Swift. The headlamps, in particular, are eye-catching. The MPV-like raked front windscreen does its part in making the interiors feel airy. The side profile is acceptable, while the pronounced wheel arches (seen on cars from the Indica facelift to the S-Class) are well-integrated.

Maruti’s new age hatches are fun to drive. The Swift & A-star proof of this. This car may have a tall stance, but it also has a firm long travel suspension. As a result, the handling is composed for a tall-boy. The body roll is well controlled, surprisingly, it doesn’t lean into corners uncomfortably. This is a thoroughly modern hatchback, even at a 100 kph it feels planted (well, as well as a hatchback can be). The Ritz is not as chuckable as the Swift, but a pretty balanced drive nevertheless. Impressive that it doesn’t feel like a tall boy (massive step ahead of a WagonR for instance).

Ride quality stays consistently good at the front, with a firm side to it. However, on the back seat, it was damn bouncy (city speeds of 30 – 50 kph) on typically Indian roads. As the speedometer climbed, it flattened out to an extent, but don’t expect a comfortable ride within the city over uneven road patches. The electric power steering is well-weighted and direct (but gives no feedback to the enthusiasts amongst us). 170 mm of ground clearance (raised from Euro spec 140 mm) with a firm suspension setup didn’t see the Ritz bottoming out anywhere (with 3 on board). The controls are extremely light, and this combined with peppy engines, makes the Ritz a fantastic drive within the city. The turning circle is tight as well. Nothing to write about the brakes. Standard fare. Brakes are reassuring and have decent feel. ABS available (and highly recommended) as an option on the Vxi / Vdi.

• Launch on the 15th of May.

• The Ritz is better suited for 4 rather than 5 passengers.

• The air-con was very effective, even in the hot Vizag summer. Didn’t need to go over position 2.

• I posed a question to Maruti as to why there isn’t an automatic gearbox offered on the Ritz (when chief competitor i10 does). Answer : Automatic market is too miniscule to focus on at the moment. However, I still believe that an auto Ritz would have given it a positive image & would bring / retain many a customer within the Maruti family.

• No airbags on the top-end diesel

• Maruti has skimped on an internal boot release.

• Logical upgrade from a WagonR. I’d presume a lot of WagonR owners would move on to the i10. Maruti has a product for them to stay within the family now. This car takes the fight to the i10 head on.

• I see people opting for the Ritz (over the Swift) not only because of enhanced practicality, but also for something different. The Swift sells 9000 cars a month and is pretty much a common sight on our roads. The Ritz is fresh off the block.

• FE should be decent in the city due to the engines low end torque.

• 8 colours : Red, Chocolate, blue, silver, green, grey, black and white.

• Maruti wanted to name this car the Splash (as is worldwide). However, Ford has the rights to that name in India.

• Rear is nowhere as claustrophobic as the Swift. But then, neither does it have the personality of the Swift.

• Lousy JK tyres give up way before the chassis does. 165mm / 14 on all but the ZXi which is shod with 185 / 14.

• Weight : LXi = 1005 kgs, LDi = 1100 kgs.

• Wind & tyre noise on the higher side at 100 kph, especially when seated at the back.

• Same family of engine as the A-star, but what a difference one cylinder can make. Way more refined.

• Swift diesel : petrol sales are 65:35. Will the Ritz be the same? Note that the petrol Ritz is more competitive than the petrol Swift.

• The international 1242cc K12 engine is not the one you see in the Indian Ritz. This one is tailor-cut to our sub-1.2 L tax benefits (1197 cc).

• Base versions (165mm) look horribly under-tyred.

• International versions have a hidden tray in the boot for storage. Not so on the Indian Ritz.

• Some parts like the console, rpm meter etc. exude quality

• Price isn’t disclosed yet, with mixed rumours of it being either slightly above the Swift or below. Either ways, I predict a market success.

What’s good
- Practical & thoroughly modern hatchback
- Well-packaged interiors
- Outstanding petrol & diesel engines
- Composed handling for a tall boy
- Maruti’s stellar after-sales service levels

What’s not

- Oddball rear end design
- Bumpy rear seat ride quality in the city
- Boot could have been bigger

In a nutshell, the young unmarried dude will probably still buy a Swift. But for someone with kids / family, the Ritz makes immensely more sense.

Red Emotional Beauty on FIRE - Fiat Linea

2009-06-18T09:31:00.001+05:30

Friends,

I got the delivery of my Linea Emotion Pack FIRE on 9th apr, thursday. this was about 3-4 days later than it was expected & planned.

wanted to take delivery during daytime & asked dealer to hastenup & be ready by 4.30 pm. but got into an urgent meeting at work & could reach only by 6.30 pm. first checked all dox with the checklist i carried. then asked the dealer exe to explain everything about the car. well, he was not quite well versed with the car features, he seemed to be an accounts/ backoffice guy as all regular sales guys would have left for the day. also i has understood everything earlier during PDI at stockyard. have asked him which petrol should i use - premium or regular. he said premium. when i queried that for diesel cars fiat recommends regular diesel, he still insisted (along with another guy) that one should use premium petrol or premium diesel. looking at his ignorance i did opposite. left dealership at around 7.30 pm & got regular unleaded petrol filled at nearby pump. (ODO shown 28 kms when i did PDI at stockyard & 123 km at the time of delivery).

(got to know later at night from owners manual that for petrol cars, fiat recommends unleaded petrol with minimum 91 octane. Guess which petrol is this? I googled it & found that IOC's ExtraPremium petrol is 91 octane petrol. BPCL's Speed is not though it is a premium version with additives.)

The drive from dealership to residence is around 40 kms with about 2.5 hrs in mumbai peak traffic.

When I did the TD, I did not feel engine to be underpowered at all. however, i must say that in my 1st drive in my linea, I "felt" it underpowered in 1st & 2nd gear. 2nd gear particularly is "felt" awful. The reasone I put quotes surrounding felt is because fiat's clutch ply is long & I have to get used it it first. probably after 4-5 days when I'm used to fiat's way of clutch-accelerator/brake/gear combine with all 4 fully synchronised, I'll be able to judge it better.

y'day I noticed that steering wheel is not centre-aligned but is tilting just a little towards right hand side (around 5-10 degrees) when car is going straight line. When I align steering to exact centre, car slightly goes to left. called sales exe, he said its ok, its only a little permissible margin. not satisfied & called again that i want it to be corrected. took their service station manager no. & spoke to him. told him that i would be coming tom i.e. today sunday. he said perfectly ok & though he won't be there, he'll instruct his assistant. another reason for service sation visit was i noticed impressions of water drops all over the cars. its like water was sprayed on the car & someone forgot to wipe so drops left impression when dried. i tried to clear it, but they were too stubborn even against mild soap. on chrome when i rubbed persistently on a small area, it got cleared but didnt want to take chance on colored body.

So, today went to service station around 1 p.m. my overall impression of it is they have good intentions, their ability on fiat products would take some time to develop expertise. i got a good reception & treatment there. advisor-1 took a drive of my car & got convinced on the issue. While i waited in their comfortable AC room reading owners manual, another advisor-2 came after 10 minutes, he also just understood the problem & went. Then I met that Assistant, he said the manager did instructed him to take care of my vehicle! They all excused for half an hour as it was lunch time 1.45 pm. Then during lunch hour assistant came & said he wanted to understand all issues. so, we went driving the car to show the steering issue. Coming back I also shown him the interiors plastics which was quite dirty for a fresh car & told him that PDI was not done properly. He promised to complete everything in half an hour. after 45 minutes he came back & said the work is done, we went on a test drive again, i was not satisfied as there was not much of a difference.

So, again he took the car inside & returned with the steering issue corrected. They also cleaned the interior with car interior solution. Regarding the water drop impressions, they tried everything. 1st they washed the car, it didn't go. then they washed the car with diesel, the impressions got fainter but still didn't go. then he said he'll do 3M polish & buffing & tried to call 3M guy who went off without telling him! well, that 3M guy could not come in so he very politely requested me if i can come again day after. I left at 4 pm.

One more thing - as I mentioned in previous post, though my car is emotion pack & has blue n me, the blue & me sticker is not there on the rear glass. am not particularly interested in the sticker but want to know the reason as may be PDI was not done properly. in that case, thinking of getting everything checked on tuesday when I go back ag

2009-06-18T09:21:00.000+05:30

From the time that Honda set foot in India in ‘97, the “City” (C segment) has marked the entry point for the brand. All of this changes with the Jazz. Trivia : The “Jazz” nameplate seems to be a favorite with Honda’s head honchos. Depending on the country, the Jazz badge has been worn by a Honda motorcycle, an SUV, and a hatchback.

This is the 2nd generation Jazz - Honda’s world hatch. It is one of the rare cars that is sold in an identical form (save for varying engine options and trim) across the globe; the same car is called the Honda Fit in North America, Japan & China and is sold as the Jazz in SE Asia, Europe & South Africa (unlike say, the entirely different Accord versions for USA & Europe). Japan is the largest market for this car, followed by Europe & then the United States. The 1st & 2nd gen Jazz’, both, have walked away with the “Japan World Car of the Year” awards in their respective introduction years.

The Indian premium hatch segment is tricky, one that the Fabia has failed at and the i20 just about managing to get along. Can Honda crack the premium hatch code?

Sharing its platform with the City, the Jazz is a thoroughly contemporary supermini, introduced to North America & UK in Y2008. It has a near identical wheel base to the City (shorter by only 50 mm), the same width and a taller stance. The car wears an MPV-like profile, especially when viewed from the front & the side, and comes across as a one-box automobile. The design is fresh, the Jazz looking distinctly premium in person. Fit, finish & paint quality are top class. Look at the side profile picture and you can tell that cabin space is stretched as much as possible. “Man maximum, machine minimum”. Yet, in my books, the i20 is the better looker.
The packaging is sheer brilliance. The Jazz’s interior is functional while the storage space is high on flexibility. The dash design is funky, only adding to the modern feel of the interiors. The doors shut with a premium-feeling “thunk” (though far from a “thud, if you know what I mean ). Interior space is more sedan- like, sufficient room for front & rear passengers alike. A large green house does its bit in making the interiors feel even more airy and headroom, in particular, is generous. I found the Jazz better suited to carrying 4 passengers in comfort (and not 5). All doors open wide for easy access, but the seats themselves are set a tad on the lower side (compared to the tall boys) while under-thigh support is below average (especially of the rear seat). On the positive side, the front seat’s awesome side bolstering literally hugs you, and lower back support is good too. The fuel tank is positioned below the front passenger seat and releases room at the rear (lower cargo floor for instance); the boot too is a massive 384 liters size. The “magic seats” – as Honda calls them – are nifty, more on that later.

There are plenty of cubby holes & storage spots for the knick knacks. Interior parts feel durable and overall quality is good (though most plastics are hard on the knock). The air-con controls are chunky & great to use, while the tactile switchgear has a very premium feel to it. Overall, the interiors feel well screwed together and, strangely, better than even the more expensive City! The driver enjoys fantastic all around visibility, driving position spot-on and all controls fall easily to hand. Unique quarter windows in front of the ORVMs & at the rear help in tight turning situations. Steering has only tilt adjustment and – sadly - none for reach. The City's steering wheel (with audio controls) is great to use while the orange backlit instrument panel is easy on the eyes. There’s even a fuel indicator that throws out real-time information on economy (FE lovers will be delighted!). The air-con is an absolute chiller. 20 minutes into the drive, I moved it down to position 1. The Jazz is extremely straight forward to use, in a way that only Toyota & Honda seem to have mastered.

Stung by the criticism in the City, Honda has made amends and equips the Jazz with an MP3 CD player as standard fitment. Aux input present, though no USB. The stereo volume is speed-sensitive. The head unit's unique shape & integration make an aftermarket stereo upgrade difficult.

All Jazz variants come standard with dual-front airbags, OEM sound system + steering controls and ABS / EBD brakes. Yet, no alloy wheels, no height adjustable seat, no dead pedal, no parcel tray, no arm rests, no lumbar support at this price!! C’mon Honda!
Pricing: Honda's pricing has been a shocker and, at 6.98 lakhs (ex showroom Delhi) doesn't offer value. The difference between the top-end Jazz and the entry level City is a mere 48,000 (City 1.5 E MT @ 7.81 lakhs). The Jazz's pricetag actually makes the Hyundai i20 seem like VFM. Even the full blown i20 Asta (O) is a whopping 1.2 lakhs cheaper (ex showroom Delhi), and that's with FAR superior equipment levels (6 airbags et al). Can a clever car & the "H" badge do some magic in the marketplace? Only time will tell.
4 year warranty + road side assistance are standard.

• Turning radius : 4.9 Meters.

• Tall 2nd gear : Good for 90 kph.

• There’s a total of 10 bottle / cup holders! Two cup holders in front of side air-con vents can keep your Pepsi cool. Rear doors come with bottle holders as well.

• 1055kg kerb weight. Safety standards are making cars heavier. The Jazz tips the scales higher than the Palio!

• Rev cut-off at 6,700 rpms.

• Steering is super-light at parking speeds.

• I hope Honda offers a CVT option sooner rather than later. It'd be in line with the market positioning of this car.

• I was happy to see Michelins as the OE tyre on some Jazz’. Make sure to tell your dealer of your preference.

• Potential of a larger engine as an option? Rumour mills are working overtime, I don't think so.

• 5 star safety rating in the NCAP. But that car had better safety features (more airbags etc.).

• Colours : Black, Red, Blue, Light blue, Silver & white.

Variants:

Jazz Base - Dual airbags, ABS + EBD, Immobilizer, Audio system + steering controls, Keyless Entry

Jazz Active - Jazz base plus spoiler, body colour grille, front fog lamps, Chrome rings + panel (interiors), side step garnishes

Jazz Mode - Body side moldings + corner protectors, mud flaps, Chrome rings + panel (interiors), side step garnishes

2009-05-27T11:22:00.001+05:30

Spoke to the salesperson at Solitaire Honda in Mumbai today. He confirms the single variant and said that the OTR Mumbai price would be somewhere around Rs 7L to7.5L. Definitely quite an amount for a 1.2 vtec engine.

I had seen the car in Singapore and have to say that it looks gorgeous, though a little MPVish. Had seen a black customised version as well!

Bookings have started, and the booking amount is 50k.

And here is a small little fact - He says that he already has about 8 bookings . How could I forget that it is a Honda!

Maruti Suzuki Ritz in May 2009

2009-05-09T18:11:00.001+05:30

Maruti Suzuki Ritz in May 2009 exclusive

2009-05-09T17:41:00.000+05:30

Guys here they are cudnt wait till the evening!
Dont know which is which variant (interior pics) as i went in a clicking frenzy before the secuiry guys came back and asked me to leave. but could manage to remove some. also please note one of the interior pic has a jvc 2din player with screen and 6 speakers i wonder if it is original factory fitment from MSIL
the pics are from my mobile cam so please excuse the quality. blame nokia!
Enjoy the pics

2009-05-06T13:36:00.001+05:30

There it was. Gleaming in the sun with a purposeful meanness that only a very capable contender could exude. I was in front of the direct descendant of the 900RR, which, 16 years ago demonstrated to the world how Superbikes should be. The 2008 Fireblade also has the DNA of the RC211V, which many say was the ultimate motorcycle to ride. It was such an incredible motorbike which actually got Rossi to change over to Yamaha, just because he needed to prove that he did not win because of the fantastic machine underneath him. A machine which was lightyears ahead of the competition. The 08 Blade had the the same DNA, but for the real world - the road and the track days.

Restarting its four years development cycle the Blade is back with a bang, it looks different and it behaves different. The only think which perhaps constant is the unbelievable modesty it defines itself as the champion of the road and the track in many a journalist's and test's books across the world.

Now then, I have personally ridden a Blackbird and a 05 Blade for decent number of miles and I know how smooth and reliable they were. I was also a sucker for how the Blade 05 looked, specially its ultra sharp profile.

When Honda released the first pictures of the 08 Blade I was disappointed. It looked just short of a fantastic design if the nose had been a little more sharper. But then, my disliking stopped there and then. In my heart I knew that superbikes were more about the performance and real life riding than just looks (which are subjective anywhich ways). Delivering more on looks, I have started liking the new blade even more than the previous avatars. Why? Because its radical, a deviation from what the norm would be. The front a tad bit taller than the rear, which in superbikesense, shouldn't be. The exhaust side stump looks fantastic, the minimalistic graphics coupled with sanely done cutwork on the panels and plastics looks fantastic and graspable. Its simple yet very complex at the same time and often defies the way superbike should be looking from some angles.

Going further from the looks, the performance and reviews further rationalizes the reason why lots of people swear by the Blade - its the overall package which matters.

My first impression of the Blade in flesh confirmed this and more, it is one hell of a talented motorbike and the sheer number of research and grey substance gone into developing this machine coupled with the incredibly rich lineage its got shows through. And if that wasn't enough, its performance in the WSBK championships are a testimony of what it is actually made of.

And of course, as usual it was pointless taking the Blade and doing anywhere the crazy stuff it can do in Delhi for in every square meter there lies a mass of humanity, some dressed in khaki, some in white!

The color to get would be Black or the European white and black - just stunning!

So now we have to wait and watch till January 2009 comes by and Honda India launches and infuses the Indian motorcycle scene with this incredible DNA.

First Impression: Yamaha R15

2009-05-06T13:30:00.000+05:30

I already had the first glimpse of R-1-5 back in the month of January during Auto Expo 2008.But I never had the opportunity that time to look into the smaller details of the bike. Its only after Ayush (One of the first customers of R-1-5 in Delhi) had given us the opportunity for a photo shoot that I came so close to the bike.

Looks: I already had an initial impression of the bike as I had seen it sometimes back. My first reaction remained unchanged this time round also. When Yamaha had thought so much about the bike and this is the most important launch for them in years why they have compromised with the final looks?.The bike looks a bit disproportionate. I’m not only talking about the rear but the complete bike as a package. The perfect lines which starts from the front seems to get lost somewhere in the middle. In an effort to keep a balance between Supersport and the normal Indian buyer they compromised with the overall looks. When the FZ is coming out in near future Yamaha should have gone all out with this product. That said the bike looks absolutely superb from front or when the bike approaches towards you.
Switchgear quality is average and I would have loved to see better switchgear for a product which costs 1lakh.The rear view mirrors are pretty well built and are very useful. Light looks good but need to check their usability in night.

The console is neatly done and looks imposing. The panel looks nice from a distance but a closer look at some of the points gives you the feeling that the job could have been better.

Riding Position and Stance: I rode the bike for 5 minutes in a very bumpy surrounding. The riding position is sportier than a P220 and P200 but less sporty than Apache RTR. All concerns about tall riders facing problem can now rest as I found the seating perfect for me. For record I’m 5’11”.
Power Delivery: I easily felt there is very little power at lower R.P.M which is like any other Supersport so no complaints on that front. But it will be interesting to see how the bike fares in stop-go traffic as most of the buyers will use the bike for daily commute.

Right now I won’t comment on any other important aspects of the bike and I’m looking forward to have a proper test ride of the bike so as to have a complete idea about the bike.

So did this bike set my pulse racing and and its worthy of saying “WOW” as Yamaha promised us on the R1 launch. I would say no and will give it a 3/5 for looks and first impression. I though always judges a bike through its performance so I would reserve my final verdict.And yes I’m looking forward to FZ16.

First Impression:TVS Apache RTR FI 160

2009-05-06T13:26:00.000+05:30

Engine and Performance:
One of the problems that the earlier generation Apaches and to an extent the RTR is the engine roughness. The performance was never a problem. With the addition of Fuel Injection that problem seems to have gone out of the window. The power delivery is very smooth and the throttle response is very crisp. The gearbox too is precise with positive shifts every time you tap the lever. The first gear is a bit weak and you don’t feel the true potential of the 150.7cc mill. It’s only when you slot into second gear that the RTR FI starts to show its true colors. Once past 5k r.p.m it accelerates with authority. Shifting while in the power band, I began to feel at home and was excited enough not to resist the urge to go faster and faster. That said if you shifts the gear in lower r.p.m’s then you feel a tremendous loss in power and it takes quite a while to hit the power band again. So correct shifting is the key if you are riding the bike in day to day traffic. But personally I don’t have any complaints about the character of the bike.
TVS says: The bike was not properly run-in and maybe the tuning was not correct and hence the loss of power in lower gears. You won’t feel the loss of power once the run-in is completed.
Some rough figures which I tested
1st gear-Didn’t wanted to rev the bike too much
2nd gear-70 at 10K r.p.m
3rd gear-92 at 10k r.p.m
4th gear-104 at 10k r.p.m
5th gear-Tested only till 116 but I got feeling that it will touch close to 130.
**All the above speeds are speedo indicated.

Ride and Handling:
A look at the weather and the overall surrounding and I knew that I won’t be able to push the bike on the corners which is the main forte of this bike. It has been raining pretty consistently from past couple of days. That said I tried to give my 100% during the test ride.
To provide that racing intent Apache RTR FI has that perfect seating position, courtesy the clip-ons and perfectly positioned rear sets. You have the option to select between two seating modes based upon your requirement to ride on road or race at the track. Also it gives an option to people of various heights to adjust.
Apache’s compact geometry and 17-inch front tyre makes for quicker turn-ins in a series of corners but it is far more enjoyable on tight corners. But in city traffic I found it a little bit cumbersome to steer at high speeds.
I’m on a bit taller side and I felt the bike to be a bit cramped specially when trying to get behind the bike for that special moment when you try to attack the corner very hard. People with a height upto 5ft10inch will enjoy the bike more than the taller guys.

TVS says: Most of our test riders fall in the category of 5ft10 inch to 6ft2inch and they didn’t face any such problem. That’s the beauty of those two seating positions which a lot of option to two different dimension of people. It has more to do with spending more time with the bike.
Could be yes.

The ride is a bit on the stiffer side bit I have no complaints as I always prefer a stiffer setting than a softer set-up. The gas charged shocks responds quicker to surface inconsistencies and also dissipates rebound damping energy thereby completely eliminating the bouncy aspect. But for longer hours of riding on a not so smooth road the back will take a bit of beating.

Chassis and Suspension
TVS says: We take extreme pride in our chassis and suspension development which is typically suited for both track and road conditions. The project engineers did extensive research in fine tuning the suspension and worked on the chassis to keep the balance and that’s why we feels proud in saying that this is a track tool.

Braking Performance:
Petal discs not only look cools but perform pretty well. Front disc brakes are very sharp and there is a sense of surety whenever you apply it. The rear disc is also very sharp and you don’t feel any sponginess in it. Infact people who have a tendency to use the rear disc brakes more should take it easy before using it properly as it may turn out to be a bane rather than boon.

TVS says: Most of our buyers are enthusiasts who know the correct technique of braking and hence we believe that they won’t face any problem.

Tyre Performance:
As against the popular belief that the TVS tyres are not good and specifically loses traction on wet conditions I found them pretty decent even if not excellent both in dry and wet conditions. But to be very frank I would have loved to see tubeless on the FI variant.

TVS says: We accept that the tyre quality in our earlier models( Read the first generation Apaches) were not great but now it is at par to the competition if not better. It’s the perception of public that we need to change. Tubeless would have added the overall cost and the bike is made especially for normal street and track and we don’t see the need as such. But in the higher capacity models you can expect to see tubeless.

Pillion Comfort:
I had the opportunity to have not one but two pillion riders who regularly sits behind me. As per my conversation with both of them this is what they have to say.
“The rear seat is pretty hard and a bit narrow. The two piece grab rails are pretty neat and very usable eve in the case of heavy braking and you don’t feel any pain in the hand. On sudden acceleration you don’t feel like falling backwards but on hard braking you have a tendency to fall on the rider”.
Note: The pillion have the experience of sitting only on Karizma and Pulsar 220 so the above lines are plain comparison with the said bike.

Miscellaneous:
Headlights: Works fine and provides ample light on night.
Horn: Does its job without creating major fuss but there is no need for any market fitments.
Switchgear including clip-ons: Pretty ok but for something bigger I would like to see a better finished product.
The best is definitely the digital meter with those added on features and the new blue backlit which makes it even more interesting.
Fuel efficiency: It’s difficult to predict the actual fuel efficiency but I got somewhere around 46 so a proper run-in bike will easily give 50-55 in day to day riding condition. On highway it will be a slightly more.

A short compare with RTR Carbed version:
Though both the bikes looks identically equal but on a closer look you can see the difference in the racing stripes pattern and also the different color backlit speedo. Rear disc is not there and also all the important FI is missing from badging. The difference is the exhaust note is prominent and with your eyes closed you can say that it’s not the FI version. After riding the FI RTR I didn’t liked the carbed one not because it’s a bad product but because FI variant is much better. The throttle response is not that crisp and you can feel a slight roughness in the engine. TVS had cleverly given only one FI variant to differentiate the product and they should seriously think of just continuing the carbed version in the price sensitive zones.

Official Press Release

TVS Motor Company introduces Fuel Injection
in the 160cc Category
- Company launches feature rich Apache RTR FI -

New Delhi: July 09, 2008 : TVS Motor Company, today unveiled its feature rich TVS Apache RTR FI, thereby introducing fuel injection for the first time in the 160cc category. This bike offers riders the instant thrill and superior performance of a fuel injected 160cc engine and is packed with rich and innovative features including a blue backlit speedometer that introduces data logging for the first time in the category. Data pertaining to the last three zero to sixty timings and the last three top speeds are logged and displayed on the speedometer. The bike’s new retractive tank scoop and open chain case gives it an even more racy cue.

Designed to ignite passions of enthusiasts, the naked aggression of the RTR FI makes it a clear leader in its class. It raises the bar in terms of power and performance, agility, dynamics, and ride comfort. The RTR FI is powered by a 159.7cc fuel injected engine, which develops maximum power of 15.9 Ps at 8500 rpm and a peak torque of 13.1Nm at 6500 rpm.

“With this launch, TVS Motor Company has given the common man an opportunity to experience high end technology in the performance segment, giving the rider a combination of an exhilarating ride performance with minimized emissions. The fuel injection technology deployed in the RTR FI gives the motorcycle crisper throttle response and enhances fuel efficiency.” H S Goindi, Head - Marketing, TVS Motor Company said.

“The RTR FI has further strengthened our presence in the premium segment and we also have firm plans to introduce more products in this segment by the year end” Goindi added.

The RTR FI is driven by a microprocessor consisting of an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) made up of sensors, a fuel pump and an injector. The ECU receives the data from sensors, processes it and delivers optimum fuel metering and ignition timing. The bike top speeds at 120kmph, can reach 60kph in 4.8s and 100kph in 17.7s.

Priced at Rs. 64,990/- ex-showroom New Delhi, the Apache RTR FI offers instantaneous response throughout the rev range to maximize rider feel, better idle stability, excellent drivability, better fuel economy and performance consistency at various altitudes and environments.

Innovative technology, a premium and racetrack performance bred product, powerful elegance in body design and superb ride dynamics make the new Apache RTR FI the new showcase of technology.

Honda to raise price of its world class cars

2009-04-29T02:06:00.000+05:30

Honda plans to raise car prices in India

The Honda Siel CEO sees the downturn lasting for another 6 months & points out that his firm caters to buyers in the premium segment, where the impact of an economic slowdown is tempered

New Delhi: Faced with a contracting demand for cars in India, Honda Motor Co.’s unit here expects to raise prices on its models and maintain slower production for the next six months, even as it keeps its plans for its small car, christened Jazz, unchanged.“Devaluation of rupee is impacting our business because 20-25% of our components are imported from Japan and Thailand. We need to adjust this cost impact,” Masahiro Takedagawa, president and chief executive of Honda Siel Cars India Ltd, said late on Saturday evening at a company awards function. “For the CRV it (the price increase) will be substantial.”

Honda Siel is working out the price increase for the other models but customers who had ordered the new model of the Honda City will be protected. Launched in November, the City, which has sold 12,233 units, helped Honda lessen the impact of the slowdown.‘Devaluation of rupee is impacting our business because 20-25% of our components are imported from Japan, Thailand.’In the Indian market consumer confidence has come back slightly, Takedagawa added. Still, the company has seen sales of its models, other than the City, decline sharply. Its total sales in January fell by one-fourth, to 5,773 units when compared with the same month last year. This resulted in the company cutting production at its Greater Noida facility, which is operating on a single shift from the start of this year. It now makes about 200 cars a day instead of the earlier 380 cars.

The production cuts have helped the company trim its inventory to four weeks. Once car sales pick up, it’ll take Honda two months to get back to a two shift production schedule, Takedagawa said. The Honda Siel CEO sees the downturn lasting for another six months and points out that his firm caters to buyers in the premium segment, where the impact of an economic slowdown is tempered. Even so, “customers are concerned with global economy so they have become naturally cautious”, he said.
Honda continues to push ahead with plans to launch the Jazz, a premium hatchback car. Trial production has started, Takedagawa said. Its 1.2 litre engine has been tailored to Indian regulations to avail of a 12.5% tax rebate.

Like its global counterparts, Toyota Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., Honda has also been wracked by slowing sales in India. But unlike them, it managed to close 2008 with a positive growth in unit sales due to its bike business.

THINKING OUT OF THE BOX IS WAY TO SOLVE MUMBAI TRAFFIC

2009-04-17T15:01:00.000+05:30

hello friends . one of my relative had recently mailed a letter to the head of
Mumbai Traffic Police with an unique idea for solving our congetion problem in our city . the unique idea of thinking out of the box by dividing roads in three parts.below is the the letter written .

Dear Mr. Athawale,

First of all, I must congratulate Mumbai Traffic Police for their patience in managing traffic not only during festive season but on a day to day basis. The constables who are their on the streets of Mumbai really put all of efforts to manage traffic in return of a very little recognition. I have tried to look at the traffic problem between Nariman Point to Andheri to begin with special attention to Mahim/ Bandra. If successful, similar study can also be done at other location. The below mentioned study is keeping in mind that it will take some time for infrastructure to be in place and in the meanwhile lot of congetion may take place due to construction activities.

We have always divided our roads in two parts. May be because there was never a need to look at it in a different way. However, with increasing traffic, we need to think out of box and one such measure is to divide road in three parts. As Mumbai is a linear city, movement of traffic is mainly in one direction. As such, for optimum utilization of road, we may look at option of dividing roads in three parts. An experiment for the same can be made at Bandra – Mahim creek bridge, wherein two lanes can be used for south bound traffic and one towards north bound up to 2pm and two lanes can be used for north bound traffic and one towards south bound post 2pm.

TRAFFIC MEASURES

Short Term Measures
North bound one way from Babulnath to Haji Ali on Pedar Road
North bound one way from Worli Naka to Mahim Church on Dr. Anne Besant Road
South bound one way from Mahim Church to Haji Ali on Tulsi Pipe Road
South bound one way from Haji Ali towards Kennedy Bridge
South bound one way from Kennedy Bridge towards Churchgate at Maharshi Karve Rd
No Right Turn from Mahim Church to Bandra
No Right Turn from Bandra Reclamation to Mahim
No left turn from Bandra East Flyover to Mahim church side
No Right Turn from Shivsagar Estate at Worli towards Haji Ali
One way on Cooper Hospital/ Alfa Road from SV Road to Cooper Hospital
Minimise Right turn at various road eg. Glaxo Junction, Bandra Linking Road,
No heavy vehicles to be allowed on bridges as far as possible.

Phase II on success of above
Complete One way on Linking Road towards North
Complete One way on Mithibai College Road towards South

Mid Term Measures
A Motor sub way below western express highway opposite Milan sub way
A flyover connecting Andheri flyover to Regency Hotel Turn
Joining Bandra Station west to Tulsi Pipe Road at Mahim
A road between Juhu Lane and Bhavans college at Andheri (west

written by rajendra mehta

Mumbai Towing Service: Is this how our cars are towed?

2009-04-15T19:22:00.001+05:30

I was just walking to a place near my house, and I found a car being towed. I took some photos. Let them speak for themselves. I have only one word to say. ABYSMAL! Just look at the way the car has been towed.
Nowadays no one can expect any sort of good work from this department. They are money hungry rascals who only work for money. JUST look at the flex on the poor bumper!
The shameless buggers didn't even object to me taking photos. I guess the 'chalta hai' attitude again. Miffs me to no end.
Photos!

cng vs lpg .... guess who wins it ?

2009-04-15T16:09:00.000+05:30

petrol prices are sky rocketing. Does this leave you with Diesel as the only economical option? NO! Times have changed! Presenting the new age car fuel alternatives – CNG and LPG; apart from being lighter on your pocket, these options are also environment-friendly.

Team-BHP explains the pros and cons of each fuel, as also about the issue as a whole.

With the Indian government providing several benefits on CNG and LPG, it is no surprise that buses and taxis in several metros have switched over. From easy availability to high subsidies, the government is providing complete support to these fuel preferences. As shown in the recent budget, bio-diesel is also given political preference now. Naturally, auto manufacturers have taken advantage of this and they now offer factory fitted options. However, some manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki prefer LPG where as others like Chevy & Ford opt for CNG.

Why opt for Gas?:
• Lowest running costs (compared to other fuel alternatives like diesel)
• Cleaner emissions
• Better resale value (in the case of factory-fitted kits only)
• Complete manufacturer-support available
• Any time switch over to petrol is possible

Factors that may hold you back:
• Initial investment in setup
• Reduced boot space
• Compromised power delivery
• Limited availability (compared to petrol and diesel). Few highways have consistent supplies. Also, some towns may not have any supply at all.
• Longer waits at the fuel pump

Are Natural Gas powered vehicles safe?
Natural Gas is an ideal fuel source for many reasons, including safety. Natural Gas is lighter than air. This means that it will not puddle (like petrol) which is heavier than air. Instead, Natural Gas will rise and dissipate in the atmosphere. Natural gas also has a higher ignition temperature. This means that it is much harder to ignite. Also the storage systems used for CNG and LPG are stronger than the petrol tanks found on cars and trucks today.

Want to switch? Here’s what you should do:
Consult the professionals at authorised high-quality service stations for the correct advice. Agreeably, this may cost you about 20% higher compared to your local unauthorised service station. But compared to the authenticity of the advice, reliability of the fittings and efficiency of the system, this price differential is well worth it. Team-BHP recommends only manufacturer-fitted kits or those from authorised service stations. Also, Please strictly AVOID the illegal LPG domestic-cylinder conversions.

Remember to:

• Endorse your registration certificate accordingly.
• Notify your insurance company. The premium may also go up marginally.
• If yours is a brand new car, you may stand to lose warranty coverage (even if the fitting is from an authorised service station

ARTICLE: How to Buy and live with a Superbike in India

2009-04-15T16:03:00.000+05:30

While you can buy a Ferrari F430, Porsche 911 Turbo and even a 4 crore rupee Rolls Royce Phantom off-the-shelf in India, the same simplicity does not apply to a superbike purchase. For some unfathomable reasons, the bike industry has not kept up with its automotive counterparts and the Yamahas and Hondas of the world seem content with selling 100cc economy motorcycles. For the enthusiast, however, this is hardly a deterrent as several grey market options are available. The options also come with their own disadvantages as the grey market is full of uncertainty and disorganization. While superbikes attract an import duty (customs) of 142% (used) or 88% (new), the market is very unpredictable. A correct and well-informed approach will go a long way in ensuring peace-of-mind with your superbike purchase.

Team-BHP shows you the formalities in buying / living with a superbike, and the measures you must implement to ensuring a hassle-free ownership experience.

Disclaimer: We use the term “Superbike” here as a blanket term to cover all forms of 2 wheeled imports. Strictly speaking, the term “Superbike” is applied to sports bikes with an engine capacity of 750cc or over.

The most important part first: Paperwork!

1. A lot depends on how reliable the seller is, what condition the bike is in and how clean the paperwork is. Search within the Team-BHP community for information on reputed superbike merchants and ask around in biker circles for recommendations. The reputation of a seller is very important.

2. An overwhelming 99% of import bikes in India are brought down via the “transfer of residence” route, wherein an Indian, living abroad for a certain period of time, is allowed to bring back the vehicle that he was using there (for a reduced percentage of duty). Under the “Transfer or residence” route, the vehicle cannot be sold for 2 years from the time of registering it in India.

3. Therefore, the first step is to verify the age of the bike and ensure that it is more than 2 years since it has been brought into the country. Remember, it doesn't matter how old the bike is; it is the date of registration in India that is to be considered. This important step ensures that the superbike can be registered in your name.

4. The second unspoken rule is to look out for where the bike has been registered. It is widely accepted that bikes imported and registered in Mumbai (MH-01/02) are considered as the cleanest imports. Bikes with “MP” and “KA” registration plates are to be looked at very cautiously.

5. Different states and cities have different ways of registering vehicles. For example, Mumbai issues a proper RC book (Registration Certificate) which includes all details about the vehicle as well as the import document numbers, bill of entry details, bill of lading number, passport details of the original importer etc. The RC book also keeps a record of the number of buyers. The RC book will also make a note of the declared value of the bike, the duty paid and all tax charges that have been cleared.

6. Very often dealers/brokers/owners will tell you that the original bill of entry was submitted to the RTO at the time of registration. This is absolute rubbish. The concerned authority generates three copies of the bill of entry; one stays with them, one goes to the RTO for registration and the last copy stays with the bike owner.

7. Many superbike owners do not register the bikes to their name. They simply hold on to the transfer papers and ride the bike for a few months before selling it to someone else. Make it a point to try and buy a bike from a person who has transferred it to their name as this shows that the owner is not a use & throw kind of rider, and the bike would have been maintained in a better way.

8. In the case of an out-of-state purchase, insist on an NOC (No Objection Certificate) from the RTO where the bike was registered. Without this, you will not be able to transfer the bike to your name or sell it on to anyone else.

9. What you have to watch out for are the bikes that are imported as parts, and then assembled here. In some cases, you will find that the RC book data would not correspond to the bike's data (engine/chassis numbers, make of the bike etc.). Many “baggage bikes”, as these are popularly called, do have the correct details (colour, engine cc, imported vehicle information, etc) of the assembled bike on the RC. Therefore, the key points to look out for are the Passport details of the importer and corresponding bill of entry number being mentioned on the RC book.

10. Buying older bikes is inherently safer as these bikes are now too old for the officials to really bother about. Also, chances are that the bikes have already been through the system a few times between owners and any problems would have come to light earlier.

Most major superbike manufacturers such as Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki are expected to offer superbikes officially on sale in India. We await that moment with open arms but until then, the above-mentioned route is the only way for you to own your dream machine.

Safe Driving in the rains

2009-04-14T12:13:00.000+05:30

As a country of extreme weather conditions and inadequate road infrastructure, India can offer some truly brutal driving conditions in the rainy season. At Team-BHP, safety is an absolute first. We do hope that the following tips & guidelines help you toward safer motoring in the rains.

Important

• Be twice as considerate to two-wheelers! Not only are they completely exposed to the rains, but neither do they have the same braking / grip levels as your car. Don't tail bikes either. They are prone to slips / falls and we don't want you to run over them.

• Likewise for pedestrians. In rainy conditions, pedestrians are extremely hard to spot. Also, please don’t splash water on pedestrians.

• Plan the journey such that you reach your destination within daylight hours.

• When possible, stay off the roads during heavy rains. If you are on the road and visibility gets worse, park someplace safe, get a cup of coffee and wait for the rains to simmer down.

• Don’t park anywhere on the road, or close to where other cars would pass you. Poor visibility could result in someone banging into your car. The ideal place to park would be one that’s off a street and at a level higher than the road. If you are parking only for a short time, switch your parking lights on.

• For overnight parking, choose a clean area and one that's away from rodents. Corner / isolated spots are best avoided. During the rains, rats take shelter under the hood and chew on wires.

which steps needs to be taken before modification

2009-04-13T01:50:00.000+05:30

• Remember to practice SAFE DRIVING on public roads! With additional power comes the need for additional responsibility. Keep the racing restricted to track days and in other forms of competition (within a controlled environment).

• Enroll with a professional rally / racing / driving school. This will not only make you a faster driver but also a safer one. To quote a popular Pirelli tagline : Power is nothing without control.

• Ensure that you are with the right tuner. The quality of install and product is most important. Get your work done only by a tuner who has the relevant knowledge, infrastructure and dedication to carry out a high quality installation. The product quality is equally important and it is generally recommended to stick to reputed brands (wherever available). A bad modification can actually make your car slower than in stock tune. Poor reliability may also result from a bad installation, causing a great amount of heart-burn to you.

• Remember that the engine is a very complex system and each component has to work in harmony with everything else. Only then will you benefit from the performance modifications.

• Tune your car via a step-by-step method. This will allow you to gauge improvements in an incremental manner and fine-tune one modification before moving on to the next.

• Choose a “mod-friendly” car to start with. Most Japanese brands like the Hondas and Suzuki’s have tremendous after-market support in terms of parts availability and tuner capability. Simply put, there are some cars which inherently respond better to performance tuning. On the other hand, it is a pointless exercise trying to make heavy cars like the Contessa or a Mahindra Jeep go any faster! Pick your car based on what you want to achieve.

• Beware of cheap “go-fast” gimmicks like the Surbo and electric superchargers, which are nothing but an absolute waste of money. Common sense plays a vital role out here; why would you need a DTM corner slammer on a front wheel drive car that spends most of its time below 120 kph.

• Remember that Vitamin M (or Money!!) runs the show. Tuning your car can be an expensive proposition, so outline a detailed budget before moving on from stage to stage. Not only will the modifications cost you big $$$, but lowered fuel efficiency (almost certain) will cause another dent on your wallet. Some highly-modified cars or engines running an increased compression ratio may also require high-octane fuel to run efficiently.

• Invest in a popular timing device like the G-Tech series. This range of timing equipment will help you to gauge the benefits of your modification, and whether that actually translated into making your car faster.

• Remember that your warranty will almost certainly be nullified, if your car is within the coverage period.

• Think before you try to alleviate the visual appeal of your car via body kits and spoilers. Be warned that a badly-designed body kit will ruin the aerodynamics of your car and may cause it to become unstable at high speeds. Also, spoilers are merely for looks and, in any case, work only above 175kph.

Choosing The Right Set Of Tyres for your Car

2009-04-12T17:45:00.000+05:30

Tyres are the fundamental link between your car and the road. A good set of tyres will improve the handling, steering, acceleration and braking of your car, and will make full use of any further modifications performed to your car. This article contains the bare essentials of choosing the right set of tyres for a typical passenger vehicle without getting too technical or specific.

There are five main elements you have to consider when choosing the right set of tyres for your vehicle:

1. Tube-type or tubeless
2. Size of tyre
3. Tread pattern
4. Rubber Compound
5. Overall quality of the tyre

1. Tube-type or tubeless

The answer to this question is very simple. Opt for tubeless tyres. They are safer, more advanced and have a few other small advantages too. You do NOT need to have alloy wheels in order to use tubeless tyres. However, for the best results, your steel wheels should be rust free (or just buy a new set as they are very cheap) and preferably have the insides coated with an anti-rust coating (See Discussion : Tubeless tyres on steel rims).

2. Size

Size is probably the most talked about and controversial part of buying tyres if you are going for an upsize. Tyre sizes are represented in a standard format. For eg. 205/55 R 15, which can be read as follows:
205 (mm) - or 20.5cm is the width of the tread on the tyre.
55 (%) - is the height of the sidewall represented as a percentage of the tread width.
R (Radial) - Radial construction, as almost all tyres are nowadays.
15 (inches) - Is the rim diameter of the wheel on which this tyre is designed to fit.

Choosing the right size can be broken up into three decisions:

Rim size - You have to choose a tyre size designed for exactly the size of rim you plan to mount the tyre on. Larger rims will effectively reduce the sidewall height (making the tyre lower profile) and therefore minimize sidewall flex when cornering, adding to the "on rails" feel, however, this will obviously have an adverse effect on ride quality and comfort.

Tread width - Generally a 0mm-20mm increase in width from the stock size is considered within the realm of sanity in the Indian context. Keep in mind that not only size, but tyre compound also plays a large role in "grippyness". To get a better idea of whether you should upsize your tyre width (if at all) see the chart on this page. Keep in mind that the tyre width also has an ideal wheel width which it works best with, try to keep this in mind otherwise you may end up having stability issues when braking hard or cornering.(Check the Rim-Width calculator to find out if your rims will be ok for your new tyres). If you increase the width of your tyres, you should also confirm that they do not touch the wheelwells of your car on turning the steering wheel all the way and when the car is under full load.

Sidewall Height (or Profile) - After selecting your rim size and your tread width, the objective is to choose a sidewall profile that keeps the overall diameter of the new tyres as close to original as possible. Use this calculator to judge changes in size. Generally a difference in the range of 3-4% is considered acceptable.Keep in mind that a change in overall diameter (OD) of your tyre & wheel combo will cause a slight error in your speedometer readings and odometers readings, which is purely academic. Also your ground clearance may change very slight (half the change in diameter).

how to get whole fuel efficiency

2009-04-11T23:37:00.001+05:30

DRIVING STYLE

• Drive smoothly: Aggressive acceleration and braking significantly increase the fuel consumption of your car. Develop a smoother driving style whereby you accelerate and decelerate in a linear and smooth manner. How you drive is very important to FE.

• Avoid clutch riding: Driving with your foot on the clutch results in “wastage” of engine power, which in turn increases your fuel consumption and wears out your clutch rapidly. Do not keep your foot on the clutch, except for when changing gears.

• Minimise Idling: If your car is going to be stationary for an extended period of time, switch the engine off.

• Choosing the right gear: Being in a higher gear at too low a speed, or in a lower gear at a very high speed increase your fuel consumption. It is important to shift up as “early” as possible without straining the engine. For most cars, the ideal shift point would be anywhere between 1500 – 2000 rpm.

• Maintain a constant speed: Varying speeds do not make the car as efficient as a constant speed will. Especially when out on the open road, try to maintain a consistent rate of travel.

• The Optimum speed: Aerodynamic resistance increases exponentially with speed. For e.g. at speeds over a 100 km/h, your car will consume a lot more fuel than at 80 – 90 km/h. Keep within this limit to maximize the FE of your car.

• A safe distance: Maintaining a healthy distance between your car and the one ahead is not only safer, but also leads to higher FE. This gives you a higher reaction time, better visibility and a smoother drive. Aggressive braking has a detrimental effect on your cars fuel efficiency.

• Around the corner: Short trips invariably make your car consume a lot more fuel. The primary reason is that every engine has an optimum running temperature, and very short distances will almost certainly result in your car running at a cold temperature for a majority of the distance.

• Windows drag: At high speeds, open windows can affect the cars aerodynamic efficiency. It is better to keep the windows rolled up and the air-conditioner on at speeds over a 100 km/h.

2009-04-10T15:15:00.000+05:30

ARTICLE: The Team-BHP Guide to BASIC Car Audio

2009-04-09T17:45:00.001+05:30

The first rule of car audio is to listen. Differences in taste and car acoustics combined with myriad combinations of head units, speakers and amplifiers make it almost impossible to design the ideal system for everyone. While the perfect system for everybody does not exist, with a little effort it may be possible to find the perfect system for you. Remember: it is your money, your car, your music and your ears. Listen before deciding.

When selecting a system, try to choose a large international brand that is widely available and supported by a good service network, like Alpine, Blaupunkt, JBL, JVC, Kenwood, Pioneer and Sony. We recommend buying only from official distributors that offer a manufacturer’s warranty.
The head unit: Today most head units (HUs) play only CDs – rightly so, since tapes are long past their prime – but there are still a few cassette units available and even some cassette/CD units. Because CD-only HUs are the most common, there is a wider available range of units of differing quality and cost. We recommend buying an HU that is MP3 compatible. Most HUs come with built-in amplifiers, but you should not believe the advertised power rating: it is usually inflated. These amplifiers normally only produce about 8-12 watts RMS, <0.1% distortion and 20 Hz-20 kHz. While this kind of power is not earth shattering, it should be enough for most uses. HU prices start at Rs.6 000.
Amplifiers: Amps are used for two purposes: to reduce the load on the HU power supply so that it performs better, and to increase the sound levels of the car audio system. In most cases 35-40 watts RMS per channel is more than enough, but advertised amplifier specs are often optimistic. You should check to see that amplifier distortion figures are less than (<) 0.1%, 20 Hz-20 kHz and that all channels are driven in parallel. Avoid amps that do not meet these specifications. Prices start at Rs.5 000 for a 4-channel amplifier and at Rs.3 000 for two channels.
Speakers: Speakers contain the fewest parts because they simply convert electrical energy to mechanical – that is why those cones move so much. Many audiophiles believe that speakers have the most influence on overall sound quality.

There are two basic speaker types: coaxials and components. In coaxial speakers the low frequency and high frequency units are molded into a single physical frame. In component speakers the low and high frequency units are separate and include a third part, called the crossover. Component speaker systems are more expensive but offer superior sound quality. To accommodate limited budgets people often use component speakers in the front of the car and coaxial speakers in the rear.
Wires: The quality of wiring is more important than most people think. Choose only wires manufactured by well-recognized, international brands.

Power wires connect the battery to the HU and amplifiers and provide an electrical ground to the body of the car. Cheap power wires may affect sound dynamics and cause other noticeable disturbances, like headlight dimming at high volumes. Good 8-gauge wire will do unless your amplifiers are particularly powerful.

Interconnects connect the HU to the amplifier. Since most amplifiers are installed in the trunk and most HUs in the dash, these wires typically have to run the length of the car. Because the signal generated by the HU is not powerful, these wires are susceptible to noise. By choosing a reliable set of interconnects you will ensure that your speakers play only music, not static or alternator whine.

Speaker wires connect the amplifier to the speakers. In systems that don’t use a separate amplifier, they connect the HU’s built-in amp to the speakers.
Installation: We strongly recommended that you use only certified professionals to install your audio system. Do not use the services of untrained installers who can cause serious damage to a car and audio system.

ARTICLE: How to modify a diesel car for more performance

2009-04-09T17:44:00.001+05:30

Modern diesel engines compete very effectively with petrol engines. Common-rail and some direct-injection turbo diesels are lightning fast, phenomenally fuel efficient and offer phenomenal torque that improves drivability. But is BHP ever enough? If you think performance enhancements are only for petrol engines, think again.

Team-BHP examines how you can get more power from your diesel engine:

1. Power chips and boxes: As simple to install as plug-and-play; in as little as five minutes you can shave upto three seconds from your 0 – 100 acceleration time. Most diesel engines are electronically controlled and a power box will adjust certain control parameters to significantly improve performance. Adding a better intake filter and a free flow exhaust will further improve the performance of your chipped diesel.

2. Turbo-charging: The high compression ratios in diesel engines call for tougher components than those used in petrol engines. As a result, it is easier to install and upgrade turbos on a diesel. Keep in mind that turbo-charging a diesel engine requires an increase in fuel pressure on the fuel pump. Find out more about turbo-charging from this linky.

3. Tweaking fuel pumps: Simple fuel pump tuning will provide more power, albeit at the expense of fuel efficiency. The most frequently modified fuel pumps are manufactured by Bosch. Contact a diesel fuel pump overhauling service to help you tune your pump.

4. Improved inhaling: More air means more oxygen which means more power. Since turbo-charged diesel engines need lots of cool air, RAM intakes offer noticeable performance improvements. The use of performance-grade filters also improves the intake characteristics of turbo-charged diesel engines.

5. Improved exhaling: A free-flowing exhaust leads to the smooth discharge of exhaust gases and results in improved performance. Also, turbo back-pressure is reduced by good exhaust flow.

6. LPG fumigation: Akin to NOS injection in petrol engines, LPG fumigation is the introduction of propane into the air intake of a diesel engine. The difference is that NOS can be used only for short bursts while LPG can be used for longer distances. LPG works like a fuel additive, providing a small amount of fast-burning fuel to aid combustion. It is relatively safe to use: diesel ignites at 350 degrees while LPG ignites at close to 500 degrees, so LPG combustion occurs only after the diesel has ignited. LPG kits for diesels are similar to the LPG kits used on normal petrol cars, except that they are boost-referenced as rather than vacuum-referenced. A properly installed LPG fumigation system will result in a better-running diesel engine. Recommended links for more information are mrsharkey and xtremediesel.

ARTICLE: CNG vs LPG Comparision

2009-04-09T17:41:00.000+05:30

Petrol prices are sky rocketing. Does this leave you with Diesel as the only economical option? NO! Times have changed! Presenting the new age car fuel alternatives – CNG and LPG; apart from being lighter on your pocket, these options are also environment-friendly.

Team-BHP explains the pros and cons of each fuel, as also about the issue as a whole.

With the Indian government providing several benefits on CNG and LPG, it is no surprise that buses and taxis in several metros have switched over. From easy availability to high subsidies, the government is providing complete support to these fuel preferences. As shown in the recent budget, bio-diesel is also given political preference now. Naturally, auto manufacturers have taken advantage of this and they now offer factory fitted options. However, some manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki prefer LPG where as others like Chevy & Ford opt for CNG.

Why opt for Gas?:
• Lowest running costs (compared to other fuel alternatives like diesel)
• Cleaner emissions
• Better resale value (in the case of factory-fitted kits only)
• Complete manufacturer-support available
• Any time switch over to petrol is possible

Factors that may hold you back:
• Initial investment in setup
• Reduced boot space
• Compromised power delivery
• Limited availability (compared to petrol and diesel). Few highways have consistent supplies. Also, some towns may not have any supply at all.
• Longer waits at the fuel pump

Are Natural Gas powered vehicles safe?
Natural Gas is an ideal fuel source for many reasons, including safety. Natural Gas is lighter than air. This means that it will not puddle (like petrol) which is heavier than air. Instead, Natural Gas will rise and dissipate in the atmosphere. Natural gas also has a higher ignition temperature. This means that it is much harder to ignite. Also the storage systems used for CNG and LPG are stronger than the petrol tanks found on cars and trucks today.

The Fiat Linea test drive thread

2009-04-09T02:41:00.000+05:30

When I first saw the car, I was a little apprehensive, which I still am because it looked too rounded and long for 8 Lakh cars, it reminded me of a catfish, with its snout stuck out like that.

Attachment 84399

The very next day after the Training commenced we were given the Details of the car , it's competition that Fiat Mainly Targeted was SX4,Fiesta,ANHC & the Verna. So along with the Linea the SX4, the Verna & Fiesta were there, as the ANHC wasn't launched then it wasn't available then.

The Car is sure loaded to the gills with features, If you guys go through the other Linea threads we can get a clear-cut idea of all the features in the car. The Linea on the road felt planted, might be due to it's low squatted stance, while in the car the whole car feels really low, the Power window switches and door locking switches are situated on the door armrest and all these felt enveloping around me, but the cabin was wide enough, to not feel claustrophobic, the Blue and me and MY CAR Function Switches are located on the steering wheel and also on the dashboard on the extreme right side under the steering wheel.

Attachment 84379

And no the Car haven't been stripped of any of it's features all that you see in the picture is there in the car.

The Overall fit and finish of the product seemed good, but still there were some grouches that can be seen in the car like the Steering column cover which had many unfinished rough edges and panel gaps, But the Steering wheel was Very good to hold and it had really good shape. The Rear seat space was "okay" and the seat reclining angle was very comfy, the ride in the back was unbelievable comfortable especially after getting rides in the competition cars. Even when going over speedbrakers or large potholes never did the Linea lose it's composure or give out loud noises when the suspensions bottomed out with 5 heavyweights in the car. The Ground Clearance of 161mm for the diesel car maybe a little problem but on the bright side the Skoda Octys are running around with 138mm GC , so that might not be much of a problem. The Petrol car's Ground Clearance is 165mm.

The Power Delivery from the Diesel Engines was smooth and It was very quite inside, outside there isn't much noise except for the usual Fiat Engine cooling fan which is soooo loud and it makes a huge racket just like in the Palio/Uno etc. Also the Fan's angle of deflection is same as that in the Uno/Palio which means all the Dust/dirt that is on the ground gets blown up and there is something like a sandstorm when the car is around. Typical Fiat Problem. Other than that the Engines were quite good, The diesel engine's Turbo lag is very low or unnoticeable, I just kept on flooring the throttle expecting the Swoosh like in the Swift/Palios but I was amazed when nothing like that happened till the redline at 5000RPM. The Diesel felt quick enough for that car, Maybe A Pete's Tuning box can be of much help to this car. The Petrol Engine felt Creamy Smooth and it sounded sexy, and there was adequate amounts of torque too but somehow, it felt underpowered to my taste after all 94.2PS is not something to write home about.

So the only question that remains now is, Is the Linea a better buy than the All New Honda City? Except for the engine everything is yes, then again there is no auto transmission even as an option, the engine is underpowered when compared to the ANHC,The built quality though much more solid than a Honda any day lacks the quality of the Honda. The service will be another aspect which we will have to wait and see, but I don't expect any miracles to happen in this part of the story, all the parts of this car is said to be heavily subsided up to 40% ,localization is still going on to keep the affordability factor in hand, the service intervals are quite long at 15000km between a service, the warranty is amazing at 80,000km or 1.5 years which can be extended to 3yrs or 1.5Lakh Kilometers.

The other cars like the SX4,Verna or the Fiesta don't even come into the picture in my opinion because of the unbelievable pricing of this car. The SX4 being too bland, the Verna Being bouncy, the Fiesta being too cramped, But it's just my opinion. This car like all the other cars when launched will have its own honeymoon period, when it will be selling like hotcakes for no particular reason, let’s wait and see that's all that I can say.

This is the Make or Break point for Fiat, If all goes well we can see the Grande Punto in 4 months time I guess ,but now your guess is as good as mine. As one of the Fiat India Production head said "If the Linea doesn’t do as well as we expected we can just pack up and leave".

Cheerscheers:

Muneem
Ex-Fiat Guy.

new ANHC A/T review

2009-04-09T02:38:00.001+05:30

it’s been a month since I got my new city automatic and thought I would start a review on my ownership with it.
The car has completed 2300 kms and the first service has been done last week.

It’s been an absolute pleasure to drive it around the city and on the highways. The auto tranny is very useful in the bumper to bumper traffic. The auto eases and makes life easier to drive in the mad traffic out there and it is effortlessly exciting to drive it in the city. Shift it to the ‘D’ mode to enjoy a smooth and comfortable drive in the city traffic. With almost 70km daily driving in city, this is exactly what the doctor ordered!

The engine is smooth as a butter, very very silent with none or very little vibrations getting inside the cabin. The cabin is well insulated from the outside noise as well. Could not hear any wind noise inside the cabin even at speeds above 100 kms/hr.

On the highways, shift into the S mode or use the paddle shift and you are rewarded with a powerful acceleration from the machine. She gets through her paces real quick. Engaging the paddleshift anytime to get the surge in acceleration is exciting.

Redlining her is joy. The engine starts to get vocal at about 3500 RPM and by the time it crosses 5500 RPM you are greeted with the typical Honda snarl, the engine note is real music to the ears. But I have heard the OHC vtec’s growl much louder!!

Managed to get her to 160 Km/Hr effortlessly in the ‘D’ Mode. The car is very stable at high speeds. The aerodynamic nature of the car helps prevents any loud boomy wind noise at high speeds. You hardly realize what speed you are doing until you glance at the Speedo which shows the motor spinning, lazily at 3000 RPM and the speed is 140 Km/Hr!!

The auto transmission can be driven in 3 ways,
1)D mode - engage and the machine decides, when to shift cogs. A gentle tab at the accelerator pedal, initiates the kickdown to give more acceleration if required. Apart from this you can temporarily override the auto and get instant power at the click of your finger! Using the paddle shift. It returns to auto mode after sometime.A mode where you leave on time and reach on time!

2)S mode - engage this mode for some spirited driving. The gear change in this mode is at higher RPM, more acceleration, engine vocal most of the time, snarling as the tacho begins to climb. Engaging the paddle shift in this mode, will bring the car in a full manual mode. Start late, reach early mode!

3)Paddle shift - engage this mode to unleash hell. Yes!! you get to exploit the whole revv band of the engine , and the revvs are held till the redline and more, after it hits revv limiter the car does give some kind of slight jerks to let you know she is not happy, you upshift and she is happy again! The car remains in manual mode till you engage the D mode. This mode is most exciting to drive. Haven’t used the mode, much as of yet.Upshifts are fully manual and the downshifts are semi auto.You are already there mode!

The paddle shifts are fun to use, especially in the Ghats. Putting the car to test on winding roads was a revelation and she performed much better than I expected. The car handles well on the bends at decent high speeds.

The steering is also feels nice at high speeds; a hydraulic or equivalent would have been perfect. The steering is superlight at slow speeds and as the speed increases it sort of stiffens. negotiating turns and lane changes or taking sharp turns or some hard cornering It does not feel scary.

The suspension is on the firmer side, which aides handling. It bottoms out on big speed breakers with full load and every time it does that my heart skips a beat!! Very annoying! Ride quality is pretty decent and nothing to boast about. The suspension being firm shake you a little bit on crater ridden roads.
The MRF rubbers it came with provide a good grip but are noisy at high speeds. An upsize/upgrade will make the cornering more confidence inspiring.
The ride is a little bouncy on some uneven concrete roads, not sure if the tyres are to be blamed here!
Brakes with more bite could have been better!
Music system, with the usb thingy is quite useful as I have lots of music in mp3’s.
Again the AC, The leg space, boot space are decent and nothing to complain about.
Seats are quite comfortable in the fronts as well as the rear. I love the driving position in the car and it is spot on.
I have done 2 highway trips in the car and both occasion blasted the engine and high revving it most of the time. The fuel economy was about 11 +. In the city it’s averaging about 11. All the time with 100% AC. Sounds ok to me.
To summarize on a positive note I can say that the I-Vtec Engine coupled with the Auto transmission offers a great driving dynamics in a comfortable manner with a low NVH makes it a great driving machine.
I see lot of features is offered in the other Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia missing in the Indian version. Like rear seat 60:40 split and a feature to recline the rear seat further. What was Honda thinking of not offering these features in India, how would split/reclining rear seats have increased costs for Honda!!
No ACC and alloys being the other major negatives.

My other ride, is a ford fusion, which was my daily driver till the Honda came, it is nearing 50 K, is a hoot to drive and have to say that the stick rules!! For comfort and effortless driving the auto has an edge though.

I would use this thread to continue updating the ownership experience.
uploading few pics.

Thanks and regards,

how to wash your lovely car?

2009-04-09T01:38:00.000+05:30

Regular washing and cleaning:

Don’t pour buckets of water on your car. It’s of no use, and a serious offence when it comes to water conservation. Honestly speaking, you don’t need more than three buckets of water to clean your car on a normal day.

Use a separate cloth for the body and for the wheels. The yellow/brown shade cloth that we get at traffic signals is useless. Instead, buy the other cloth (mostly blue) that has a typical Indian towel feel. Dip that new cloth in boiling water with detergent to get rid of unwanted starch and lint. This will also help it to become softer. Your new cloth is now ready to be used.

1. Soak the cloth in water (don’t squeeze) and wipe your car’s body with a light hand. Once you’re through with washing the entire car, clean the cloth in fresh water and start wiping the body dry. A good soft cloth should remove all watermarks from the body. Take one portion of the body at a time.

2. With a separate cloth; wash inside the mudguard thoroughly (atleast twice a week), the running board (also known as the door panel) and under the bumpers (not visible to most people).

3. Use a vacuum cleaner to clean the floor carpet at least once a week. Wash floor mats regularly, if need be.

4. After a long trip or the monsoons, take the car to a service station and wash the under body. Rubber coating helps (at the cost of spending INR 4000 to INR 5000). Additional value of the rubber treatment is its
noise-deadening quality.

Few points to remember:

- Don’t keep washing your car under the sun.
- Pour water on your windshield to loosen dust and hard particles.
- Try to avoid hard water (from the bore well) as much as possible. It’s the fastest way to make your paint fade and to invite corrosion.
- Use newspaper (black & white) to clean the glass.
- Remove road tar spots with diesel-soaked cloth.
- Alloys (coated with brake pad dust) should be washed with detergent. Use a soft toothbrush to clean those hard-to-reach areas.

ARTICLE: Extended Warranties. Yes or No?

2009-03-28T18:10:00.000+05:30

ARTICLE: Extended Warranties. Yes or No?
Team-BHP believes that warranties are a true expression of a manufacturer’s confidence in its car. Why does Fiat India only offer a one-year standard warranty? Why do Mercedes India and Skoda India not offer any extended warranty plans at all? It’s probably not a coincidence that their cars are the most expensive to service and maintain.

Standard warranties range from one to two years in India, though most cars now sold also have extended warranty plans available for a price. Are these extended warranties really worthwhile? You may be surprised, but they are. Team-BHP highly recommends you opt for extended warranty coverage.

The fact is that no matter how reliable modern cars are, their components are still expensive to replace. Unlike older model cars, it is seldom possible to repair or refurbish a broken part; replacement is generally the only option. It is not uncommon for electrical and mechanical parts to fail unexpectedly and even the pinnacle of reliability, Honda, has had fuel pump problems (worth Rs.20 000 or more) with the new Honda City and Accord. Air-conditioner compressors can cost over Rs.40 000 and defective engines and transmissions are even more expensive.

For only a couple of thousand rupees – between 0.5% - 2% of the purchase price of your car – you can buy the peace of the mind associated with an extended warranty that covers your car for up to twice the length of the standard warranty. An extended warranty is an insurance policy for your vehicle and a safeguard against expensive and unforeseen repairs.

Points to consider:

• When should you buy the extended warranty? We suggest starting the extended coverage with the delivery of your car. Don’t wait until later – some plans have restrictions on renewal or you may just forget.

• Is the standard coverage enough? If the standard warranty is for two years or 50 000 km and you plan to keep your car for two or three years and 20 – 30 000 km, then an extended warranty makes little sense. However, if you plan to keep your car for long after the standard warranty then an extended warranty is worth considering.

• What’s the reliability record of the model you’re purchasing?

• Who backs the warranty you’re considering? You may be buying a manufacturer’s extended warranty or an aftermarket extended warranty offered by your dealer. Knowing who underwrites your policy can help you understand the value of the warranty you’re considering: manufacturer-backed warranties score very highly when it comes to convenience and trust. Some dealers offer only an aftermarket warranty; if they do not initially offer a manufacturer warranty you should specifically for one.

• Is the warranty transferable? Some extended warranties end when you sell your car. A warranty that lets you transfer it to a new owner is an excellent selling point for prospective buyers.

• Can repairs be performed anywhere? Some contracts state that repairs must be performed at the dealership from which the warranty was purchased; this can be very inconvenient. It’s best to opt for a warranty that gives you at least a few service locations to choose from. You’ll appreciate the flexibility when your car needs work while on a road trip far from home.

• What exactly is covered? Know what’s covered – and not covered – with the extended warranty you’re considering. Make sure to check that the service contract covers breakdown as well as wear and tear. Before committing to a warranty, take time to explore the coverage. The differences between two plans might seem slight, but they can prove crucial.

Team-BHP feels that the relatively small cost of purchasing an extended warranty will save you money in the long run. Say “yes” to an extended warranty.

ARTICLE: How to get the lowest EMI & the best Finance Deal

2009-03-28T18:09:00.000+05:30

ARTICLE: How to get the lowest EMI & the best Finance Deal
With a never-ending stream of automotive launches and a plethora of financing options to choose from, it is now easier than ever before to buy a new car. Be warned, however: your urge to buy also makes it easy for financial companies to fleece you. Competition is fierce in the automotive market; be sure to use it to your advantage.

Team-BHP shows you how to get the best possible financing deal for your shiny new wheels:

1. Shop around: While this advice seems obvious, it is often ignored: getting rates from several brokers and car dealerships is the key to a good deal. If you intend to buy a Honda in Mumbai, bargain with Ichibaan / Linkway / Arya and any others. When you ask for your quote, tell the vendor that you intend to shop around and be certain that they know you are serious about buying. Casual inquiries take up a lot of time for dealers; an inquiry with good sales potential will make them bend over backwards for you.

2. Negotiate: Many people don't realize this, but if you want a great financing deal you will have to negotiate for it. Negotiate hard. Pit at least three competing quotes against each other and start bargaining with each vendor. You will be surprised at how quickly the offered equalized monthly installment (EMI) payment will drop in the course of an hour of simple bargaining. And its a LOT of fun too!

3. Targets: Start negotiating in the third week of the month. Most Indian agents have monthly targets and generally save the best rates for last minute deals to fill their quota.

4. Other accounts with the same institution: Leverage any existing relationship (credit cards, investments, etc) that you have with your financial institution. Most banks will offer a 1 - 2% discount based on the fact that you are already a known quantity to them.

5. Do not take the interest rate at face value: When your broker says that his great interest rate has been calculated "just for you", you don't have to take his word for it. Use any one of a number of online calculators to compare; chances are, your broker is bluffing.

6. Manufacturer financing plans: Some manufacturers offer financing plans that are less expensive than broker or dealership options. For e.g. the Tata finance option.

7. Nationalised banks: Nationalised banks like the State Bank of India have very competitive auto-loan packages that usually offer the best rates and terms, especially if you have an existing relationship with them. Meet with your branch manager for a quote.

8. Hidden fees: In today's competitive market there is no such thing as a processing fee for a car loan. Ask for an all-inclusive quote and check the fine print for hidden charges. These miscellaneous fees can amount to thousands of rupees. You will also see a difference in stamp duty charges etc. from one proposal to the other.

9. Do NOT opt for ECS: Even though automatic electronic withdrawal from your bank account is supposed to make life easier, the system is not yet a 100% reliable in India. Make your loan payments the old-fashioned way with cheques and read the Team-BHP forum discussion on ECS for more details.

10. Be wary of unauthorised dealerships: Even if you get a great financing offer, check to see who will be delivering your car. Some Direct Sales Agents (DSAs) have connections to unauthorised dealerships. These dealers often engage in shady practices like supplying counterfeit spares and are generally not worth buying from.

11. Pre-payment penalties: Some banks charge rates as high as 5% of the total loan amount if you pay off your loan early. Check to see if your bank included a pre-payment penalty in the contract and ask for a waiver / reduction if you intend to pay the loan early.

12. Maintain a good credit history: Financial institutions in India maintain a central database to keep track of your credit history. It is essential to keep a clean credit record by paying credit card bills and other loan EMIs on time.

13. Loan against fixed deposits: If you or your family has invested in fixed deposits, you are in luck. Taking a loan against fixed deposits leads to very lucrative interest rates, minimal paperwork (if at all) and flexible repayment plans. Banks usually give loans against fixed deposits at a +1 interest rate.

Happy hunting for the lowest EMI!

EDIT : Added a superb "Loan Amortization Schedule" excel sheet to this post; members can download the same. Thanks to BHPian nikunj_cal for sharing it with us. It will help you to calculate the EMI for different loan amounts, juggle between interest rates, calculate total interest, calculate foreclosure charges and so on

tips to consider during test drive

2009-03-24T05:16:00.000+05:30

These are few tips that I feel are important to be considered during TDing cars, we can keep on adding to that list.

NOTE:- To try out all these, you may need to TD many times (with different people, in different roads, etc). DO IT!! It is worth, before buying an expensive vehicle.

It is always good to go with a group for TD. You can take your family and also your friends who already own cars. Different people will give different perspectives which is sufficient to confuse you . Anyway, you have more data to decide.

Interiors:
Even though you can have close look at interiors on its quality, etc in display vehicle itself, it is still good to watch them during test drive to check if any issues like rattling or so crop up during movement.

Ride and Handling:
This is more important for drivers, so watch it!! Drive in flat and bumpy surfaces/roads and see how vehicle handles the road.

Try out cornering at regular and high speeds, U turns/90 deg turns/etc (to check driver's visibility, bumpy or not, etc).

Try out breaks at different speeds/gears/roads. If possible, try out breaking in wet surfaces too.

Does suspension feel good in rough roads, potholes, etc?

Engine, gear and steering wheel:
Try out acceleration, pulling up in slope with enough passenger loads with AC on, coming down in down hill and moving in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Check how fast it goes to higher speeds (if this factor is important for you) and how easy it feels.

Check how easy it is to shift gears up-to-down and vice versa. Does it feel hard in lower gears?

Check how steering wheel feels at different speeds. Do you feel pain of driving a heavy weight vehicle or very easy to control with just fingers?

NVH:
Drive for sometime by closing all windows, observe cabin noise at different speeds. Then put all windows down and then observe noise. Of course not much to investigate, but you should hear significant difference in noise (after filtering traffic sounds) - this confirms sound proof in cabin.

Try out different speeds for fan and check if the noise is decent or too much - during my TDs, I found drastic difference between 2 cars.

Observe vibration during idle and running. In modern cars, you shouldn't feel it (or may be, very slightly).

Find out how drive feels at lower/higher speeds to check if it is harsh or so.

While observing Noise, switch off stereo and also ask salesperson to shut his mouth , believe me it helps!! They always divert your attention by giving marketing gimmicks.

ICE:
When ICE is standard, then you can play different varieties like melody, rock, etc to feel the difference - this is nice to do, but not sure on practicality.

AC:
Very important to observe during TD. Manual: Try out different settings. Observe cooling yourself in driver seat and ask passengers in front/rear seats (if it cools enough and how fast it cools). Automatic: Try out different temperatures settings and observe if it cools enough and how fast it cools.

TD vehicles are normally driven by everyone right after each other, previous guy might have kept at any setting. For very short trips, AC may not really show any change as you intended. Wait for sometime, drop down windows, etc to ensure your settings will take effect.

Ask people sitting in front passenger seat and rear seats on AC effectiveness - do they feel it as you do?

Visibility and ease of use:
Check how these are viewable from driver seat: signal light, vehicles on sides, front and rear. You should get good view of all these.

How easy it is to access various controls (AC, stereo, etc) from driver's seat?

How much difference does it really give when you adjust seat height and slider.

Are you comfortable to look through ORVMs without tilting head too much? Is steering wheel adjust sufficient for you at different settings of driver seat?

Try out taking reverse without guidance from anyone to see if you are comfortable while alone and see if no object in car hides your vision (if so, be aware of it before buying!!).

Misc:
Check leg room and head room for you to see if sufficient. Similarly, ask your family folks for comfort of seats, leg room, and head rest comfort.

Hope this helps!! Happy TDing.....

2009-03-24T02:17:00.000+05:30

all prices ex-showroom delhi for BS-3 version

nano: Rs. 1,21,360
nano CX: Rs. 1,51,360
nano LX: Rs. 1,72, 360

booking amount:-

Nano:Rs. 95,000;
Nano CX: Rs. 1,20.000
Nano LX: Rs. 1,40,000

tata nanos launch less than 24 hours

2009-03-23T00:25:00.000+05:30

hey frdz
the blog which of which it is popular of tata nanos pictures is launch is less than 24 hours is at parsi gymkhana at 7.30 and also will be aired on the t.v do sit back and relax and see the grand lauch of tata nano 1 lacks kii car

YOUR 5 year old car : Keep, Upgrade or Swap?

2009-03-21T23:31:00.001+05:30

Indians generally trade / upgrade their cars after only 5 years of ownership. Here is a classic situation : Sell a 5 year old WagonR for that shiny new Swift / Getz / Vista. Or an '03 Honda City for a new Civic / Octavia / Corolla. Or an '03 Octavia for a new Laura / Accord.

Either you will buy a new car from the same segment, or upgrade to a higher segment. The latter seems to be the more popular option amongst BHPians. We were curious to know the absolute financial implications and ran some numbers on the excel. I have used a typical C Segment sedan as the basis of calculation. For segments lower or higher, simply equalize the appropriate numbers.

What actually makes financial sense? Should you retain your existing car for another 3 - 5 years or trade up toward a new car?

Considerations

• Since we are assuming that a 5 year old car is already on hand, I am going to calculate the cost of ownership from the 6th year to the 10th.

• A 5 year old car in India would have typically covered about 60,000 – 80,000 kms. Translated, it still has a good amount of useful healthy life in it. A well-maintained modern C segment sedan will easily deliver reliable service of atleast 1,50,000 kms. An immaculately maintained C-segment will go upto 2,00,000 kms or over.

• The loan is entirely paid off (Don’t you just love the non-EMI times of your life!).
__________________

Must-have Accessories for your new car

2009-03-20T21:13:00.000+05:30

With a plethora of accessory options available at dealerships (authorised and after-market), choosing the right add-ons can get confusing. Team-BHP enlists the “must-have” accessories for your new car.

Do keep in mind that car dealerships make a killing on their high-priced accessory fittings alone. We recommend buying most of your add-ons from the after-market. However, quality (of product and installation) is very crucial to some accessories, especially the electronic variety.

Interior Enhancement:

1. Mats: Floor mats and a Dicky mat.
2. High quality Sun film: This helps to protect the interiors and occupants from the extreme climatic conditions.
3. Seat Covers: We recommend art leather for its value.
4. Audio System installation / upgrade: If required.
5. Air-freshener: Keeps the interiors smelling fresh. Scroll-type fresheners which fit on the air-con louvers are very popular and effective.

Safety / Security:

1. Remote-locking security system: Not only for the added security, but also for convenience.
2. Steering Grip lock / Gear Lock: Great way of theft prevention.
3. Headlight bulb upgrade: Only if stock bulbs are inadequate. Upgrade headlight bulbs to more powerful ones with the appropriate relay and wiring.
4. Mirror Lock: Some cars require this to prevent theft of standard wing mirrors.

Precautionary Measures:

1. Fire Extinguisher: Can save you and your car in the event of an electrical short-circuit etc.
2. Tyre / Puncture repair kit: A must for highway travelers.
3. Fog lights: They aid driving in foggy conditions, and provide a life-saving backup if the headlights malfunction.
4. Comprehensive Tool Kit: Standard tool kits are always minimalistic, so get one that is as comprehensive as a swiss army knife.
5. Extra fuses: For crucial parts such as the headlight, starter etc.

Tyres / Alloys

1. Tyre Upgrade: Some models of cars come severely under-tyred from the factory. We would highly recommend you to upgrade your tyres to a more appropriate size. You can do this straight from the showroom to get the best exchange price. Link :
2. Alloy Wheels: If the budget permits.

Others:

1. High quality cleaning cloth
2. Branded wax polish
3. Car Cover
4. Parking Sensors
5. Child Seat

ARTICLE: Pre-delivery Inspection & Check List for buying a new car (AS PER REQUEST)

2009-03-20T21:10:00.000+05:30

Team-BHP enlists all that you should check for as a part of the pre-delivery inspection:

Before Registration:

We recommend visiting the dealerships stockyard and checking your car prior to registration. Once it is registered in your name, there is little you can do. Check the car manufacturing month/year, especially when buying in the first quarter of any year. Fiat India was notorious for selling cars that have been manufactured up to 18 months earlier. Ascertain that the year of manufacturer is current. If the odometer is disconnected, in all probability, the allocated car has been used as a test-drive vehicle. Also check for any repair jobs / body damage; damage to some cars is inevitable in transit and most repair work is glaringly obvious.

IMPORTANT : Check the tax calculations on the dealership invoice. Overcharging for RTO / octroi / lifetime taxes is a popular scam at many Indian dealerships. Pay only the actual charges due to the authorities and not a rupee more.

Preparations:

1. Confirm: the date of delivery with your dealership. It is best to go there only after the car has been prepared and is ready. If you have a preference for a particular day / time (for auspicious reasons), inform the sales person.

2. Daylight: We recommend accepting delivery in broad daylight, since the dark can conceal a lot. You may also not get good service in the evening since dealership personnel are in a hurry to wrap the day up.

3. Documentation: Ascertain that you carry any required documentation with you. This may include forms, receipts etc.

4. Payments: If any payment formalities are to be completed, carry along the relevant PDC’s / Cash / Credit Cards.

5. Third Person: It’s always a good idea to take a relative / friend along for suggestions, observations and comments.

6. Memories: Take a camera along.

7. Music: Carry a CD / cassette if your car is equipped with a stereo.

8. Gift: Take a token gift along for the sales guy.

At the Showroom:

1. Be Courteous: Don’t bully around. It’s a nice happy moment and the sales staff is as excited as you are. Treat them with respect, and you will get better service.

2. Get a Demo - Part of the salesperson's job is to acquaint you with your new car's features and how each one operates. Ask him to demonstrate the car fully, and top to bottom, in order to understand how everything works on the vehicle.

3. Visit the Service Department: We recommend meeting the service manager and getting familiar with the service center facilities.

Final Inspection:

1. Check the car again: A lot could have happened between the pre-registration inspection and today. It’s best to walk around the car and ascertain that the car is super clean! Look for any signs of repair work / damage such as paint difference, dents etc. Even the interiors should be squeaky clean.

2. Check that all lights and electric accessories are working fine.

3. Confirm that all the accessories you ordered are fitted on the car.

4. Check that the spare wheel is fresh. And that all related tools (spanner, jack etc.) are present. Are there wheel locks? If so, ensure that the lug key is there in the car.

5. Misc : Wipers, floor matting, first-aid kit & hazard sign.

6. What is the mileage on your car? It should not be more than a 100 km (or in the whereabouts) for most brands.

7. Ensure that there is enough fuel in the car. At least to get you to the nearest petrol pump.

8. Somehow, most new cars are delivered with over-inflated tyres by the showroom. Check the tyre pressure and make the necessary adjustments.

Documentation:

Read the paperwork! Don't take anybody's word for anything. Make sure all the blanks in the contract are filled in.

1. Invoice. (Check that the Chassis and Engine number of the car matches with the Invoice and / or Challan).

2. Sales certificate.

3. All payment receipts.

4. Registration book or temporary certificate (Some States). Is your name spelt correctly? Are the car chassis / engine number matching with the actual? Is the number plate made in accordance with the number on the registration book?

5. Insurance: Ensure that coverage is valid and active.

6. Original PUC certificate. This is valid for one year.

7. Owners Manual.

8. Duplicate Keys.

9. Original warranty with all relevant dealership stamps.

10. Extended Warranty (If opted for).

11. Warranty of third party items such as battery, tyres etc.

12. Roadside assistance Contact details.

13. Business cards of dealership and service personnel.

Say Thanks to everyone and leave!

ACER 4510 LAPTOP UNBAISED ONE

2009-03-19T23:51:00.000+05:30

I'll start everything off by saying that the Acer 4530 is a complete sleeper notebook, only lately popping up on some folks radar, but it sure is a good one. Don't be fooled, and don't let the Intel evangelists fool you either, this notebook, provided you get the right deal, is the best bang for your buck you're likely to see in some time! Please excuse the lousy pictures, my digital camera broke, and I had to use a camera phone.

Here in Canada, I bought the 4530 for $650CAD, or roughly RS25900 with the following specs:

AMD Athlon X2 64bit QL-60 @ 1.9Ghz.
3GB DDR667 In Unganged Dual Channel mode
Low Light WebCam
250GB SATA 150 HDD
8xDVD-RW DL SATA 150
Atheros a/b/g/n WiFi w/ WiMAX support
Gigabit 1000Mbit Ethernet
9100m-G Integrated mGPU
Vista Home Premium 32bit SP1
4400mAh 6-cell Battery
Sadly, NO BlueTooth in Canada models..

Upon opening the box, the first thing I noticed was the sturdy build quality. Many Acers of the past have been accused of flimsy or dodgy build quality, but let me tell you, this Acer is rock solid (although a few have complained of loose batteries..).
Looks-wise, the Acer sports a beautiful Blue Gem finish on it's top, complete with a matte black interior and a gorgeous, albeit a little over-bright glossy screen @1280x800 [16:10]. In this man's opinion, it is wonderfully understated, without coming off as boring at all. For looks I'm giving it a solid 4.5/5

For features, the Acer 4530 comes with 3 USB 2.0 ports, a VGA-out, Gigabit ethernet port, 56k Modem port, 3 mini-jacks, an Expresscard 54 slot, 5-in-1 Flash Card Reader, a 8x DVD Burner with DL support, and a volume wheel (that actually controls the OS volume mixer!) and a Low Light WebCam. The mGPU is integrated, and relies on system memory, but it's no slouch as it beats the HD3200 and the 8400 G Dedicated card. The feature set is respectable, but warrants a few notes of interest.

Firstly, there is no HDMI port, which some might balk about given the incredible PureVideo HD this mGPU supports. Secondly, found the USB ports can have different throughputs for a given device. This I found very odd, and only occured on a single USB card reader, but nonetheless was very curious.
On the bonus side, the fact there are 3 mini-jacks instead of 2 is a huge plus, although the current drivers do not allow reassignment, future drivers likely will. The trackpad on the 4530 is amazing, and works beautifully. It truly is a joy to manuever around without a mouse, not a pain like one might expect. Lastly, the WebCam is Fantastic! It is very smooth, and there's hardly any grain. Those who are used to Toshiba or HP WebCams will be very happy with this WebCam.
The keyboard is a mostly positive experience, although I personally found the shift button way to small, and putting a backslash key under the 'a' key is absolutely absurd. The keyboard if wonderful to type on if you can put up with that however, and is very tactile if not a little bit audible (but not ever enough to annoy even the most easily irratated).Points were deducted for the lack of HDMI, and for the lack of BlueTooth (feel free to add a half point if your model has BlueTooth, some do).
For features I give this Acer a 3.5/5

The layout is topped-off with an 'empowering' button, which is acers launchpad app, and five hotkeys. I'll note something here that might amaze all of you.. the Acer 'Empowering' launchpad actually doesn't suck! It is unobtrusive, takes nearly no memory, and is genuinely useful! It gives you access to ALL your power profiles and other options in the e-power app, backup options, and others which can be individually in/un-installed at a whim. I liked this app enough in fact, that after doing a fresh reformat and Windows install, I actually wanted to install the empowering launchpad, and did! One unusual thing is the placement of two currency keys on either side of the 'up' arrow.. it's not in the way at all, possibly it's even handy, but it is unusual. Keys are well laid out, especially the home..end setup. For layout I had to take a whole point off for horrendous placement of a backslash key beside the left shift button, killing what coould have been a perfect score. It really takes getting used to; regardless of this the layout still earns an enthusiastic 4/5

Performance wise, the Acer is no slouch, was quick to perform most all tasks I would have need of throwing at it. The fact that this notebook supports unganged Dual Channel mode means that even having a 1GB and 2GB ram setup, I still get to enjoy dual channel mode. When one of the Dimms gets full, it's simply operates in single channel mode from there on, this is something I love.
Games are no problem on this notebook, but don't expect to play Crysis on it, as that can only be done lowest resolution, and details at their lowest setting (although it plays quite fluently at this setting!) I however, personally get more enjoyment playing oblivion,Two Worlds, or Titans Quest on my Acer, so this doesn't bother me much. Value for Dollar, Bang for Buck, I give the 4530 a 4.5/5

Now here comes my overall impression, my tilt, my sway. but first I'll say that overall, based on averages the Acer 4530 earns a 4/5, but that's not the final word. I am going to add a bonus of a full point for overall worth, for overall bang for the buck, for taking the entire package as a whole and judging it. I really am enamoured with this notebook. I've never owned a notebook where the package as a whole seemed so complete, so competent, and at this price I can't help but recommend it, very very highly, to anyone looking for a great noteook on a budget.

Final Score: 4 / 5
My Personal Score: 5 /5

Recommendations: If you're on a budget, and need a good notebook, this one will not disappoint.

Price Point Competition:
HP Q60 series - Nowhere near the quality of the 4530. Sticky trackpad. Garbage WebCam. Good Screen.

Compaq Q50 series - Similar to HP Q60, looks much better (than Q60), costs much less and better value (than Q60).

Toshiba L300 series - Closest to Acer for competition, but the build quality is slightly inferior, and the GPU is far weaker. The screen, while decent, is nowhere near as nice as the Acer.

EDIT: I've decided to run some Doom 3 Benchmarks and post the results:

Here are my results from TimeDemo 1 recorded using FRAPS 2.9.8 Full

Doom 3 High Quality @ 800x600
min: 21fps
max: 91fps
avg: 42.032fps

Doom 3 High Quality @ 1024x768
min: 12fps
max: 65fps
avg: 29.060fps

Doom 3 Ultra Quality @ 1024x768
min: 10fps
max: 63fps
avg: 27.265fps

OS was a fairly well used Vista 32bit, daily use, not fresh formatted.

REVIEW Zenith Director Plus Ultra Laptop

2009-03-19T23:50:00.000+05:30

hi friends...
so finally after two long delays i got my laptop last sunday. i am writing this on this laptop only...

guys i am not a good writer, i have never written any review before. i am busy these days so first i will write a quick intro and elaborate this post later. I just wanted to post this becoz so many ppl are confused about this laptop and like me they have not seen anybody using zenith laptops.

I was buying the laptop with C2DP8400 2.2Ghz processor but that was 44k, in 40k i got T5800 @2Ghz. (will update about the FSB of this later). Why?? becoz i read somewhere that 4k is too much for 200Mhz increase and i am always near to power socket so i dont need much battery life.

here is the config.

C2D T5800 @2Ghz (800mhz FSB(not sure about this, may be 1066mhz))
4Gb ram
320Gb hdd sata 5400rpm
15.4 1280x800 screen
and rest everything u expect

although it has 4Gb ram but 32bit windows only shows 3gb ram, i google it and found out that this is the case with 32bit, the total addresable is 4gb but windows assigns some parts of its address lines to address other things..(google it for more info). the customer care says that if u install 64bit OS than only u get 4gb ram

Looks:
I like the looks, not as good as dell or hp, but definitely better than lenovos i hv seen. I have the pure black color with small white circles here and there.

Build quality:
the keyboard is ok. the keys responds well and have nice feedback.
screen is good and gives just about the right brightness
the laptop is heavy but the body do not look tough.
the dvd writer tray plastic is very very poor quality.

Bad points:

one really annoying thing is that they hv put mouse tracker not in the center but slightly towards left. every now and then my thumb or palm touches it while typing and the cursor goes here and there. i need to always keep my left hand a little up on the palm rest.

the speaker have very low sound output. but the sound quality is ok.

there are no shortcut buttons on the panel, i dont know why? there is lot of empty space on top. all the shortcuts are merged in function keys, so u hv to use "Fn" + function keys to use simple thing like mute.

the carry bag can only carry this laptop, no extra pockets.. ok they do hv some but really of no use. forget about the looks. but build quality is very good.

More bad points:
..coming soon, (only used this lappy for two days, plz tell me what more u want tested)

Good points:
ok so lets see why i like this lappy..

Games:
for now i only played GTA4,, call of duty 5, nfs carbon... no problems at all... at 1200x800 res all was blown away... gosh... i luv my laptop..

the system is very fast... windows xp runs like win98. will test Fedora 10 and vista soon.

all my prgramming softwares like visual studio 2008, eclipse, ran like anything.

VERY VERY RARE PIC OF 1954

2009-03-19T20:00:00.000+05:30

Tata launched its first Mercedes Benz diesel truck, Telco.

First Impressions: Yamaha FZ16

2009-03-19T13:34:00.000+05:30

One look at the images of the striking orange FZ launched in Goa, and I thought “This is one handsome looking bike, one which I must have.” Earlier to this, I was subjected to this reflex thought only for the 2008 Honda Fireblade, Yamaha MT01 and the Honda CB1000R.

I feel that this is one bike which looks perfect from all angles, something which no other Indian two-wheeler had managed to achieve so far. So what if they had to Xerox the fantastic actual FZ power-bikes and scale them down for India? That makes a lot of business sense and displays market logic.

The once abandoned Yamaha showrooms have started getting horsed of youth traffic, the salesmen are back on their feet again and have a sincere reason again to comb, shave and brush their teeth before they reach the counters daily.

For a true Yamaha fan this is how the stable would look: Yamaha RX100, Yamaha RD350, Yamaha R15, Yamaha FZ16, Yamaha R1 and Yamaha MT-01 – and make that all black for me please, and oh yes, you can buy all the bikes within India – legally. Fantastic, really!

Of course that is where the comparison ends in the above mentioned motorcycles. The FZ16 is not a powerhouse, but a premium executive-commuter-streetfighter, which makes it even more incredible for me. I having trouble accepting that people will buy this bike in hordes just to commute to the office or get vegetables on it. But the very same bike can be used in the umpteen B-grade adverts and Tv soap operas as the chariot of the good looking college chocolate-hero making passes at girls or the spoilt rich brat with a expensive bike respectively.

All the above made possible by the lethal combination of the incredible muscular styling and the spot on price tag.

My only grouse? Why wasn’t it there when I was in college? Why did I have to ride skinny bikes with an engine that couldn’t even pull a small cat out of the well. Darn!

With the Honda Stunner and now the FZ16, things are at all time high for the impressionable young male. Lots of options to impress the damsels with. This means lots of sales, and this would in turn mean better bikes for all of us as the Japanese giants pump in more money into this sector. We are in a win-win situation at last.

I am also pretty sure the FZ16 would be a corner carver, a bike which I would as much love to take to the mountains and as just sit and admire its great looks.

But then why won’t I?

It may have the ‘FZ’ in it’s name, but ultimately it is just another 150CC bike, something which wont seal the deal for a person like me, who has been biking on a few performance machines which have more than just the name in their DNA. Had the mill been producing even 17PS, the same as my Karizma (which again is not a performance machine, but a compromise that we all have had to make, albeit a good one), I would have dumped the Hero Honda and gone for the FZ. But sadly, that is not the case.

However, the fact remains that everytime I see this bike at a red light, at a parking, or laden with a family of four, I will have a slight twitch in my heart with a wish to own it, then I will have a slight twitch in the right wrist and make it a blur in my rear view mirror so as to shorten this agony and reclaim the validity of my decision of waiting for tad more for the perfect bike which not only looks like a Greek god but performs equally well at the Olympics.

Yamaha has built themselves a solid base on which they now cannot afford to be complacent. The passion has been rediscovered and hopes refilled with premium quality Helium. They can’t afford to be complacent now, and I am sure they won’t be.

The next version I expect in the FZ series is the 250CC engine which this bike had, but surprisingly isn’t launched even till now:

Love: The naked styling, FZ brandage, generous rubber, price tag
Hate: Power, but not really considering the target market
Did not understand: Why it was named FZ16 and not the FZ15.
Best Color: Orange
First modification to be done post buying: Loose that damned saree-guard! Thank you.
Perfect Track Day companion: Yamaha R15
Perfect Touring Companion: Comet Gt250 or the Karizma
Perfect Power riding companion: Yamaha MT01]
Next Logical Upgrade in the bike: Fi, projector lamp
Specifications:

Engine type
Air-cooled, 4-stroke, SOHC, 2-valve

Displacement
153.0cm3

Bore & Stroke
58.0 × 57.9mm

Compression ratio
9.5:1

Maximum output
14PS / 7500 rpm

Maximum torque
14 N.m / 6000 rpm

Starting method
Electric starter

Lubrication type
Wet sump

Carburetor type
BS26

Clutch type
Constant mesh wet multiplate

Ignition type
CDI

Transmission type
Return type 5-speed

Chassis

Frame type
Diamond

Suspension (front/rear)
Telescopic / Monocross

Wheelbase
1,335mm

Brake type(front/rear)
Hydraulic single disc / drum

Tire size (front/rear)
100/80-17 / 140/60-R17

dimensions
Overall Length × Width × Height
1,975mm × 770mm × 1,045mm

Seat height
790mm

Wheelbase
1,335mm

Minimum ground clearance
160mm

Dry weight/Curb weight
126 kg / 137 kg

Fuel tank volume
12 liters

Engine oil volume
1.2 liters

koda dealer changes parts in my car = Consumer Court = Car not returned in a YEAR!

2009-03-17T20:45:00.000+05:30

while surfing on net i found a very interesting case of Harish Kanchan see that he says :-

I am fighting with Skoda for the last one year now. You may be aware their dealer in mumbai, Nummer Eins had replaced spurious parts in my car to the tune of around 4 lakhs. They had even stolen the 3rd injector and the steering rack and substituted them with fakes. They did not spare the battery either.

I took the matter up with skoda. You might find it hard to believe but customer care head Karthik Ramesh is hand in glove with the dealers. God knows what kind of kick back arrangement he has with them but i can assure you he is the recipient of this fraud committed by Skoda dealers.

I followed up with
Andreas Prinz, MD, Volkswagen India
Jorg Mueller, President, Volkswagen India
Eva Dradkova, Consul General, Czech Republic, Mumbai
Reinhard Jung, Chairman, Skoda Auto, Czech Republic
Karsten Bugon, MD, Skoda Auto India
Adam Pavel, Customer Care, Skoda Czech Republic
Walter Stechel, Consul General, German Consulate, Mumbai
Bernhard Steinrucke, Director General, Indo German Chamber of Commerce

I got few encouraging replies from some of them. Andreas Prinz in fact followed it up personally with Bugon. Unfortunately these Germans are not aware of the mischief played by Skoda, Indian executives.

Skoda india have no care and regard for the Indian consumer. They treat them with utter disdain. i visited Aurangabad and insisted on meeting Bugon. I was stopped at the gates and not allowed to do so. However this visit galvanised customer care head Karthik Ramesh to hush up the matter. He diverted my car to JMD Auto and sent one of their engineers to inspect my claim. One of the most honest guys in Skoda, Mr. Ramakrishna Surabhi inspected my car at JMD Auto and confirmed all my allegations.

I am in possession of their internal vehicle inspection report submitted by Surabhi. I got this with great difficulty and maneuvering.

Skoda replaced all the faulty parts in my car with originals. They then tried to pull a fast one on me. They wanted me to give them an undertaking as a precondition for delivering my car with rectified original parts. The undertaking mentioned that these spurious parts were not put by their dealer.

I refused to do so and Skoda asked me to pay for the repairs and take delivery of the car.

Also, the night after the parts were replaced, Skoda official Yogesh Vaidya, tried to smuggle out the spurious parts removed from my car out of jmd showroom after it was shut and i had gone back home. Some one known to me at jmd called me up and informed me. I rushed to jmd to see the parts just about being loaded in a car. Guess whose car? Nummer Eins car. Can u imagine? The fake parts were being taken back to Nummer Eins under instructions of Karthik Ramesh. Car enthusiasts at team bhp - draw your own conclusion.

Also, Nummer Eins, meanwhile tried to hush me down with attractive offers of cash, new car and threats. I chose to fight.

I approached the district consumer forum which gave an interim ruling ordering Skoda to release my car repaired to its international standards immediately. Skoda appealed to the state forum which stayed the release of my car. Due to a huge backlog of cases the case is proceeding slowly.

i was helped immensely by the media namely
Hemal Asher, Mid day
Soumitra Pote, Maharshtra Times
Danish Khan, Mumbai Mirror
Ravi Rao and Hafeez Mateen, Times of India
Durgesh Singh, Navbharat Times
S. Muralidhar, The Hindu

Skoda is a big advertiser in newspapers. Lot of pressure was put to stop these newspaper articles.

However the press reports finally worked and on 5th september 2008 skoda terminated the dealership of Nummer Eins in their ad in the Times Of India giving them an apt teachers day lesson.

Skoda continues to fight with me with their clout and resources because they have to protect their image and my matter has kind of become a prestige issue for them.

I have all the documents and photographs to prove my entire case.

A piece of advice for those people who have been cheated by Skoda. Don't go to court. They wouldn't mind paying the compensation even if they lost. It is small change for them. I have observed what hurts them most is the press publicity. Hit them where it hurts. Go to the press and present your case with proper documentation and records. The entire media is aware of the renowned skoda attitude ' obsessed with arrogance'. They will take it up.

Also, I wish to file a class action suit against Skoda in India. For that I need similarly affected people. At least ten of them. We can teach Skoda a lesson. - the common car owner in india is not to be taken for a ride. I am waiting for people to come forward and fight with me. So far I have been fighting single handedly. I would like to appeal to all team bhp members similarly affected to come forward.

Harish Kanchan
+91-98331-38094
harishk63@gmail.com

TATA NANO DETAIL WITH PICS OF THE FIRST ROLE OUT

2009-03-15T13:16:00.000+05:30

tata nano-full specifications and features

launch: 23rd march, 2009

models:

nano base
nano CX mid level
nano LX top end

cost of base model not to exceed Rs. 1,00,000 ex-factory
safety as per Indian standards
seating capacity of 4 persons

engine:

all aluminium rear mounted MPFI
EMS: 32-bit microprocessor
piston displacement: 624 cc, petrol with single balancer shaft
drive train: rear wheel drive
cylinder count: 2 cylinders
valve gear: 4 valves, 2 valves per cylinder
max power: 35 bhp@5500 rpm
torque: 4.8 kgm@3000 rpm
compression ratio: 9.7:1
power to weight ratio: 0.58

acceleration: 0-60 kmph: 8 secs
top speed: 105 kmph

EMS electronic engine management system with "blink code mechanism" for easy repairs

fuel cut-off for safety

transmission:

gearbox: 4 forward speeds, 1 reverse, all forward gears synchronised
operation: cable operted

transmission ratios:

1st: 3.45, shift upto 10 kmph
2nd: 1.95, shift between 20-30 kmph
3rd: 1.26, shift between 30-50 kmph
4th: 0.838, shift between 50-70 kmph
reverse: 3.08

suspension:

front: independent mcpherson strut, shock absorber
rear: semi trailing arm, coil spring with gas filled shock absorber

brakes:

front: 180 mm drum
rear: 180 mm drum

wheels and tyres:

wheels: 12"
front tyres: 135/70 R 12 tubeless
rear tyres: 155/65 R 12 tubeless
spare: 1 tyre, 135/70 R 12 tubeless

tubeless radial tyres standard on all variants

in case the front tyre punctures, you can replace it with the stepney provided.

in case of a rear tyre puncture, since there is no stepney of that tyre, Tata recommends:
don't go beyond 40-60 kmph in case of puncture
get the tyre repaired ASAP
drive carefully at sharp turns
recommended tyre pressure:

front: 26 psi
rear: 28 psi

turning radius: 4 meters

dimensions and weights:

length: 3099 mm
width: 1495 mm
height: 1620 mm
wheel base: 2230 mm
ground clearance: 180 mm

kerb weight: 600 kg
fuel tank capacity: 15 litres
fuel cut-off @ 5600 rpm in every gear or at 105 kmph

fuel consumption: 23.6 kmpl

battery: semi sealed under the driver's seat

boot capacity: 80 litres
500 litres with seats folded

features:

Nano base:(available in BS-2 and BS-3 varients)

seat belts: front ELR, rear static
ONLY ODOMETER
fixed tail gate. engine opening through rear bumper
egg shaped design
rear mounted high mounted stop light
centrally placed exhaust
ONLY DRIVER'S seat adjust-sliding and reclining
fixed co driver seat
REAR FOLDING SEAT
2 spoke steering wheel
grey bumpers and interiors
driver side OSRVM

Nano CX:(available in BS-2 and BS-3 varients)
adds to nano base:

ONLY ODOMETER
HVAC (air conditioner with heater)
tinted glasses all round
DRIVER AND CO DRIVER SEAT SLIDING AND RECLINING
2 tone grey interiors and seats
metallic paint optional

Nano LX (available in BS-3 varient only)
adds to Nano CX:

front power windows
central locking
front and rear fog lamps
3 spoke steering wheel
moulded door trim with fabric
TRIPMETER AND ODOMETER
floor console with glass holder
anti glare inside rear view mirror (prismatic day/ night)
sunvisors on both sides

warrenty

18 months or 24,000 km whichever is earlier

service interval:

1st free: 1000 km or 1 month whichever is earlier
2nd free: 5000 km or 6 months whichever is earlier
3rd free: 10000 km or 1 year whichever is earlier

subsequent service every 10,000 kms

colours:

nano base:bright red, ivory white, summer blue
nano CX: bright red, ivory white, summer blue, champagne gold, lunar silver
nano LX:champagne gold, lunar silver, sunshine yellow

merchandise available at dealers:

nano phone
nano watch
nano caps
nano bags

booking starts: 2nd week of april, forms available 7 days before the booking date is announced and forms will be available only for 14 days.

DEALERS ARE EXPECTING ABOUT 10 LAKH BOOKINGS

Booking forms will be available at:
SBI
westside
croma store
400 tata motors dealers across the country
cost of forms: Rs 200-300

online booking also available

expected: 90% booking from dealers

Only one form per customer (in his name) will be accepted.
No more than one form in the same customer's name will be accepted.

NO ECS REFUND.

booking amount: 70-80% of the car's ex-showroom cost.

after booking closes, allotment will be done on the basis of random number lottery where the lucky customer's name will be declared along with the name of the dealer from where he/ she can take delivery of the car along with date and time of delivery will also be specified.

(note: booking dates may change as it will be announced at the time of launch. there is no typing error and whatever facts and figures typed are 100% correct)

all the best to the nano bookers!

kaizen

2009-01-08T10:06:00.001+05:30

Keizen Defined
Keizen (or Kaizen) is Japanese for "change for the better" or "improvement" and is an approach to productivity improvement originating within industry programs by Japanese manufacturers after World War II. The development of Kaizen went hand-in-hand with that of quality control circles, but it was not limited to quality assurance.

The goals of kaizen include the elimination of waste (defined as "activities that add cost but do not add value"). A closer definition of the Japanese usage of Kaizen is "to take it apart and put back together in a better way." What is taken apart is usually a process, system, product, or service.

Kaizen is a daily activity whose purpose goes beyond improvement. It is also a process that when done correctly humanizes the workplace, eliminates hard work (both mental and physical), teaches people how to do rapid experiments using the scientific method, and how to learn to see and eliminate waste in business processes.

Importantly, kaizen must operate with three principles in place: process and results (not results-only); systemic thinking (i.e. big picture, not solely the narrow view); and non-judgmental, non-blaming (because blaming is wasteful).

Everyone participates in kaizen; people of all levels in an organization, from the CEO on down.

The only way to truly understand the intent, meaning, and power of kaizen is through direct participation, many, many times.

Just in time

2009-01-08T10:04:00.000+05:30

JUST-IN-TIME (JIT) PRODUCTION
Just-in-time (JIT) is defined in the APICS dictionary as “a philosophy of manufacturing based on planned elimination of all waste and on continuous improvement of productivity”. It also has been described as an approach with the objective of producing the right part in the right place at the right time (in other words, “just in time”). Waste results from any activity that adds cost without adding value, such as the unnecessary moving of materials, the accumulation of excess inventory, or the use of faulty production methods that create products requiring subsequent rework. JIT (also known as lean production or stockless production) should improve profits and return on investment by reducing inventory levels (increasing the inventory turnover rate), reducing variability, improving product quality, reducing production and delivery lead times, and reducing other costs (such as those associated with machine setup and equipment breakdown). In a JIT system, underutilized (excess) capacity is used instead of buffer inventories to hedge against problems that may arise.
JIT applies primarily to repetitive manufacturing processes in which the same products and components are produced over and over again. The general idea is to establish flow processes (even when the facility uses a jobbing or batch process layout) by linking work centers so that there is an even, balanced flow of materials throughout the entire production process, similar to that found in an assembly line. To accomplish this, an attempt is made to reach the goals of driving all inventory buffers toward zero and achieving the ideal lot size of one unit.
The basic elements of JIT were developed by Toyota in the 1950's, and became known as the Toyota Production System (TPS). JIT was well-established in many Japanese factories by the early 1970's. JIT began to be adopted in the U.S. in the 1980's (General Electric was an early adopter), and the JIT/lean concepts are now widely accepted and used.
Some Key Elements of JIT
1. Stabilize and level the MPS with uniform plant loading (heijunka in Japanese): create a uniform load on all work centers through constant daily production (establish freeze windows to prevent changes in the production plan for some period of time) and mixed model assembly (produce roughly the same mix of products each day, using a repeating sequence if several products are produced on the same line). Meet demand fluctuations through end item inventory rather than through fluctuations in production level. Use of a stable production schedule also permits the use of backflushing to manage inventory: an end item’s bill of materials is periodically exploded to calculate the usage quantities of the various components that were used to make the item, eliminating the need to collect detailed usage information on the shop floor.
2. Reduce or eliminate setup times: aim for single digit setup times (less than 10 minutes) or "one touch" setup this can be done through better planning, process redesign, and product redesign. A good example of the potential for improved setup times can be found in auto racing, where a NASCAR pit crew can change all four tires and put gas in the tank in under 20 seconds. (How long would it take you to change just one tire on your car?) The pit crew’s efficiency is the result of a team effort using specialized equipment and a coordinated, well-rehearsed process.
3. Reduce lot sizes (manufacturing and purchase): reducing setup times allows economical production of smaller lots; close cooperation with suppliers is necessary to achieve reductions in order lot sizes for purchased items, since this will require more frequent deliveries.
4. Reduce lead times (production and delivery): production lead times can be reduced by moving work stations closer together, applying group technology and cellular manufacturing concepts, reducing queue length (reducing the number of jobs waiting to be processed at a given machine), and improving the coordination and cooperation between successive processes; delivery lead times can be reduced through close cooperation with suppliers, possibly by inducing suppliers to locate closer to the factory.
5. Preventive maintenance: use machine and worker idle time to maintain equipment and prevent breakdowns.
6. Flexible work force: workers should be trained to operate several machines, to perform maintenance tasks, and to perform quality inspections. In general, JIT requires teams of competent, empowered employees who have more responsibility for their own work. The Toyota Production System concept of “respect for people” contributes to a good relationship between workers and management.
7. Require supplier quality assurance and implement a zero defects quality program: errors leading to defective items must be eliminated, since there are no buffers of excess parts. A quality at the source (jidoka) program must be implemented to give workers the personal responsibility for the quality of the work they do, and the authority to stop production when something goes wrong. Techniques such as "JIT lights" (to indicate line slowdowns or stoppages) and "tally boards" (to record and analyze causes of production stoppages and slowdowns to facilitate correcting them later) may be used.
8. Small lot (single unit) conveyance: use a control system such as a kanban (card) system (or other signaling system) to convey parts between work stations in small quantities (ideally, one unit at a time). In its largest sense, JIT is not the same thing as a kanban system, and a kanban system is not required to implement JIT (some companies have instituted a JIT program along with a MRP system), although JIT is required to implement a kanban system and the two concepts are frequently equated with one another.
Kanban Production Control System
A kanban or “pull” production control system uses simple, visual signals to control the movement of materials between work centers as well as the production of new materials to replenish those sent downstream to the next work center. Originally, the name kanban (translated as “signboard” or “visible record”) referred to a Japanese shop sign that communicated the type of product sold at the shop through the visual image on the sign (for example, using circles of various colors to indicate a shop that sells paint). As implemented in the Toyota Production System, a kanban is a card that is attached to a storage and transport container. It identifies the part number and container capacity, along with other information, and is used to provide an easily understood, visual signal that a specific activity is required.
In Toyota’s dual-card kanban system, there are two main types of kanban:
1. Production Kanban: signals the need to produce more parts
2. Withdrawal Kanban (also called a "move" or a "conveyance” kanban): signals the need to withdraw parts from one work center and deliver them to the next work center.
In some pull systems, other signaling approaches are used in place of kanban cards. For example, an empty container alone (with appropriate identification on the container) could serve as a signal for replenishment. Similarly, a labeled, pallet-sized square painted on the shop floor, if uncovered and visible, could indicate the need to go get another pallet of materials from its point of production and move it on top of the empty square at its point of use.
A kanban system is referred to as a pull system, because the kanban is used to pull parts to the next production stage only when they are needed. In contrast, an MRP system (or any schedule based system) is a push system, in which a detailed production schedule for each part is used to push parts to the next production stage when scheduled. Thus, in a pull system, material movement occurs only when the work station needing more material asks for it to be sent, while in a push system the station producing the material initiates its movement to the receiving station, assuming that it is needed because it was scheduled for production. The weakness of a push system (MRP) is that customer demand must be forecast and production lead times must be estimated. Bad guesses (forecasts or estimates) result in excess inventory and the longer the lead time, the more room for error. The weakness of a pull system (kanban) is that following the JIT production philosophy is essential, especially concerning the elements of short setup times and small lot sizes, because each station in the process must be able to respond quickly to requests for more materials.
Dual-card Kanban Rules:
1. No parts are made unless there is a production kanban to authorize production. If no production kanban are in the “in box” at a work center, the process remains idle, and workers perform other assigned activities. This rule enforces the “pull” nature of the process control.
2. There is exactly one kanban per container.
3. Containers for each specific part are standardized, and they are always filled with the same (ideally, small) quantity. (Think of an egg carton, always filled with exactly one dozen eggs.)
Decisions regarding the number of kanban (and containers) at each stage of the process are carefully considered, because this number sets an upper bound on the work-in-process inventory at that stage. For example, if 10 containers holding 12 units each are used to move materials between two work centers, the maximum inventory possible is 120 units, occurring only when all 10 containers are full. At this point, all kanban will be attached to full containers, so no additional units will be produced (because there are no unattached production kanban to authorize production). This feature of a dual-card kanban system enables systematic productivity improvement to take place. By deliberately removing one or more kanban (and containers) from the system, a manager will also reduce the maximum level of work-in-process (buffer) inventory. This reduction can be done until a shortage of materials occurs. This shortage is an indication of problems (accidents, machine breakdowns, production delays, defective products) that were previously hidden by excessive inventory. Once the problem is observed and a solution is identified, corrective action is taken so that the system can function at the lower level of buffer inventory. This simple, systematic method of inventory reduction is a key benefit of a dual card kanban system

House keeping

2009-01-08T10:02:00.000+05:30

5S Training - Lean Manufacturing Housekeeping
5s Training
1. 5s Seiri (Sort)
2. 5s Seiton (Set)
3. 5s Seiso (Shine)
4. 5s Seiketsu
(Standardisation)
5. 5s Shitsuke (Sustain)
Implementing 5S
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Lean
Manufacturing
The 5s Housekeeping Approach Within Lean Manufacturing
What Is 5S?
5S is a set of techniques providing a standard approach to housekeeping within Lean Manufacturing.
It is often promoted as being far more than simply housekeeping and some of the elements described below certainly have broader implications.
It originated, as did most of the elements of JIT, within Toyota.
A cornerstone of 5S is that untidy, cluttered work areas are not productive.
As well as the physical implications of junk getting in everybody's way and dirt compromising quality, we are all are happier in a clean and tidy environment and hence more inclined to work hard and with due care and attention.
Naturally enough, the elements of 5S are all Japanese words beginning with the letter S. Since their adoption within Western implementations of JIT, or Lean Manufacturing, various anglicised versions of the terms have been adopted by different writers and educators. These are listed below against the individual elements and it can be seen that none are entirely satisfactory.
Lean Manufacturing Housekeeping 5S "pillars"
The individual items within 5S are known as the "pillars" and are:
1. 5s Seiri (Sort)
Seiri is the identification of the most successful physical Organisation of the workplace.
It has been variously anglicised as Sort, Systematisation or Simplify by those wishing to retain the S as the initial letter of each element.
It is the series of steps by which we identify things which are being held in the workplace when they shouldn't, or are being held in the wrong place.
Put simply, we may identify a large area devoted to tools or gauges, some of which are needed regularly and some used infrequently. This brings all sorts of problems, including:
o Operators unable to find the item they need, being unable to see wood for trees. The time spent searching is a waste (or in Japanese speak a muda) and if we only held the items needed regularly in a prominent position we would save time.
o Quality issues when gauges are not calibrated on time because too many are held.
o Safety issues when people fall over things.
o Lockers and racking cluttering the workplace making it hard to move around or to see each other and communicate.

Some of the standard texts also talk about the elimination of excess materials and WIP.
This is a complete restatement of all the JIT goals of releasing capital, reduced movement, shorter cycle times and so on. The question may be asked: should we then see inventory and WIP reduction as part of the implementation of the lean approach or as an element of 5S? The answer, as ever, is that keeping inventory and WIP to a minimum is simple good practice. Whether we view it as JIT, or lean, or 5S or assign any other term is quite frankly irrelevant.
The major element of Seiri is simply a critical look at the area. Involving cross-functional teams, or looking at each other's areas, is an obvious first step. People tend to be blind to failings in their own work place and a fresh pair of eyes can be useful.
Another element of the standard approach is 'red tagging' where items are given a tag which says what the item is, which location it is in and when it was identified in this location. We then leave the area for a while and anybody using the item notes this. We go back some time later and can readily identify things that haven't moved, or been used.
Items which have not been used can then potentially be disposed of. As a first pass we should perhaps create a quarantine area before throwing items away, selling them or reworking them into something else. Other items may be deemed necessary but used infrequently and so an alternative location can be found. If the operator needs a particular tool only once or twice a month then a 20-yard walk is not a problem - especially if the space thus saved on the workbench helps to make the workplace more productive, or helps address quality issues.
2. 5s Seiton (Set)
Seiton is the series of steps by which the optimum organisation identified in the first pillar are put into place.
The standard translation is Orderliness but again some wish to keep the initial S and use Sort (yes, that is also one of the translations of Seiri), Set in order, Straighten and Standardisation.
The sorting out process is essentially a continuation of that described in the Seiri phase. Removing items to be discarded or held in an alternative location will create space. This space will be visible and facilitate the alternative layout of the area.
In some cases, of course, we are talking about what a fitter will have on his bench, or in racks alongside the bench. In other cases we may be considering where we should locate a piece of plant - for example we may relocate a coin press to enable items to be completed in one work area rather than requiring a significant movement down the shop.
This is something which we also undertake when adopting cellular manufacturing. We then look at how we can restructure the work content so that certain operations can be carried out within the cycle of others - for example we may carry out a trimming operation on a steel component while the press which produced it is busy creating the next one. Again, is this a 5S initiative, or part of a kaizen programme, or something else? Again, who cares, as long as we get on and achieve an improvement in business performance?
Standardisation includes all the elements of setting out a consistent way of doing things. This includes standard manufacturing methodologies, standard equipment and tooling, component rationalisation, drawing standardisation, consistency in the documentation which accompanies work, design for manufacture (or concurrent engineering) and standardisation in the clerical processes which deliver work to the shop floor and track its progress.
All of this could be said to be part of a basic Total Quality approach. The standard ways of doing things should include poka-yoke or error-proofing. Again it might be asked whether this is part of 5S or one aspect of a broader programme.
3. 5s Seiso (Shine)
Anglicised as Cleanliness but again the initial S can be retained in Shine, or Sweeping.
The principle here is that we are all happier and hence more productive in clean, bright environments.
There is a more practical element in that if everything is clean it is immediately ready for use.
We would not want a precision product to be adjusted by a spanner that is covered in grease which may get into some pneumatic or hydraulic fittings. We would not wish to compromise a PCB assembly by metallic dust picked up from an unclean work surface. Other issues are health and safety (perhaps slipping in a puddle of oil, shavings blowing into people's eyes) and machine tools damaged by coolant contaminated by grease and dust.
The task is to establish the maintenance of a clean environment as an ongoing, continuous programme.
Some time should be set aside for cleaning each day, or each shift. (We may have cleaners who come in a sweep office floors, and even clean the floor in a production area, but they do not clean the production equipment. Even if they did, this would miss one of the opportunities available - an operator cleaning and lubricating his machine tool will spot worn or damaged components.)
Cleaning then begins to impinge upon what we already know as preventive maintenance.
Cleaning critical components of a piece of equipment is already one element of the activities carried out under the PM banner.
The implementation of Seiso revolves around two main elements.
The first is the assignment map which identifies who is responsible for which areas.
The second is the schedule which says who does what at which times and on which days.
Some of these happen before a shift begins, some during the shift and some at the end. Again, this is very reminiscent of what we do when adopting PM.
The standard texts such as that of Hiroyuki Hirano then go on to talk about establishing the shine method for each item / area. This includes such elements as agreeing an inspection step at the beginning of each shift, establishing exactly how each activity within the programme is to be carried out. A key aspect is very much akin to set-up reduction (or SMED) in that we should be aiming as much as possible to internalise the activities - in other words, to minimise the downtime needed to keep the facilities clean.
Finally the standard texts talk about preparation - making sure the equipment needed to clean is always available, always ready for use. The excellent parallel to this is, again, with set-up reduction, which itself is often compared to Grand Prix teams preparing to change tyres. As with many such topics, we are talking about here is to a large extent simply common sense. We do not wish to allocate 5 minutes for a bed to be swept on a piece of grinding equipment if the operator is going to spend 4 minutes finding his brush.
4. 5s Seiketsu (Standardisation)
This is well described as Standardised cleanup, but other names adopted include Standardisation (not to be confused with the second pillar), Systematisation and Sanitation.
Seiketsu can be the thought of as the means by which we maintain the first three pillars.
There is, obviously, a danger in any improvement activity that once the focus is removed and another 'hot button' grabs management attention, things go back to the way they were before. Seiketsu is the set of techniques adopted to prevent this happening. Basically this involves setting a schedule by which all the elements are revisited on a regular basis - usually referred to as the '5S Job Cycle.'
The first step in the cycle is a periodic review of the area, perhaps involving red tagging but certainly involving people from other areas of the business.
This will identify where standards have slipped - for example where pieces of tooling or fixtures which are used infrequently are no longer being put in the remote location agreed at the outset and consequently a bench is now cluttered with the regular items buried under a pile of irregular. (In other words, the Seiri phase is undertaken periodically - usually monthly, perhaps quarterly.)
The second step is to undertake Seiton activities as required - that is, as prompted by the first step.
Finally within Seiketsu people from other areas visit and cast a critical eye over the state of the area.
Again, an external assessor may notice degradation that is not clear to the people who work in the area. Hirano talks of a checklist within Seiketsu whereby the external visitors mark the area on a number of key criteria defined at the outset of the programme. For example, are the storage areas still clearly defined? Does the tool rack still have clear outlines or profiles for each tool to be stored in it? Does the area meet the general standards of cleanliness?
5. 5s Shitsuke (Sustain)
The final stage is that of Discipline. For those who wish to retain the use of initial S's in English this is often listed as Sustain or Self-discipline.
There is a fundamental difference between Seiketsu and Shitsuke.
The fourth pillar is the introduction of a formal, rigorous review programme to ensure that the benefits of the approach are maintained.
The fifth pillar is more than this; it is not simply the mechanical means by which we continue to monitor and refine, it is the set of approaches we use to win hearts and minds, to make people want to keep applying good practice in shop organisation and housekeeping. In this sense, discipline is perhaps an unfortunate term as it implies people forced to do something, with consequent penalties if they do not.
The way in which management achieves this establishment of ongoing commitment within the workforce depends, of course, on the culture already in place. As with the adoption of kaizen (continuous improvement) or quality circles we have to press the right buttons to stimulate people. If the business has a history of treating people like cattle, giving no credence to their suggestions and simply trying to improve performance by driving the workers ever harder, then enthusiasm for any sort of initiative aimed at building a better environment is going to be hard to generate.
There are a number of elements to any ongoing improvement activity in any business. Which take pre-eminence in a particular organisation varies with the history and culture of that organisation. Suffice to say that key points are:
o Communication. We need people to be aware of what we are trying to achieve, and why.
o Education. They need to understand the concepts and the individual techniques.
o Rewards and Recognition. People need to feel that their efforts are recognised. Whether the reward is a senior manager walking past and saying "that's very good, well done" or some form of award (financial gain, prize or formal presentation of a certificate) depends on the organisation.
o Time. If we want people to spend five minutes every four hours removing swarf from the floor around their machine we have to make sure that we allow them this time. We cannot give this as an instruction yet at the same time push for more time spent achieving productivity targets.
o Structure. We need to identify what is to be done, by whom, and ensure that schedules are updated and clearly visible.
Implementing 5S Housekeeping and Lean Manufacturing
Would we want to launch 5S as a stand-alone project, as a complete entity?
The elements of 5S are all valuable in their own right but they simply form part of the bigger picture of establishing good practice. They sit alongside the other elements of Lean Manufacturing, or Just in Time, or World Class and some of the elements in, for example, Seiton (standardisation) are in fact straight lifts from textbooks on other forms of improvement activity. There is nothing in any 5S material, for example, to give guidance on improving the clerical processes for generating production paperwork following receipt of a sales order!
The answer, surely, is to understand 5S as we understand all aspects of other types of improvement and problem-solving activity and then to agree a change programme for our own business. This is not to say that we must not launch a project which we call "5S" - some businesses have more success if improvement initiatives are launched with a generic, well-publicised term as project name. Equally, this is not a good solution in other organisations. Again, the history and culture of the company or the specific plant have to be taken into account when this decision is taken.

2009-01-04T12:52:00.000+05:30

CASE SUGGESTION SCHEME

2009-01-02T13:16:00.001+05:30

Abstract:
This is a case study of an important innovation in providing healthcare for the rural poor: the Yeshasvini Health Insurance Scheme for rural farmers and peasants in Karnataka, India. Arguably the world's largest health insurance scheme for the rural poor, the scheme commenced in 2003. Designed in ways that overcome several obstacles to providing health security for rural populations, the scheme covered, in its second year, about 2.2 million widely dispersed peasant farmers for surgical and out patient care for a low annual premium of approximately US$ 2. In this paper, we describe and evaluate the scheme in its first year of operation, and explore its potential to be a model for the developing world generally.
Accepted
1
India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) -
Localised Implementation in Gulbarga District of Karnataka.
PC Jaffer IAS1
Introduction
Following the Enactment of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(NREGA) 2005, the ambitious National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
(NREGS) has been implemented in selected 200 districts of the country. This was
later extended to 130 more districts during the year 2007-08. The main objective
of the scheme is ‘to provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the
households in rural areas of the country by providing at least one hundred days of
guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every household whose
adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work’. Unlike the hitherto
prominent poverty alleviation and rural development schemes, this Act ensures
the right to work as a statutory right guaranteed and protected by law. The
passing of the Act in 2005 signifies a paradigm shift in the strategies of the rural
development.
This present paper examines the implementation issues and the immediate
impact of the scheme on rural population. Gulbarga district of Karnataka state is
taken as a case study. The implementation issues are important because this
scheme represents a deviation from all the previous ones in many ways. The
present study examines the impact of NREGS on poverty alleviation, creation of
durable community assets, agricultural wage level, distress migration and women
empowerment.
This scheme is different from all other such schemes that have been implemented
in the country so far. A few non-negotiable features of this scheme gives a hope
that this could be implemented plugging the loopholes for leakage of government
money. This is a demand based programme where there is no limitation of the
funds for the implementation. Any individual from the rural household can
register under this scheme irrespective of the economic status of the family.
Participatory planning and decentralised implementation are the specialities of the
scheme. It is mandatory to implement at least 50 per cent of the works by the
Grama Panchayat (the units of local self government at the village).
1The author is a member of the Indian Administrative Services and presently posted as Chief
Executive Officer of the Zilla Pacnhayat, Gulbarga in the State of Karnataka, India. This piece is
written primarily based on his experiences while working as District Programme Coordinator of NREGS
and the review of the data available in his office. The analyses follow the extensive filed visits and
interview with various stakeholders. The opinions expressed in this article are of the author need not
reflect that of the organization and the government he represents.
2
There are certain inbuilt safeguards in the scheme to ensure that the money is
spent on labour oriented works and it reaches the targeted beneficiaries. Firstly,
the contractors are banned in the implementation of the programme. Secondly, it
is mandatory to spend at least 60 per cent of the funds for the payment to the
labourers. Thirdly, Priority must be given to labour intensive projects like
watershed development, social forestry, wasteland reclamation etc. Finally,
payment of wages to the workers is to be made through accounts opened in the
name of labourers so as to prevent the exploitation of middlemen and to cultivate
saving habit in people.
Implementation Of the programme
Being a demand driven scheme, the basic idea is that the labourers who are
willing to do manual work are to be registered with the registration officer.
Whenever, they require work, they should approach the authorities and formally
place a requisition for work. The registration officer in the state is Secretary of
the Grama Panchayat (GP). The GP will issue a job-card to each family which will
entitle them to demand work as per their convenience. The job-cards are issued
within 15 days of registration. Any labourer with a job card can ask for work and
it should be provided to them within 15 days failing in which they are eligible for
getting unemployment allowance. The labourers have to be paid as per the
prevailing rate of minimum wages in the state. The minimum wages in the state
is Rs 74 per day. The families registered under the scheme amount to more than
30 million in all over the country. The corresponding figure for the district is
200688 families out of a total of 388394 families in the rural areas of the district.
Participatory and decentralised Planning for the Scheme
As a beginning, the task of identification of the potential of the village with the
developmental requirement and the resources available were carried out. This
was done as collective effort of various stakeholders and the community. A
meeting of all the villages were carried out for this purpose. The villagers
identified the requirements of the village and prioritised these demands. They
were helped by one NGO in these tasks. Their responsibility was to ensure
community participation in the planning process. Along side, various line
departments also identified the works related to their departments. All these
suggestions were combined and the perspective plan for the five years was
formed. The works were prioritised and those that are expected to be carried out
for an year were taken out separately. Detailed estimates were prepared for these
3
works. This is known as the shelf of projects. These plans were approved by the
elected body before implementing.
Administrative mechanism
For the purpose of implementation of the scheme, the Gram Panchayats2 are
designated as the primary implementing agencies. The Executive Officer of the
Taluka Panchayat (Intermediary Panchayat) is designated as the Programme
Officer (PO) for NREGS. The Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Panchayat is
designated as the District Programme Coordinator. There are five implementing
agencies in the district. Department of Watershed Development and Social
Forestry are the implementing agencies in the district other than the three tiers of
the Panchayat Raj system. Technical support for the implementation is provided
by the Panchayat Raj Engineering Division which has one Junior Engineer for a
cluster of three to four Grama Panchayats.
Fund-flow
The fund for NREGS is allocated at the ratio of 90:10 by centre and state
respectively unlike other programmes where the ratio is 75:25. The Central
government releases the money to the districts directly who in turn releases it to
the sub-district level to be used for various works. The payment for the labourers
under all works is made by the Grama Panchayat irrespective of the implementing
agencies.
Payment and Bank accounts
It is mandatory to make payment under NREGS only through accounts. This is
followed very strictly in the district. This is very much helpful in ensuring that the
payment is reaching the real beneficiaries as no middle men come into the
picture. However, such a step does not come without its own share of problems.
The major issue was to find out banking institutions at the door steps of the
workers. Penetration of banking institutions and the banking habits are not
encouraging in the rural areas. Thus, a major share of the accounts was opened
by the Post offices. Once the scheme was six months old, post offices turned out
to be the biggest bottleneck for the implementation of the programme in many
places as they were not able to cope up with the manifold increase in their work.
The increased in workload without any capacity addition resulted in delay in
making the payments to the labourers. Finally, most of the accounts were shifted
2 Grama Pacnhayat is the lowest of the three tiers of the local self government at the
village level. The ZillaPanchayat is the highest level.
4
to the banks who agreed to cope up with the extra workload by working more
every day. The first impressions from the field are that the people have accepted
this system of payment as there is no scope for middle men in the scheme of
things. This is slowly inculcating a habit of savings in the minds of the rural
population which was hitherto unheard of. All the accounts opened were joint
accounts in the names of the women of the household also. This is one step
towards the gender sensitivity and women empowerment.
NREGA and Gender
NREGA is a highly gender sensitive scheme. It is mandatory that at least one
third of the workers should be women. The share of women at the national level
is 40%. The share of person-days worked by the women in Gulbarga district is
49% which is a little more than their share in the population. It is again
necessary to provide various facilities at the worksite like drinking water and baby
sitters. The provision of baby sitters will free the women of all the worries of
tacking care of their little kids. This provision is women friendly in another way
that this will spare the elder siblings from rearing the younger ones. Thus the
scheme promotes the education of girl child also. Women are more attracted
towards the scheme because the wage level for women labourers are less than
that of the male counterparts in the market. While a male labourer gets Rs 100
per day on an average during harvest seasons and Rs 70-80 during the lean
season, a women labourer gets about Rs 50 during harvest season and Rs 30-40
during lean season.
It is undisputed that the scheme has the potential to mobilise women in large
numbers and groups (which was earlier difficult). This presents an opportunity to
the Government to form productive self help groups among them and provide job
training. Thus, the ideal progression from the unskilled labour to the skilled
labour through the convergence of the entire scheme should materialise as an
offshoot of the NREGA. This is true in the case of the men also. Such social
change and upward mobility is the final aim of any poverty alleviation schemes.
Experiences from the field
The programme is being implemented for the last one year and the figures by the
end of March show that all the families and individuals who demanded work have
been provided with the work. NREGA has so far employed 148,735 people from
77,594 households in the district. This has generated 28,77,000 person-days by
5
taking up 3537 works. The expenditure made for the payment of the labourers is
62.01%.
The scheme has a positive impact on the household income level. This is mainly
because of three reasons. Firstly, NREGS provide 100 days of guaranteed job to
each household who are in need of manual unskilled work in rural areas.
Considering with the daily wage of Rs. 69 paid under the scheme, each family is
ensured about additional Rs 6900/ per year. Secondly, women labourers have
taken advantage of the scheme thereby increasing the family income as they are
paid lesser wages elsewhere. Thirdly, NREGS has ensured continued job to rural
household during the lean season.
The impact of the scheme on consumption, health expenditure and saving habit is
visible. A majority of the beneficiaries reported increase in their consumption,
health expenditure and saving. Under the scheme so far more than 0.65 million
accounts have been opened in the district. More than one lakh accounts are
opened in the name of the beneficiaries in the post offices. This had started to
have some impact on inculcating banking and saving habits among the people
who were hitherto untouched by such habits. Some of the beneficiaries reported
that about 50per cent of the income earned under the scheme is either saved at
home or at banks. On the other hand, it has to be noted that most of the
households still withdraw the whole amount from the bank accounts immediately
after the amount is credited.
Although it is too early to surface the impact of the scheme on agricultural wages,
the filed surveys show that on an average wage rates have started increasing in
the district. This has resulted in shortages of labourers for other types of works.
Simple theory of demand and supply states whenever there is shortage of supply
of labourers demand being constant, agricultural wages are bound to increase.
This has been very well evidenced through the interviews with beneficiaries,
farmers, engineers and contractors. The uptrend in wage level will increase cost
of cultivation. The non availability of labourers will negatively affect the
agricultural productions. It may ultimately lead to change in the cropping
patterns. Preference will be given to those commercial crops which require
manual labourers in lesser number.
Another social implication of this trend will be rift and antagonism between
labourers and farmers and the possibility of emerging class conflict among the
6
landlords and labourers. Another objective of the scheme is to analyse the impact
of NREGS on the migration of rural people. People from the district migrate to
other cities like Bombay, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad in search of job. The
status of migration is not well documented in the district. Most of the jobs created
are in the local areas and this has a positive impact on preventing distress
migration. Though the survey does not give any conclusive proof, still it is
observed that the implementation of the scheme has some positive impact on
migration. A word of caution has to be made at this point, that these observations
cannot be generalised as it is too early to make conclusions about the scheme
without the completion of the lean season.
Like other projects the NREGS has been successful in creating sustainable assets
in the district. The major thrust areas of the NREGS are water conservation,
social forestry and reclamation of wasteland. These projects not only help in
creation of jobs and assets but also increase the efficiency and productivity of the
land in the long run. For instance, watershed development projects help in
increasing in the water table of the area that ultimately results in increased
availability of water for both drinking and irrigation. Consequently, more areas
can be brought under cultivation and existing areas can be productively used.
Similarly, social forestry programme leads to the afforestation of lands which is
the need of the hour in the dry areas like Gulbarga. Two such case studies have
been prepared along with this paper.
Monitoring and transparency is the major thrust of NREGS. It is necessary that
social audit to be conducted where all the documents regarding the scheme
especially the muster rolls are made available to the public for inspection. They
have the right to question the correctness of the muster rolls. The social audit for
the first year in Gulbarga is scheduled to be held during the next month. The
details of the muster roll are planning to be put in the public domain. Another
significant feature of the scheme is the emphasis on capacity building as this is a
paradigm shift in the rural development and poverty reduction activities. Thus
training and IEC activities form an important part of the project. We have also
attempted convergence with other schemes along with NREGA. The example is
combining of the adult literacy programmes at the worksites. Many of the workers
are illiterate and hence are the target group for the adult literacy activities. The
objective of this initiative is to replace the thumb impressions with signatures in
one month. Another inititative being attempted is to carry out primary health
check up for the workers in the worksite itself.
7
Conclusions
The above discussion in this paper leads to certain conclusions. The study has
found positive impact of the scheme on these variables. The study reaches the
following conclusions. This scheme is successful in creating an impression in the
minds of people that it would help in minimising the pilferages and ensure the
benefits of government programmes reach the real beneficiaries. The scheme has
an impact in raising the standards of living and the agricultural wage level in the
villages. It is leading to the creation of durable community assets. More
importantly, the payment to the labourers is done through the accounts in banks
and post offices. This had laid the foundation for inculcating the savings habit in
the minds of people. If implemented properly with revision of minimum wage
from time to time, the distress migration from rural areas especially during the
off season can be checked. Finally, the scheme has the potential to change the
rural edifice of the district and can act as a model rural development scheme. The
authors put a word of caution that all these are first impressions of a scheme that
will be there for at least five years.
References
1. Ministry of Law and Justice (2005), “The Gazette of India” Extraordinary
part 11-Section 1 Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative Department),
Government of India, September 7, 2005, New Delhi.
2. Government of Karnataka, (2005) “Karnataka Human Development Report
2005, Investing in Human Development” Planning and Statistics
Department, GoK, Bangalore
3. Rao, KS (2004), ‘Poverty Alleviation-Results of an Impact Assessment
Study” in Bhatt, MS Ed ‘Poverty Alleviation and Food Security in India
Problems and Policies’, Aakar Books, New Delhi.
4. Ananya, GD (2004) “Poverty Alleviation Programmes in India Some Issues
and Concerns” in Bhatt, MS ed ‘Poverty and food Security in India
Problems and Policies’, Aakar Books, New Delhi.
5. GoI (2006), “NREGA 2005 Operational Guidelines”, Ministry of Rural
Development, New Delhi.
8
Success Stories
Case 1: - Earthen Drain in Saidapur village
This is a case where the selection and implementation of the work has been
successful in having an impact on the productivity of the village in addition to
creation of opportunities for work to the people. The authors visited the site of
the work in Saidapur village in Jewargi Taluka in Gulbarga district. There is an
irrigation tank in the village to provide irrigation facilities to 500 hectares of land.
However, on passage of time, another 200 hectares of land in the downstream of
the tank became water logged due to the seepage water from the tank. The small
canal leading from the tank also was of no use because of the small size and
getting silted. The Grama Panchayat did not have any funds at their disposal for
taking up cleaning de-silting and widening of the existing small drain. The NREGS
was the opportunity the villagers have been waiting for ages and they did not
want it to go unutilised. The work of an earthen drain was taken up leading to
reclaiming of 200 hectares of land by two seasons. The 200 hectares of land
brought under cultivation will add to the total productivity of the village. The
conservative estimate for the agricultural income puts the revenue at Rs. 5000/ a
hectare of dry land. This leads to the conclusion that the investment of
Rs.4,80,000 (approx) had ensured that the income of the village. This kind of
works serves the exact purpose of NREGS.
Case 2: - Renovation of traditional water body in Mashal village
Mashal village is situated on the North western side of the taluka bordering
Maharashtra state and is the head quarter of the Gram Pachayat. The area being
covered by black cotton soil and is under-laid by boulder trap/weathered trap.
Due to over exploitation of the ground water for agriculture and allied purposes
and scanty rainfall in the last five years, drastic lowering of water table was
noticed in the village. The village faced a very acute water crisis due to these
reasons. The bore-wells drilled in the village under the Calamity Relief Fund every
year produced very less amount of water. This has been a problematic village
always for the administration. Arrangements for the water supply through the
tankers had to be made from the month of January to June. The average cost for
the tanker water supply for the village per year worked out to be Rs 1,20,000. In
addition about Rs. 1,50,000 used to be spent on drilling of bore-wells for fining
out a permanent solution to the water scarcity problems. Thus, the village had to
spend around Rs 2,70,000 per year for the last three years. (This works out to be
Rs. 8,10,000).
9
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was introduced in the district last
year. The villagers were very fast to realise the potential the scheme offer to
solve their problems related to the water scarcity. The villagers’ meeting held for
the purpose of planning for the scheme, the suggestion came from the villagers
to take up de-silting and renovation of an existing tank in the village. This
suggestion came from the realisation by the villagers that the only solution to
their water problem is to take measures to improve the ground water situation of
the village. The suggestion was accepted in the meeting and the work was taken
up.
The work included de-silting and deepening of the existing tank along with the
construction of a 3 KM long earthen drain an inlet for collecting the rain water
during the rainy season. The work was constructed as per the provisions of the
scheme. The estimate cost for the work is Rs 8,75,000. The work is under
progress and an amount of Rs. 6,84,000 is already spent. As the luck was on the
side of the villagers, there were untimely rains in the month of December and the
tank got filled up. This resulted in the recharge of the ground water in the village.
The bore-wells catering to the drinking water for the village got filled up and are
working properly. There is no demand for the supply of the water through the
tankers in the village. Recently a bore-well was drilled in a nearby hamlet near
the tank which produced a yield of 8172 Litres per Hour. There were a few wells
catering to the irrigation purpose in the village. These were also filled up bringing
more land under irrigation thereby increasing the economic production of the
village.
This success story has become an eye-opener for the villagers. Now they know
the benefits of taking up such schemes in the villages. The people have
demanded taking up more such works in the village which are being taken up
shortly.

CASE IN QUALITY CIRCLE

2009-01-02T13:13:00.000+05:30

Impact of Quality Circle—a Case Study
F Talib, Non-member
M Ali, Non-member
After second world war, most of the countries in the world had to face the problem of industrial development. Japan
was worst hit and the industrial units in Japan were going from bad to worse and it was necessary for Japan to put
their shattered economy back to the rails. To do so modern concept of quality control came to Japan after 1945,
from USA, but it was only after 1955 that this system of management of quality control was actually implemented
to the company from the bottom of the organization that could also share in the quality control function at the
workshop level. Quality circle provides the employees at the bottom level to proceed towards the top level with
opportunities to perform effectively and solving the daily problem of the unit. It this paper, the authors tried to
study the impact of quality circle techniques through a case study dealing with causes of the material losses related
to 4-Ms (man, machine, materials, methods), in a small production shop floor. The observed datas are analyzed
through Pareto diagram and ‘Ishikawa diagram’ and following results were obtained : Drastic reduction in materials
wastage, average saving per year increased and financial losses were minimized, workers were motivated to keep
and operate materials with care and prevent wastage, and good team relationship was built among the workman
and management.
Keywords : Quality Management; Quality Circle; Weight Loss and Total Quality Management
M Ali and F Talib are with University Polytechnic, AMU, Aligarh
202002
This paper was received on February 26, 2002. Written discussion on this
paper will be received until July 31, 2003.
INTRODUCTION
In older times, during the post world war the Indian workshop and
industries were generally practicing older concept of system to
manage the scientific techniques, as a result of following the older
concepts unwisely a barrier of mistrust, individualism and noninvolvement
of different levels of manpower and management has
been erected between the important sections of the organization.
For example, during the post second world war era Japan was
worst hit by the above mentioned crisis and the individual units in
Japan were going from bad to worse and it was necessary for
Japan to put their shattered economy back to rail. For that they
had to wipe out their poor image of quality, with the help of some
quality management experts from America, namely, Dr Deming, Dr
Juran. At this point Dr Ishikawa of Mushashi Institute of
Technology, Tokyo added a new dimension to this effect by
involving task performer at the grass root level to work towards
the quality improvement. He motivated the workmen to follow the
quality control techniques in their shop floor by forming small
groups and sought their help in solving the daily problem coming
during the production of the job. After all the person who is actually
doing the job know the job best. This was the basic guideline in
forming the quality circle. Hence, by introducing this modern
concept of quality control in any organization employees at the
grassroots level have the opportunity to perform effectively and
meshing well with the activities of other levels, ie, total involvement
of the worker and the intellectuals and hence there was a
tremendous change in the working environment between the
management, and the workforce. Various studies have been
conducted on the implementation of quality circles in different
organization and the results were very encouraging. Study
conducted by S K Dey, et al involving quality circles for a steady
reduction in chemeical wastage proved to be very gainful to the
industries related to the material wastage. Also study conducted
by Reddy, et al on dimensional quality control of casting gives a
result of good quality casting at minimum cost. Another study
conducted by Shiva Gonde, et al which was different from other
studies in the sense that he has implemented quality circle approach
in technical education systems for solving work related problems
and found that there were major dimensional change in decisions
and actions, conventional bureaucratic approach to self
empowering employees along with the responsibilities of managing
the institutions.
METHODOLOGY
Formation of Quality Circle
The following basic elements constitute the structure of the quality
circle :
i) Top Management
ii) Steering committee
iii) Co-ordinator
iv) Facilitator
v) Leader
vi) Members
vii) Non-members
The success of the quality circles depends solely on the attitude
of the top management and plays an important role to ensure the
success of implementation of quality circles in the organization.
Steering committee called middle management consists of chief
executive heads of different divisions or a co-ordinator plays a
positive role in quality circles activities for the success of the
efforts. The meetings are conveyed at least once in one to two
Vol 84, May 2003 11
months interval. Co-ordinator also acts as facilitators is an
individual responsible for coordinating and directing the quality
circles activities within an organization and carries out such
functions as would make the operations of quality circles smooth,
effective and self-sustainable. Facilitator also acts as a catalyst,
innovator, promoter and teacher and is nominated by the
management. Leader of the quality circles is chosen by the members
among themselves and they may decide to have a leader by
rotation since the members are the basic elements of the structure
of quality circle. Members of the quality circles are the small group
of people from the same work area or doing similar type of work
whereas non-members are those who are not members of the
quality circle but may be involved in the circle recommendation.
Figure 1 Structure of quality circle
Figure 2 Pareto diagram
Problem Solving Techniques
Quality circle commonly use the following basic techniques to
identify and to analyze problems
i) Team work (Brainstorming)
ii) Collection of data
iii) Pareto analysis
iv) Ishikawa diagram (Fishbone diagram)
v) Cumulative line diagram
PROBLEM FORMULATION
The present study was conducted by selecting a problem
concerning with the material loss in workshop of University
Polytechnic, AMU by forming a quality circle. The authors were
involved as internal observer in the operation of quality circle
working in workshop. The production involves manufacturing of
Figure 3 Pie chart (effectiveness of process variable on material
wastages)
Figure 4 Ishikawa diagram (fishbone diagram)
12 IE(I) Journal–ID
crankshaft, spindle and metallic numerals in the machine and fitting
shop. The operation involves in producing the above products
comprises of various methods of manufacturing such as facing,
drilling, filling, cutting, shaping, threading etc. The operations of
these quality circle as given below realize the impact of quality
circle.
Case Study
a) Name of the organization : Workshop, University
Polytechnic, AMU
Aligarh
b) Number of circle : 01 (one)
c) Section where the circle is : Machine and fitting shop
operating
d) Number of meetings held : 10 (ten)
for last one year
The quality circle under consideration has a leader, a facilitator, a
coordinator and four members. The object of the present quality
circle is ‘reduction of material wastage’. This problem was so
chosen for solution because of following facts :
a) Whether there was any reduction in material wastage.
b) Whether there were any saving and financial losses that
should be minimized.
c) Whether it had any effect on the working of the workers
and relationship between workman and management.
There were differences in the actual and expected material
consumption. Table 1 gives the detail of material consumption for
the year 1999 to 2000, before implementation of quality circle, and
Table 2 shows the detail of material consumption for the year 2000
to 2001 after implementing quality circle. After various discussion
and brain storming sessions following causes related to man,
machine, material and methods were located.
Table 1 Details of material consumption for the year July 15,
1999 to March 31, 2000 (before implementing quality circle)
Items Spefication Material Consum-Material Material
ption per year Loss in loss in
Expected, Actual, machin- Rs
k g k g ing, kg
Mild Steel Length, mm : 50 210 105 105 1785.00
Rod Diameter, mm : 31
Carbon, % : 0.01 to1
Harden cold rolled
Cast Iron Length, mm : 50 135 75 60 1920.00
Block Width, mm : 50
Thickness, mm : 24
Carbon, % : 2-4
Mild Steel Lenght, mm : 75 53 30 23 437.00
Flat Width, mm : 48
Thickness, mm : 6
Total 4142.00
Table 2 Details of material consumption for the year July 15,
2000 to March 31, 2001 (after implementing quality circle)
Items Spefication Material Consum-Material Material
ption per year Loss in loss in
Expected, Actual, machin- Rs
k g k g ing, kg
Mild Steel Length, mm : 50 210 150 60 1020.00
Rod Diameter, mm : 31
Carbon,% : 0.01 to 1
Harden cold rolled
Cast Iron Length, mm : 50 135 105 30 960.00
Block Width, mm : 50
Thickness, mm : 24
Mild Steel Lenght, mm : 75 53 45 8.0 152.00
Flat Width, mm : 48
Thickness, mm : 6
Total 2132.00
Causes Related to Man
a) Lack of knowledge about the materials
b) Proper instruction not given about the work
c) The materials were cut more than the required amount
d) Lack of knowledge about the operations
e) Lack of knowledge about handling special tools
Causes Related to Machines
a) Machines not operating at optimum condition
b) Frictional wear of machine parts
c) Problem arising due to misalignment of machine
components
d) Lack of implementation of new and automatic machines
Causes Related to Methods
a) No proper inspection in the machine shop after the material
has been issued from the store
b) No proper care was taken in storing the materials
c) Lack of knowledge of improving the existing method of
production
Causes Related to Material
a) No proper inspection of the material dimension before
machining
b) Materials obtained not having the required composition
Table 3 Saving in the material wastage for the year 2000-2001
Material Wastage Material Wastage Savings
before Implementing after Implementing Amount
Quality Circle, Rs Quality Circle, Rs Rs 1 year
4142 2132. 2010
Vol 84, May 2003 13
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
After implementation of quality circle, steady reduction in material
wastage was observed. Considering the material wastage for the
year 1999-2000 as a base year, calculated savings for the next one
year 2000-2001 is obtained and shown in the Table 2. Besides this
Table 3 gives the complete details of the monetary gain for the
year 2000-2001 which shows a sufficient amount of saving.
Following observation were achieved after implementation of
quality circle.
i) Improvement of internal personal relationship
ii) Self-confidence was developed in solving more complex
problem related to production.
iii) A good teamwork was achieved among the workman
iv) Material wastage was minimized as a result heavy
monetary gain was obtained.
Table 4 shows a percentage of contribution of various factors that
led to material loss in the given order. These four factors were
chosen as the most effective factor in analyzing the problem. The
various reason or causes of each factor were determined and shown
in Ishikawa diagram (Fishbone diagram). The causes and effect
were obtained by calling various quality circle meetings (ten)
through brainstorming session and discussion. And hence these
factors led to the result of the present study in the following order
: Man
Machine
Method
Material
Further this quality circle approach for quality improvement in
University Polytechnic workshop may bring new dimension,
shifting dependence for decisions and actions, conventional
bureaucratic approach towards existing system. Empowering
employees exhibit considerably owing the responsibility of
managing the organization. This change revealed that quest for
quality service is in the hand of all employees. This success of
quality circle in the workshop and small enterprises. This quality
approach may be required to be spread in all polytechnic workshop
and small-scale enterprise existing in the country. The sustenance
of success will lead to total quality improvement emerging as a
centre of excellence of its own in any small enterprise in India

BRAIN STORMING

2009-01-02T13:12:00.000+05:30

Brainstorming
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Brainstorming is a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution to a problem. The method was first popularized in the late 1930s by Alex Faickney Osborn in a book called Applied Imagination. Osborn proposed that groups could double their creative output by using the method of brainstorming.[1]
Although brainstorming has become a popular group technique, researchers have generally failed to find evidence of its effectiveness for enhancing either quantity or quality of ideas generated. Because of such problems as distraction, social loafing, evaluation apprehension, and production blocking, brainstorming groups are little more effective than other types of groups, and they are actually less effective than individuals working independently.[2][3][4] In the Encyclopedia of Creativity, Tudor Rickards provides the article on brainstorming, summarizing the controversies. He also indicates the dangers of conflating productivity in group work with quantity of ideas.[5]
There have been numerous attempts to improve brainstorming or replace it with more effective variations of the basic technique. Although traditional brainstorming may not increase the productivity of groups, it may still provide benefits, such as enhancing the enjoyment of group work and improving morale. It may also serve as a useful exercise for team building.
Use of the term "brainstorming" has been criticized on the grounds that it is politically incorrect and offensive to people with epilepsy.[6] However, a 2005 survey by the UK charity National Society for Epilepsy found that 93 per cent of people with the condition surveyed do not find the word offensive.[7]
Contents
[hide]
• 1 Approach
• 2 Outline of the method
o 2.1 Set the problem
o 2.2 Create a background memo
o 2.3 Select participants
o 2.4 Create a list of lead questions
o 2.5 Session conduct
o 2.6 The process
o 2.7 Evaluation
• 3 Variations
o 3.1 Nominal group technique
o 3.2 Group passing technique
o 3.3 Team idea mapping method
o 3.4 Electronic brainstorming
o 3.5 Directed brainstorming
o 3.6 Individual brainstorming
o 3.7 Other variations
• 4 Conclusion
• 5 See also
• 6 References

[edit] Approach
There are four basic rules in brainstorming.[8] These are intended to reduce the social inhibitions that occur in groups and therefore stimulate the generation of new ideas. The expected result is a dynamic synergy that will dramatically increase the creativity of the group.
1. Focus on quantity: This rule is a means of enhancing divergent production, aiming to facilitate problem solving through the maxim, quantity breeds quality. The assumption is that the greater the number of ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a radical and effective solution.
2. No criticism: It is often emphasized that in group brainstorming, criticism should be put 'on hold'. Instead of immediately stating what might be wrong with an idea, the participants focus on extending or adding to it, reserving criticism for a later 'critical stage' of the process. By suspending judgment, one creates a supportive atmosphere where participants feel free to generate unusual ideas.
3. Unusual ideas are welcome: To get a good and long list of ideas, unusual ideas are welcomed. They may open new ways of thinking and provide better solutions than regular ideas. They can be generated by looking from another perspective or setting aside assumptions.
4. Combine and improve ideas: Good ideas can be combined to form a single very good idea, as suggested by the slogan "1+1=3". This approach is assumed to lead to better and more complete ideas than merely generating new ideas alone. It is believed to stimulate the building of ideas by a process of association.

Diagram of a brainstorming session
[edit] Outline of the method
[edit] Set the problem
One of the most important things to do before a session is to define the problem. The problem must be clear, not too big, and captured in a definite question such as "What service for mobile phones is not available now, but needed?". If the problem is too big, the chairman should divide it into smaller components, each with its own question. Some problems are multi-dimensional and non-quantified, for example "What are the aspects involved in being a successful entrepreneur?". Finding solutions for this kind of problem can be done with morphological analysis (problem-solving).
[edit] Create a background memo
The background memo is the invitation and informational letter for the participants, containing the session name, problem, time, date, and place. The problem is described in the form of a question, and some example ideas are given. The ideas are solutions to the problem, and used when the session slows down or goes off-track. The memo is sent to the participants at least two days in advance, so that they can think about the problem beforehand.
[edit] Select participants
The chairman composes the brainstorming panel, consisting of the participants and an idea collector. Ten or fewer group members are generally more productive than larger groups. Many variations are possible but the following composition is suggested.
• Several core members of the project who have proved themselves.
• Several guests from outside the project, with affinity to the problem.
• One idea collector who records the suggested ideas.
[edit] Create a list of lead questions
During the brainstorm session the creativity may decrease. At this moment, the chairman should stimulate creativity by suggesting a lead question to answer, such as Can we combine these ideas? or How about a look from another perspective?. It is advised to prepare a list of such leads before the session begins.
[edit] Session conduct
The chairperson leads the brainstorming session and ensures that the basic rules are followed. The activities of a typical session are:
1. A warm-up session, to expose novice participants to the criticism-free environment. A simple problem is brainstormed, for example What should be the next corporate Christmas present? or What can be improved in Microsoft Windows?.
2. The chairman presents the problem and gives a further explanation if needed.
3. The chairman asks the brainstorming panel for their ideas.
4. If no ideas are coming out, the chairman suggests a lead to encourage creativity.
5. Every participant presents his or her idea, and the idea collector records them.
6. If more than one participant has ideas, the chairman lets the most associated idea be presented first. This selection can be done by looking at the body language of the participants, or just by asking for the most associated idea.
7. The participants try to elaborate on the idea, to improve the quality.
8. When time is up, the chairman organizes the ideas based on the topic goal and encourages discussion. Additional ideas may be generated.
9. Ideas are categorized.
10. The whole list is reviewed to ensure that everyone understands the ideas. Duplicate ideas and obviously infeasible solutions are removed.
11. The chairman thanks all participants and gives each a token of appreciation.

Process of conducting a brainstorming session
[edit] The process
• Participants who have an idea but no possibility to present it are encouraged to write down their idea and present it later.
• The idea collector should number the ideas, so that the chairperson can use the number to encourage quantitative idea generation, for example: We have 44 ideas now, let’s get it to 50!.
• The idea collector should repeat the idea in the words he or she has written it, to confirm that it expresses the meaning intended by the originator.
• When more participants are having ideas, the one with the most associated idea should have priority. This to encourage elaboration on previous ideas.
• During the brainstorming session the attendance of managers and superiors is strongly discouraged, as it may inhibit and reduce the effect of the four basic rules, especially the generation of unusual ideas.
[edit] Evaluation
Brainstorming is not just about generating ideas for others to evaluate and select. Usually the group itself will, in its final stage, evaluate the ideas and select one as the solution to the problem proposed to the group.
• The solution should not require resources or skills the members of the group do not have or cannot acquire.
• If acquiring additional resources or skills is necessary, that needs to be the first part of the solution.
• There must be a way to measure progress and success.
• The steps to carry out the solution must be clear to all, and amenable to being assigned to the members so that each will have an important role.
• There must be a common decision making process to enable a coordinated effort to proceed, and to reassign tasks as the project unfolds.
• There should be evaluations at milestones to decide whether the group is on track toward a final solution.
• There should be incentives to participation such that participants maintain their efforts.
[edit] Variations
[edit] Nominal group technique
The nominal group technique is a type of brainstorming that encourages all participants to have an equal say in the process. It is also used to generate a ranked list of ideas.
Participants are asked to write down their ideas anonymously. Then the moderator collects the ideas and each is voted on by the group. The vote can be as simple as a show of hands in favor of a given idea. This process is called distillation.
After distillation, the top ranked ideas may be sent back to the group or to subgroups for further brainstorming. For example, one group may work on the color required in a product. Another group may work on the size, and so forth. Each group will come back to the whole group for ranking the listed ideas. Sometimes ideas that were previously dropped may be brought forward again once the group has re-evaluated the ideas.
It is important for the moderator to have received training in this process before attempting to take on the moderating task. The group should be primed and encouraged to embrace the process. Like all team efforts, it may take a few practice sessions to train the team in the method before tackling the important ideas.
[edit] Group passing technique
Each person in a circular group writes down one idea, and then passes the piece of paper to the next person in a clockwise direction, who adds some thoughts. This is repeated until everybody gets their original piece of paper back. By this time, it is likely that the group will have extensively elaborated on each idea.
A popular alternative to this technique is to create an "Idea Book" and post a distribution list or routing slip to the front of the book. On the inside cover (or first page) is a description of the problem. The first person to receive the book lists his or her ideas and then routes the book to the next person on the distribution list. The second person can log new ideas or add to the ideas of the previous person. This continues until the distribution list is exhausted. follow-up "read out" meeting is then held to discuss the ideas logged in the book. This technique takes longer, but allows individual thought whenever the person has time to think deeply about the problem.
[edit] Team idea mapping method
This method of brainstorming works by the method of association. It may improve collaboration and increase the quantity of ideas, and is designed so that all attendees participate and no ideas are rejected.
The process begins with a well-defined topic. Each participant creates an individual brainstorm around the topic. All the ideas are then merged into one large idea map. During this consolidation phase, the participants may discover a common understanding of the issues as they share the meanings behind their ideas. As the sharing takes place, new ideas may arise by the association. Those ideas are added to the map as well. Then ideas are generated on both individual and group levels. Once all the ideas are captured, the group can prioritize and/or take action.
[edit] Electronic brainstorming
Electronic brainstorming is a computerized version of the manual brainwriting technique. It can be done via email. The chairman or facilitator sends the question out to group members, and they contribute independently by sending their ideas directly back to the facilitator. The facilitator then compiles a list of ideas and sends it back to the group for further feedback. Electronic brainstorming eliminates many of the problems of standard brainstorming, such as production blocking and evaluation apprehension. An additional advantage of this method is that all ideas can be archived electronically in their original form, and then retrieved later for further thought and discussion. Electronic brainstorming also enables much larger groups to brainstorm on a topic than would normally be productive in a traditional brainstorming session. Other forms of electronic brainstorming could be browser based, client / server, or peer to peer related software.
[edit] Directed brainstorming
Directed brainstorming is a variation on electronic brainstorming (brainwriting) described above. It can be done manually or with computer technology. Directed brainstorming works when the solution space (that is, the criteria for evaluating a good idea) is known prior to the session. If known, that criteria can be used to intentionally constrain the ideation process. In directed brainstorming, each participant is given one sheet of paper (or electronic form) and told the brainstorming question. They are asked to produce one response and stop. At that point all of the papers (or forms) are randomly swapped among the participants. Each, then, has possession of someone else's form containing a single response. The participants are asked to look at the idea in front of them and create a new idea that is better than that idea on the first criterion dimension. For example, if the first criterion was "low cost" the participants might be asked to improve upon the idea in front of them by creating an idea that is lower in cost. The forms are then swapped again and respondents are asked to improve upon the ideas against the second criterion. The process is repeated for three or more rounds.
In the laboratory, directed brainstorming has been found to almost triple the productivity of groups over electronic brainstorming.[9]
[edit] Individual brainstorming
"Individual Brainstorming" is the use of brainstorming on a solitary basis. It typically includes such techniques as free writing, free speaking, word association, and the "spider web," which is a visual note taking technique in which a people diagram their thoughts. Individual brainstorming is a useful method in creative writing and has been shown to be superior to traditional group brainstorming.[10]
[edit] Other variations
One of the problems can be to find the best questions to ask. This has been called questorming.[11] Another of the problems for brainstorming can be to find the best evaluation methods for a problem.
[edit] Conclusion
Brainstorming is a popular method of group interaction in both educational and business settings. Although it does not appear to provide a measurable advantage in creative output, brainstorming is an enjoyable exercise that is typically well received by participants. Newer variations of brainstorming seek to overcome barriers like production blocking and may well prove superior to the original technique. How well these newer methods work, and whether or not they should still be classified as brainstorming, are questions that require further research before they can be answered.

QUALITY COST ANALYSIS

2009-01-02T13:08:00.000+05:30

Quality Cost Analysis: Benefits and Risks

January, 1996

"Because the main language of [corporate management] was money, there emerged the concept of studying quality-related costs as a means of communication between the quality staff departments and the company managers."[1]

Joseph Juran, one of the world’s leading quality theorists, has been advocating the analysis of quality-related costs since 1951, when he published the first edition of his Quality Control Handbook. Feigenbaum made it one of the core ideas underlying the Total Quality Management movement.[2] It is a tremendously powerful tool for product quality, including software quality.

What is Quality Cost Analysis?

Quality costs are the costs associated with preventing, finding, and correcting defective work. These costs are huge, running at 20% - 40% of sales. [3] Many of these costs can be significantly reduced or completely avoided. One of the key functions of a Quality Engineer is the reduction of the total cost of quality associated with a product.

Here are six useful definitions, as applied to software products. Figure 1 gives examples of the types of cost. Most of Figure 1’s examples are (hopefully) self-explanatory, but I’ll provide some additional notes on a few of the costs:[4]

o Prevention Costs: Costs of activities that are specifically designed to prevent poor quality. Examples of "poor quality" include coding errors, design errors, mistakes in the user manuals, as well as badly documented or unmaintainably complex code.

Note that most of the prevention costs don’t fit within the Testing Group’s budget. This money is spent by the programming, design, and marketing staffs.

o Appraisal Costs: Costs of activities designed to find quality problems, such as code inspections and any type of testing.

Design reviews are part prevention and part appraisal. To the degree that you’re looking for errors in the proposed design itself when you do the review, you’re doing an appraisal. To the degree that you are looking for ways to strengthen the design, you are doing prevention.

o Failure Costs: Costs that result from poor quality, such as the cost of fixing bugs and the cost of dealing with customer complaints.

o Internal Failure Costs: Failure costs that arise before your company supplies its product to the customer. Along with costs of finding and fixing bugs are many internal failure costs borne by groups outside of Product Development. If a bug blocks someone in your company from doing her job, the costs of the wasted time, the missed milestones, and the overtime to get back onto schedule are all internal failure costs.

For example, if your company sells thousands of copies of the same program, you will probably print several thousand copies of a multi-color box that contains and describes the program. You (your company) will often be able to get a much better deal by booking press time with the printer in advance. However, if you don’t get the artwork to the printer on time, you might have to pay for some or all of that wasted press time anyway, and then you may have to pay additional printing fees and rush charges to get the printing done on the new schedule. This can be an added expense of many thousands of dollars.

Some programming groups treat user interface errors as low priority, leaving them until the end to fix. This can be a mistake. Marketing staff need pictures of the product’s screen long before the program is finished, in order to get the artwork for the box into the printer on time. User interface bugs — the ones that will be fixed later — can make it hard for these staff members to take (or mock up) accurate screen shots. Delays caused by these minor design flaws, or by bugs that block a packaging staff member from creating or printing special reports, can cause the company to miss its printer deadline.

Including costs like lost opportunity and cost of delays in numerical estimates of the total cost of quality can be controversial. Campanella (1990) [5] doesn’t include these in a detailed listing of examples. Gryna (1988)[6] recommends against including costs like these in the published totals because fallout from the controversy over them can kill the entire quality cost accounting effort. I include them here because I sometimes find them very useful, even if it might not make sense to include them in a balance sheet.

o External Failure Costs: Failure costs that arise after your company supplies the product to the customer, such as customer service costs, or the cost of patching a released product and distributing the patch.

External failure costs are huge. It is much cheaper to fix problems before shipping the defective product to customers.

Some of these costs must be treated with care. For example, the cost of public relations efforts to soften the publicity effects of bugs is probably not a huge percentage of your company’s PR budget. You can’t charge the entire PR budget as a quality-related cost. But any money that the PR group has to spend to specifically cope with potentially bad publicity due to bugs is a failure cost.

I’ve omitted from Figure 1 several additional costs that I don’t know how to estimate, and that I suspect are too often too controversial to use. Of these, my two strongest themes are cost of high turnover (people quit over quality-related frustration — this definitely includes sales staff, not just development and support) and cost of lost pride (many people will work less hard, with less care, if they believe that the final product will be low quality no matter what they do.)

o Total Cost of Quality: The sum of costs: Prevention + Appraisal + Internal Failure + External Failure.

Figure 1. Examples of Quality Costs Associated with Software Products.

*Prevention*	*Appraisal*
Staff training Requirements analysis Early prototyping Fault-tolerant design Defensive programming Usability analysis Clear specification Accurate internal documentation Evaluation of the reliability of development tools (before buying them) or of other potential components of the product	Design review Code inspection Glass box testing Black box testing Training testers Beta testing Test automation Usability testing Pre-release out-of-box testing by customer service staff
*Internal Failure*	*External Failure*
Bug fixes Regression testing Wasted in-house user time Wasted tester time Wasted writer time Wasted marketer time Wasted advertisements [7] Direct cost of late shipment [8] Opportunity cost of late shipment	Technical support calls[9] Preparation of support answer books Investigation of customer complaints Refunds and recalls Coding / testing of interim bug fix releases Shipping of updated product Added expense of supporting multiple versions of the product in the field PR work to soften drafts of harsh reviews Lost sales Lost customer goodwill Discounts to resellers to encourage them to keep selling the product Warranty costs Liability costs Government investigations[10] Penalties[11] All other costs imposed by law

What Makes this Approach Powerful?

Over the long term, a project (or corporate) cost accounting system that tracks quality-related costs can be a fundamentally important management tool. This is the path that Juran and Feigenbaum will lead you down, and they and their followers have frequently and eloquently explained the path, the system, and the goal.

I generally work with young, consumer-oriented software companies who don’t see TQM programs as their top priority, and therefore my approach is more tactical. There is significant benefit in using the language and insights of quality cost analysis, on a project/product by project/product basis, even in a company that has no interest in Total Quality Management or other formal quality management models.[12]

Here’s an example. Suppose that some feature has been designed in a way that you believe will be awkward and annoying for the customer. You raise the issue and the project manager rejects your report as subjective. It’s "not a bug." Where do you go if you don’t want to drop this issue? One approach is to keep taking it to higher-level managers within product development (or within the company as a whole). But without additional arguments, you’ll often keep losing, without making any friends in the process.

Suppose that you change your emphasis instead. Rather than saying that, in your opinion, customers won’t be happy, collect some other data:[13]

o Ask the writers: Is this design odd enough that it is causing extra effort to document? Would a simpler design reduce writing time and the number of pages in the manual?

o Ask the training staff: Are they going to have to spend extra time in class, and to write more supplementary materials because of this design?

o Ask Technical Support and Customer Service: Will this design increase support costs? Will it take longer to train support staff? Will there be more calls for explanations or help? More complaints? Have customers asked for refunds in previous versions of the product because of features designed like this one?

o Check for related problems: Is this design having other effects on the reliability of the program? Has it caused other bugs? (Look in the database.) Made the code harder to change? (Ask the programmers.)

o Ask the sales staff: If you think that this feature is very visible, and visibly wrong, ask whether it will interfere with sales demonstrations, or add to customer resistance.

o What about magazine reviews? Is this problem likely to be visible enough to be complained about by reviewers? If you think so, check your impression with someone in Marketing or PR.

You won’t get cost estimates from everyone, but you might be able to get ballpark estimates from most, along with one or two carefully considered estimates. This is enough to give you a range to present at the next project meeting, or in a follow-up to your original bug report. Notice the difference in your posture:

o You’re no longer presenting your opinion that the feature is a problem. You’re presenting information collected from several parts of the company that demonstrates that this feature’s design is a problem.

o You’re no longer arguing that the feature should be changed just to improve the quality. No one else in the room can posture and say that you’re being "idealistic" whereas a more pragmatic, real-world businessperson wouldn’t worry about problems like this one. Instead, you’re the one making the hard-nosed business argument, "This design is going to cost us $X in failure costs. How much will it cost to fix it?"

o Your estimates are based on information from other stakeholders in this project. If you’ve fairly represented their views, you’ll get support from them, at least to the extent of them saying that you are honestly representing the data you’ve collected.

Along with arguing about individual bugs, or groups of bugs, this approach opens up opportunities for you (and other non-testers who come to realize the power of your approach) to make business cases on several other types of issues. For example:

o The question of who should do unit testing (the programmers, the testers, or no one) can be phrased and studied as a cost-of-quality issue. The programmers might be more efficient than testers who don’t know the code, but the testers might be less expensive per hour than the programmers, and easier to recruit and train, and safer (unlike newly added programmers, new testers can’t write new bugs into the code) to add late in the project.

o The depth of the user manual’s index is a cost-of-quality issue. An excellent index might cost 35 indexer-minutes per page of the manual (so a 200 page book would take over three person-weeks to index). Trade this cost against the reduction in support calls because people can find answers to their questions in the manual.

o The best investment to achieve better quality might be additional training and staffing of the programming group (prevent the bugs rather than find and fix them).

o You (in combination with the Documentation, Marketing, or Customer Service group) might demonstrate that the user interface must be fixed and frozen sooner because of the impact of late changes on the costs of developing documentation, packaging, marketing collaterals, training materials, and support materials.

Implementation Risks

Gryna (1988) [14] and Juran & Gryna (1980) [15] point out several problems that have caused cost-of-quality approaches to fail. I’ll mention two of the main ones here.

First, it’s unwise to try to achieve too much, too fast. For example, don’t try to apply a quality cost system to every project until you’ve applied it successfully to one project. And don’t try to measure all of the costs, because you probably can’t. [16]

Second, beware of insisting on controversial costs. Gryna (1988) [17] points out several types of costs that other managers might challenge as not being quality-related. If you include these costs in your totals (such as total cost of quality), some readers will believe that you are padding these totals, to achieve a more dramatic effect. Gryna’s advice is to not include them. This is usually wise advice, but it can lead you to underestimate your customer’s probable dissatisfaction with your product. As we see in the next section, down that road lies LawyerLand.

The Dark Side of Quality Cost Analysis

Quality Cost Analysis looks at the company’s costs, not the customer’s costs. The manufacturer and seller are definitely not the only people who suffer quality-related costs. The customer suffers quality-related costs too. If a manufacturer sells a bad product, the customer faces significant expenses in dealing with that bad product.

The Ford Pinto litigation provided the most famous example of a quality cost analysis that evaluated company costs without considering customers’ costs from the customers’ viewpoint. Among the documents produced in these cases was the Grush-Saunby report, which looked at costs associated with fuel tank integrity. The key calculations appeared in Table 3 of the report: [18]

Benefits and Costs Relating to Fuel Leakage

Associated with the Static Rollover Test Portion of FMVSS 208

Benefits

Savings — 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, 2100 burned vehicles

Unit Cost -- $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle

Total Benefit — 180 x ($200,000) + 180 x ($67,000) + 2100 x ($700) = $49.5 million.

Costs

Sales — 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks.

Unit Cost -- $11 per car, $11 per truck

Total Cost — 11,000,000 x ($11) + 1,500,000 x ($11) = $137 million.

In other words, it looked cheaper to pay an average of $200,000 per death in lawsuit costs than to pay $11 per car to prevent fuel tank explosions. Ultimately, the lawsuit losses were much higher. [19]

This kind of analysis didn’t go away with the Pinto. For example, in the more recent case of General Motors Corp. v. Johnston (1992), [20] a PROM controlled the fuel injector in a pickup truck. The truck stalled because of a defect in the PROM and in the ensuing accident, Johnston’s seven-year old grandchild was killed. The Alabama Supreme Court justified an award of $7.5 million in punitive damages against GM by noting that GM "saved approximately $42,000,000 by not having a recall or otherwise notifying its purchasers of the problem related to the PROM."

Most software failures don’t lead to deaths. Most software projects involve conscious tradeoffs among several factors, including cost, time to completion, richness of the feature set, and reliability. There is nothing wrong with doing this type of business tradeoff, consciously and explicitly, unless you fail to take into account the fact that some of the problems that you leave in the product might cost your customers much, much more than they cost your company. Figure 2 lists some of the external failure costs that are borne by customers, rather than by the company.

Figure 2. Comparison of External Failure Costs Borne by the Buyer and the Seller

Seller: external failure costs

Customer: failure costs

These are the types of costs absorbed by the seller that releases a defective product.

These are the types of costs absorbed by the customer who buys a defective product.

Technical support calls
Preparation of support answer books
Investigation of customer complaints
Refunds and recalls
Coding / testing of interim bug fix releases
Shipping of updated product
Added expense of supporting multiple versions of the product in the field
PR work to soften drafts of harsh reviews
Lost sales
Lost customer goodwill
Discounts to resellers to encourage them to keep selling the product
Warranty costs
Liability costs
Government investigations
Penalties
All other costs imposed by law

Wasted time
Lost data
Lost business
Embarrassment
Frustrated employees quit
Demos or presentations to potential customers fail because of the software
Failure when attempting other tasks that can only be done once
Cost of replacing product
Cost of reconfiguring the system
Cost of recovery software
Cost of tech support
Injury / death

The point of quality-related litigation is to transfer some of the costs borne by a cheated or injured customer back to the maker or seller of the defective product. The well-publicized cases are for disastrous personal injuries, but there are plenty of cases against computer companies and software companies for breach of contract, breach of warranty, fraud, etc.

The problem of cost-of-quality analysis is that it sets us up to underestimate our litigation and customer dissatisfaction risks. We think, when we have estimated the total cost of quality associated with a project, that we have done a fairly complete analysis. But if we don’t take customers’ external failure costs into account at some point, we can be surprised by huge increased costs (lawsuits) over decisions that we thought, in our incomplete analyses, were safe and reasonable.

i20 on road for 4.80

2009-01-02T00:37:00.000+05:30

There seem to be i20s on the road. It seems Hyundai has either started delivering the i20 to special customers? I thought the i20 was being launched in January?

If Hyundai go all so soft on disclosing when their cars are being launched how do they manage to freely drive them on public roads without camouflage?

linea now in showroom

2009-01-02T00:34:00.001+05:30

Had been making a couple of trips to the tata service recently (tafe reach chennai) and was happy to see that they have got a couple of Linea's with them already (demo cars), both were marron. Had the service guy open up the car, it looke VERY nice inside with light and dark beige interiors, white dials, built in blue tooth and ICE. The alloys are multi-Spoke ones and the lower end model gets wheel cap which pretty much looks like the alloy itself. The guys at tata said that booking will start soon and they very pretty much impressed with the car and they said that its the best car they have ever seen copied from team-bhp

HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement

2009-01-02T00:18:00.001+05:30

HP has identified a hardware issue with certain HP Pavilion dv2000/dv6000/dv9000 and Compaq Presario V3000/V6000 series notebook PCs, and has also released a new BIOS for these notebook PCs, version F.39 for dv2000/V3000, and version F.3D for dv6000/dv9000/V6000.

NOTE:

If you are a customer in Canada with an HP Notebook model DV2412CA or DV2404CA, do not update the notebook to BIOS version F.39.

If you own an HP Pavilion dv2000, HP Pavilion dv6000, HP Pavilion dv9000 or Compaq Presario V3000, Compaq Presario V6000 series computer, are experiencing no symptoms on your computer, and would like to obtain more information about updating your system to the new BIOS release, please go to the "Update the BIOS to the latest version" section on this page. If you are experiencing one or more symptoms listed below, and your computer meets the product criteria listed below, contact HP to determine whether you are eligible for a free repair.

NOTE:

This service enhancement program is available in North America for 24 months after the start of your original standard limited warranty for issues listed below; otherwise your current standard limited warranty applies. Customers who already have a 24 month or longer warranty period will be covered under their existing standard HP Limited Warranty.

Determine whether your computer is eligible for free repair

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3444107&docname=c01087277#c01087277_identify

HP Limited Warranty Service Enhancement

2009-01-02T00:18:00.000+05:30

NOTE:

If you are a customer in Canada with an HP Notebook model DV2412CA or DV2404CA, do not update the notebook to BIOS version F.39.

NOTE:

Determine whether your computer is eligible for free repair

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3444107&docname=c01087277#c01087277_identify

i20 ripped

2008-12-30T23:26:00.000+05:30

Alright folks was lucky enough to visit the Hyundai showroom to find the i20 parked in display. Guess what, I was lucky enough to get a test drive...

Exterior:
The car was in silver color and didnt excite my brother as much from the front. I myself found it unoffensive but nothing to drool about. The side profile and the rear of the car looked quite meaty and made the car truly stand out.

Exterior Rating: *** (out of 5)

Interior:
After owning a Swift, I found this car to be quite spacious, thanks to the long wheel base. The leg room at the rear was quite impressive and the shoulder room was good as well. The side panels of the car spelt cheap plastic. No side panel lighting (something I wanted). The dashboard was big. But what the HELL were hyundai thinking while choosing the color scheme. My brother (prespective buyer) was very very dissapointed with the color scheme and so was my sis in law.

Interior Rating: ***

Gizmos and Safety:
The music system was very decent and sounded as good as Civics. Lots of crazy features, didnt get a chance to understand/test them all. Class defining safety features that can put even a Civic to shame , need I say more??? Bravo, Bravado, Bravicio, Stupendous!!!

Gizmos and Safety Rating: *****

Engine & Drive:
Now I own a thing or two about cars. After having driven from a 3 series, E-Class, Grand Prix, Oldsmobile Alero, Civic, Passat 1.8T, RS. I also happenin to own Swift P. I was not expecting miracles from this car knowing its spec. What I was expecting though was a definite improvement over Getz petrol which is a peace of junk imo (sorry to all Getz petrol owner, just my biased opinion). The throttle response of Getz P was frustating. So my only hope was this could better that. Now when it comes to car, mere specs dont mean much. Its how the car handles and the power is translated on road is what matters. So the fact that this was specced lower than Getz Petrol on paper had to be put on test. Luckily the showroom guy agreed to let us drive the car in showroom yard (couldnt go on road as the car was not registered). I was only able to drive in first two gears. The car was very silent on idel, no rattles, no humm, its accerlated pretty well in first. I went till 60 kmph in 2nd gear and the engine didnt moan as much as I expected. No twisties or turn, but overall I felt quite satisfied and thought it quite mathced by Swift P. If you have reached here, I wanted to tell you that I didnt really test drove the i20, but thought it would be a good idea to keep the forummers interest in the car alive by creating this fake thread. Overall the car was a hoot to drive in howsoever little that I drove.
Engine: ***.*/2

Overall I think Hyundai has a winner in their hands taken from team-bhp

tested new accord

2008-09-06T14:09:00.001+05:30

I just got back from Pearl Honda in Gurgaon after a solid 20 minute test drive of the new Honda Accord. I drove the Elegance AT which is the ‘base model’ (If you can call it that). There is a higher model available in the Inspire trim but essentially it is the Elegance plus a body kit comprising of Front Skirts / Rear Skirts / Side Skirts / Boot Lid Spoiler and a different grill. I do not see much value in this package over the Elegance (60K for a bodykit!) so I decided to check out the Elegance.

The car arrived in the dealership an hour prior to my arrival and had only 99kms on the odometer. The first thing that hits you is the size and presence! It is massive and I was afraid that it might be a handful to drive in crazy Gurgaon traffic but as I sat in the car – that all changed.

The driver’s seat is supremely comfortable and is electrically adjustable. Lumbar support is available as well. This is a very nice place to be. The next thing that surprises you is the phenomenal visibility. I can see the length of the hood and the visibility has an eerie resemblance to the OHC, one of the best driver’s cars available during its day. Even though the new Accord is a cab forward design, peripheral vision is not affected. No major blind spots and you also get a good view out the back despite the raised trunk.

I put the car in drive and take off. Compared to the old Accord it seems a lot livelier. There’s traffic but I have already hit 60 and hardly feel the perception of speed. Other than an occasional jaunt in a 5 series or Prado, this is the first time I am driving a relatively big car in India and I must say, I am instantly comfortable with this car. There are tractors and cows and rickshaws crossing hither and thither but I feel totally in control. The steering provides very good feedback. The suspension isolates most bumps and pot holes, and it is indeed a very comfortable ride.

There is a new mini-expressway that links Golf Course Road in Gurgaon to MG Road at the Sikanderpur Border – I am eager to try out the paddle shifter and make my way on to this relatively open and empty 8 lane highway – An added bonus of driving a car on this road is the potential to exploit curves and undulations. I put the car into sport mode and start flapping away! Boy, can she pull – In 3rd, hitting about 110 and she is hovering around the 3500rpm mark. There is very little lag when using the paddles as well. Even at this speed and taking the curves and humps, the new Accord is extremely composed. No Drama, No nothing – You know you can push her and she will eagerly respond but you don’t feel a need – very manageable power bands.

I drive back into the heart of MG road, and pull the car over. I ask the sales executive to drive as I check out the back seat. This is where the accord scores – Tons of leg room and a great feeling of space. The audio remote in the back is a nice touch but a little illogical if 3 people are sitting in the back (It’s built into the center arm rest). AC vents in the back are nice and really help with cooling. Its very quiet here too - Good job with NVH, Honda! The motor is a little intrusive but for folks like us, can this be a negative?

We get to the showroom and I want to play around with the central control unit in the dash - Here is the dissapointing part - there are no toys to appease the inner geek in all of us! All you can control is audio and climate control. There is nothing eciting here - no trip meter, no visual parking meter - very blah is all I have to say. I study the plastics and they are above average but not in Camry / Passat league. The main 2 tier dash with the soft plastics is nice and are of Civic quality but door locks / window switches are very mediocre ala SX4 almost. The wood / aluminum brushings and leather are of good quality - Can't complain here.

Overall, this is a brillaintly engineered car - Honda Global R&D has created a winner for sure. What is a let down is the little things that would make the ownership experience from great to outstanding!

Also you can see where certain components were retrofitted for the Indian market and were not thought through to the end.

Let me share 3 examples:
1) The steering has been designed to accomodate audio and cruise controls. You take this out and it sure looks like something is missing - I mean 9 and 3 look so bare.
2) The back audio remote - Nice Idea - Bad implementation - what happens when you have 3 people in the car!
3) The big color display avaialble in international markets have been swapped out for a thinner 1985 Casio Calculator LCD screen. To cover up the thinner dispaly, it looks like a plastic casing has been retrofitted and this looks shoddy.

Positives:
1) Comfortable Interiors - Very roomy and really cradles you.
2) Great Motor and Gear box - This is a honda afterall.
3) Astoundingly nice driving position and visibility for a car of this size
4) Some neat touches like USB input for Aux (I hope this is ipod compatible - Forgot to ask the sales guy).
5) Very nice steering feed back
6) Very Comfortable Ride - both front and back
7) Good Ingress / Egress - this will be appreciated by the demographic this car caters too. Not as low as OHC and Not as high as the SX4.
8) Smart Access to boot from rear seat - useful during long road trips when you want to get that back of Bingo! chips you threw in there.
9) Great Pricing! Very good value indeed, espescially compared to the competition.

Negatives:
1) No Projectos HLs - It looks like the headlamp cluster was created for xenons but we are back to regular bulbs here.
2) No Trip Computer - Are you serious Honda? We're touching almost 20L here and you leave these out!
3) No Steering wheel audio controls - Like I said before - It looks like something is missing
4) Screen with better UI - The two tone one looks really crappy - almost a similar effect to what the Captiva offers.
5) Better Alloys - The current ones are hideous
6) The rear bumper has been designed to house dual exhausts but the car has only one exhaust outlet so it looks funny
7) Colors! Black / White / Silver / Beige and thats it! Where is your imagination, Honda! Lets have a nice navy and some brighter colors as well.
8) Plastics are so-so for a car in this segment

Dealership:
I really liked Pearl Honda - Nice Showroom, well mannerd sales and support staff - Very attentive. The sales executive that accompanied me on the test drive was never intrusive - I think he figured out that I pretty much knew what I was doing and did not try and hard sell. I really appreciated that. Never pulled in any competitors and we generally stuck to small talk.

On Road Prices in Gurgaon:
Elegance MT: 17.38L
Inspire MT: 17.69L

Elegance AT: 18.32L
Inspire AT: 19.10L

Hope you guys liked the review. I am in think mode on whether to pull the trigger on this one or not.

NEW HONDA CITY ON ITS WAY

2008-05-31T15:53:00.000+05:30

SCOOP MAN WHILE MY FRDZZ DRIVE .. HE SAW A NEW HONDA COTY IF U DONT BELIVE ME CHECK IT OUT