When a person buys a Skoda or Ford, they don’t buy it for features, VFM, or after-sales. They buy it for what the brand stands for and the image it portrays.
BHPian Vid6639 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
The expectation was that Maruti will someday improve the plastic quality in their cars and that Tata would improve the QC on all their cars.
Tata has been working hard to catch up with other brands but it looks like things will be easier for them as brands like Skoda are going down to meet the likes of Tata and Maruti. It should have been the reverse, you keep pushing yourselves forwards and not regress.
What a shame to see the plastic quality and Quality control that is poorest in the segment and even worse than the brand we bash the most.
If this is what Skoda calls 2.0, it’s shameful to put a Skoda badge on the car. They should do like Nissan and put a cheaper brand badge on it like Datsun. This does not deserve to be sold as a Skoda.
Ford has suffered the same fate after the old Figo and Ecosport, they thought they can cut down on plastics and sheet metal feel and sell more cars with Aspire and the new Figo. Both cars never took off in sales vs the Ecosport and old Figo. The biggest reason was they were trying to make their cars like Maruti and not make them like what Ford stood for.
When a person buys a Skoda or Ford they don’t buy it for features, vfm or after-sales. They buy it for what the brand stands for and the image the brand portrays. If you dilute your cars and they no longer represent what your ethos is, the person may as well buy any generic Hyundai, Kia brand. You suddenly lose the only set of buyers who were buying your cars as you no longer have any USP over the competitor. A Ford stood for driving dynamics, great handling and steering feel and solid sturdy feel. You can’t dilute the ethos and expect to suddenly appeal to the mass market.
Like many Ecosport owners, I was looking at Kushaq as an upgrade. The Koreans just never felt like something an Ecosport owner will buy and the Skoda had similar traits on paper. After driving the Kushaq seeing the complaints here, it is no longer on my radar as the Skoda no longer represents the same values as someone expects from it.
Here’s what BHPian rideon74 had to say about the matter:
You’re quite right. It hurts because I could have opted for other brands and yet I thought well, let’s go for Skoda. Because? Well, it is a Skoda, after all. Hoo boy! Was I wrong. The irony is that the Kushaq is a hoot to drive – especially when solo and hugging curves on hill roads. Dang! Seriously hope I can be rid of these rattles from the dashboard soon.
I’m not too worried about the door beadings – that can be sorted easily in a number of ways.
Here’s what BHPian vasanthn21 had to say about the matter:
Reminds me of a story of two ice-cream sellers. They both were selling the same thing, but the second seller always has a larger queue and sells more. When asked about her secret, she told she always scoops a little less, and then adds some more; while the first woman always scooped more, and then removed some quantity from the weighing scale.
With the first woman, customers saw more quantity initially, but got lesser eventually. While with the second woman people always got more than what they initially saw.
Skoda is right now being the first woman – people have specific expectations from Skoda, but when one buys Kushaq, the cost-cutting makes them feel like they got lesser than what they saw/expected earlier from Skoda.
While – with a vehicle like Swift (one of the most successful models of Maruti India), they added a good engine while still having the usual bad build, rattles etc. But, still becoming the second woman. Buyers got more than what they had earlier seen from Maruti.
Here’s what BHPian 84.monsoon had to say about the matter:
Absolutely spot on. All the investment over 20 years to build a brand that stands for solidity, robustness, built-to-last could quickly get eroded in months.
I think the VW group is clearly seeing this risk picture longer term and the strategy may be to sacrifice the Skoda brand on this count and retain the VW brand as the one that stands for these qualities. I remember reading somewhere that the VW Virtus will be the last mass-market car that VW will introduce on the MQB-A0-IN platform in India.
As a group they need volumes and with two brands in India, and if one has to stand for premium, better-built, exclusive and pricier, then the other has to compromise somewhere to achieve better pricing and volumes. So far, the group has not been doing a good job of having two brands and two brand positions to play with. They are in many mays, wasting the differentiation factor, with the positioning of the two brands coming across as heavily overlapping and confusing. There is no differentiation in pricing, build quality, safety features, powertrains etc. between like-to-like models of VW and Skoda.
I am not saying it is correct to dilute the build standards in the new Skodas, but something has to give somewhere if they have to take a volume positioning with the Skoda brand. They have simply chosen to save costs on interior materials rather than on exterior fit and finish, safety features or powertrains. Rather sad, as this is the part the average Indian consumer cares the most about. Also, it may very well be possible to get good “perceived” interior quality at the same target price point or lower, as cars such as XUV300 (with a solid and built-to-last, though not luxurious, feel) have shown.
My expectation is that beyond the Virtus, VW will go back to building cars with global standards and quality of interiors and Skoda will continue to play the volume game, trying to put together a package that retains some basic existing DNA in terms of drivability and safety and playing with other levers available to make pricing acceptable enough to make decent volumes.
Keyword: Why a Ford EcoSport owner doesn't want to upgrade to Kushaq