Guy do you remember last time back in those olden days the famous cars are like Datsun , Nissan Sunny, Ford Focus, Old Corolla ..... Honda wasn't in most ppl mind yet .....
Currently brand reputation play a major role in their car price , how they got their reputation is very much because of Product , Pre-sales, Sales , After sales service, proven reliability in the long run ....
In this case Kia/Naza got a very good product here, just that things like Pre-sales, sales especially after sales service overall isn't up to T&H level
Proven reliability still not having a very good record things like FC high (engine technology), Expensive spare parts (due to insufficient demand) .
So there's alot of factor to look into , in general we can say Kia Forte/Naza Force spec higher than City/Vios so is a good buy, anyone complain are just H&T fan (thou there is). But look into it deeper there's so much to prove right here to position this product at a right price so it could bring themselves close enough to fight H&T.
This round Naza/Kia is spot on for the product , next is more of their pre-sales>sales>post sales to bring on the foot-step, if their strategy is successful don't be amaze the next coming model or face lift can easily price more than 100k for 2.0, but this round if one portion fail such as post sales (service lousy, hard to find SC etc) or long term reliability lousy then we will see another round of price throwing like Spectra 5.
Comparing P1 & P2 why , MyVi most of the time outsell Saga thou I personally prefer Saga better due to Boot space and the driving experience is better as well, MyVi is more to a convenient Kei Car.... the reason here is simple both product is good, proton lost out because presales (my friend just change a SC because that idiot drag his 5k voucher close to 2 months), post sales & brand reliability(when Myvi was launch my family got a Myvi and a Waja around the same time, thou waja is a higher CC car better build but it has so many its y bits y problem eg. front drawer can't close properly need to bang it in - such a simple thing also can go wrong) ...
So back to Kia/Naza's story again ..... we must see with the current reputation Naza/Kia must really position it well to a wanted sales target, with the rumor price I think the buyer percentage drop quiet alot (they rather not pay so much to risk the reliability part), while when it is rumor at 65k the buying percentage is higher (they are prepare to pay cause the risk is lower) .... so guys I think I babel too much again
The after-sales service and support is something that Korean brands have to improve in order to change people's perception, and we can only hope that they will work hard on this. Pricing wise, it's understandable that Jazz and Yaris costs more due to the CBU status (although it comes from our Northern neighbours rather than from Japan), but the Civic which is assembled in Melaka costs lots more than what it's worth and yet it suffers various fitting and quality issues which are probably the fault of our local assemblers.
As for the long term reliability issues, there's no way to predict how well the Forte will fare. Older Korean cars didn't leave a good impression, but that doesn't mean things cannot change. People tend to forget that 20 years ago Japanese cars were treated as cheap alternatives particular in Western countries, yet today they are the benchmark. Hyundai has turned heads in recent years and now they seem to be trying the same thing with Kia. If the Koreans manage to establish a foothold in the SEA market and bring the price (and quality) war to the Japs, we as consumers shall be the ultimate winners.
Again, there's no way Naza can price the Forte at 65K as it will potentially kill the Waja, Persona and even Myvi. Our lovely government will not
allow that to happen.
Sep 25 2009, 02:45 PM
Quote
3 year old Mazda 3s only cost half price.
(SX only)
0.0451sec
0.80
7 queries
GZIP Disabled