Maruti Nexa Jimny Strengths And Weaknesses - Against Mahindra Thar As Benchmark | V3Cars

Strength - Fronx To Help With Awareness

The major reason behind revealing the Fronx and Jimny together is to bring the Fronx customers to the Nexa showroom and have them take a look at the Jimny instead. While most of them won’t buy a Jimny instead of the Fronx, it’ll certainly create some awareness among the general public about the Jimny off-roader. Meanwhile, other potential Nexa customers will also continue to help with spreading the word about the Jimny.

Our vehicles are our status symbols. The car we drive announces how far we’ve come in life. Since we prioritise vehicle selection based on how jealous it’ll make our neighbour, it’s important for the neighbour to recognise the car we buy in the first place to feel the burn.

Strength - Sales, Service Network

The wide sales and service network alone allows Maruti Suzuki to reach more customers than any other brand. For a lot of customers, checking out a car at the showroom ends up resulting in a sale even if they initially had no plans of buying a particular car.

For those who choose to prioritise brain over heart in vehicle purchase decisions, the wide service network makes one solid reason to pick a Maruti car over any other. With a Maruti Suzuki car, you can find a service centre almost everywhere. Post warranty, even if you choose to get the car serviced at a 3rd party garage, their widespread network of genuine spare parts shops will happily sell you original parts. No wonder they control around 50% of the Indian passenger car market share.

Strength - Jo Dikhta Hai, Woh Bikta Hai

If you line up 1,000 examples of the Jimny display car along a runway, a pilot coming in for landing will probably have an easier time spotting the runway from 15,000 feet in the air. The neon green paint is a great choice of colour for buyers who want to stand out on the road.

Since Maruti Suzuki usually keep the reveal, bookings, price announcements and delivery so close on the calendar, it’s easy for them to ride the hype train. From the moment you first see the car on your phone to the moment you first see it on the road subconsciously tells you that this is a successful car. And the more often you see it on the road, the more you start associating yourself with the car.

The WagonR is an easy example. In a tight traffic situation, if you have to guess how many WagonRs and Altos are stuck with you, you’ll probably overestimate the number of WagonRs you see. This is despite the fact that statistically, there will be a comparable number of Altos since Alto sells in similar numbers to the WagonR. The tall body of the WagonR makes it more visible and helps Maruti Suzuki with free publicity.

Similarly, quickly starting the deliveries of the Jimny after the launch and offering the high-visibility neon green colour for those who want to stand out will also help with creating awareness in the market.

Strength - 5-door Practicality

People looking to buy an off-roader as their one and only car often have to compromise on the everyday practicality as the Thar and Gurkha currently only offer 3-door variants (including rear side-swinging boot door). This makes ingress and egress difficult for rear-seats passengers.

While the Thar will also come with a 5-door variant, the Jimny offers the practicality of 5-doors from day 1. So, you can not only use the Jimny as your primary vehicle, you can also use it as your only vehicle. Since you have the 4WD with you all the time, you can afford to even go to new places and engage the 4WD if required.

Strength - Compact Dimensions

Believe it or not, some people want compact cars because of their parking space limitations even if they can afford a bigger car. For such buyers who want a 4WD but have narrow streets leading up to their homes or have to frequently park in tight spaces, the Jimny is not only the default choice, it’s their only choice.

Weakness - Narrow Body/Road Presence

While the Jimny measures about the same as Thar in length, it’s far narrower and has a fairly lower roofline too. The tyre size also sets up our perceptions as the Jimny being a segment lower than the Thar. Even in the top spec, the Jimny only gets 195-section tyres with 15-inch wheels. Meanwhile, even the base variant of the Thar gets fat 245-section tyres with bigger 16-inch steel rims. The top variant of the Mahindra Thar flashes its even larger 18-inch alloys.

The neon green paint job can give it visibility but it doesn’t give the Jimny road presence. The Thar is on a whole new level. Moreover, considering that the Thar is only a 3-door car, if you do an apples-to-apples comparison, you’ll end up with a much bigger off-roader if you wait for the 5-door Thar.

Weakness - Pricing

The Jimny doesn’t get 2WD variants at the time of launch, which takes away the option of a lower cost variant for an affordable starting price. Moreover, the 1.5L engine doesn’t do it any favours as it can’t enjoy the lower tax benefits, which are available for a sub-4m car with a sub-1.2L petrol engine. So, getting the pricing right is not only crucial for Maruti Suzuki, but also very difficult. Since it doesn’t have the tax advantages, we’re expecting a price tag, which might make the Thar a more sensible choice for most off-road SUV buyers.

Weakness - Established Rival Covering Its Bases

On one end, the Thar is squeezing the Jimny with a tax-friendly 1.5L turbo diesel engine and rear wheel drive. On the other hand, the Thar 5-door will match the Jimny on the practicality front. The Jimny has an uphill battle and its poor approach angle isn’t helping. Apologies for the cheesy pun, but I couldn’t stop myself from bringing that up.

If the Thar also brings the 1.5L rear-wheel drive with the 5-door layout, it’ll further help Mahindra better compete with the Jimny. Although it won’t help the Thar with the tax benefits, the lack of 4WD and a smaller engine will certainly make it more affordable. This powertrain and drivetrain combination with the 5-door option should help Mahindra complete the Thar portfolio and leave no holes in the Thar’s armour.

Weakness - Engine (Torque)

Off-road, the power and high redline count for nothing. What you need is torque — lots of it. And it’s even better if most of it is coming at near-idle RPMs. The Jimny has none of it while the Thar has a lot of it. The Jimny brings only 134Nm of torque at 4000rpm, which is 66% of its peak power RPM. Even with the 1.5L rear-wheel drivetrain, the Thar has more than twice the torque at 50% of the peak power RPM.

While I don’t have the torque curve of each car, but I’m guessing that the Thar 1.5L may have more torque at near idle RPM than the Jimny has at 4000rpm.

Weakness - Thar 1.5L RWD

As much as I have talked about the Thar posing some serious challenge for the Jimny’s success, the Thar 1.5L with a sub-Rs. 10.0 lakh price tag deserves a special mention. It’s like comparing apples and oranges but with:

• 300Nm of torque
• fat tyres
• larger wheels
• wider body
• superior road presence
• and authentic “Jeep” styling

the Thar 1.5L, even with the rear-wheel drivetrain and 2 fewer doors will satisfactorily meet the requirements of most off-road SUV buyers. I haven’t seen a knockout punch like this since Tyson was in his peak physical form. With its attractive price, the Thar’s sales are likely to skyrocket and expand its reach in terms of brand awareness; thus greatly negating the Jimny’s strong sales network advantage.

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