Speaking of GM’s “May the Best Car Win,” Renault is telling its dealers exactly how to convince potential customers that competitors’ products suck. Our French-speaking friends are invited to offer translations of Cardesiac‘s article below. Mais moi? Non. For pure entertainment value (a TTAC hallmark j’espere) I prefer Yahoo’s babel fish. To wit: “And for this reason, nothing is worth tacler a little the competitors with some arguments felt well to underline their defects, to start with the most sharpened of them: Ford Focus RS. And Renault is not tender: design close to the universe of the tuning, completions to be perfected, alarming consumption and tax CO2 (weight), disappointing motricity (nose gear sometimes floating in acceleration, resources limited under 2.000 tr/min,…), imperfect guidance of box, diameter of too large steering (12,2 m), height adjustment of the seats before tiresome, not of more radical choice of suspensions in option and little choice of personalization.” Tacler? The mind boggles. Anyway, Renault misunderstands a sales basic: a new product’s greatest competitor is the customer’s existing product. The easiest thing for a car owner to do is to keep doing what they’re already doing. Instructions on how to tell buyers thir current car is crap; now that I’d like to see.
Sure, the car company with motor and tranny problems, and the fugliest cars in the market has all right to down-talk the competition.
I assume if there is nothing nice to say about your own product, that is all that is left you can say.
Lie a political campaign where each candidate can’t talk about what he/she would do good, but only how much the opponent sucks.
Just jealousy for their last disastrous adventure in the U.S. market. Other than the odd pipe smoking professor, Renault never captured the heart of the American buying public. It really doesn’t matter how fast they maneuver around cones, with perhaps one exception, I did like my R5.
Renault has basically solved its quality problems, and is best in class in terms of JD Powers (for what it’s worth). So getting agressive might well be the thing to do.
Renault still sells cars? Really?
How dare they! I looked at this article on my phone and jumped off my seat to find my login. Renaults are the worst cars ever built. My 98 Megane suffered from every electrical and ignition problem imaginable resulting in nearly every ignition component being replaced – Coil, alternator, crankshaft sensor, distributor cap and rotor arm, battery etc. After all this the head gasket blew and turned the coolant into a nice dry orange mud that looked like the surface of mars on a sunny day. I managed to get the miserable vehicle repaired on the cheap, and it ran for about another year (with a clutch replacement). Had to be careful about cornering too fast as the oil pressure light would come on and the engine would make an interesting noise. Eventually crashed into an oncoming car (no ABS on this beauty) and it was written off. All of this sub 100,000 miles. My local mechanic showed me a collection of faulty wheel bearings – all renault. Total and utter s**t. My saab 9-3 is going on 80,000 with no issues at all.
I don’t even understand what I just read.
Let’s see – I’ve always thought Renault’s were neat and really wanted to own one. Back in the early 80’s I found a nice condition Le Car on the local Toyota dealer’s lot. Get the attention of the ever-clinging salesman, and let’s take it for a test drive.
Three miles from the dealership, it catches fire. Said salesman had to hike to a nearby house, call the dealership, and have someone come out and pick us (and, I assume, the car) up.
At which point, I decided that God did not want me to own a Renault, and gave up the chase.
To his credit, the salesman shut up and left me off the lot in silence.
Renault is a brand that should cease to exist.
Their cars are unreliable, ugly, dull and overpriced.
But the French government will keep them alive.
http://www.pistonheads.com/pics/news/10414/Renault_Megane-L.jpg
Like others I’ve had a wretched experience with a Renault and wouldn’t look at one in the first place, so they couldn’t trash their competition to me anyway. But RF is absolutely right–the real competition is the car the potential buyer already owns. And the only way I think a salesperson can overcome that is to have such an enticing vehicle that the potential buyer salivates so much over the new car that he/she becomes an actual buyer. It seems to me that all comparative advertising, either on the spot or in the media is a strategy for losers anyway.
Am I the only one who has a picture of the French guy in “Monty Python” taunting King Edward?
RF, you missed one point though. If the customers existing cars is another Renault, it doesn’t take much to get him out. He came into the dealer either by bicycle, by bus or in the off chance his car actually started, on fire.
comical in a inspector clouseau manner
the problem is the Ford Focus RS is one of those cars that are beyond reproach… it hasn’t had anything but rapturous applause… it’s a car everyone lusts after… on both sides of the atlantic… it is lightning in a bottle
for renault to criticise such a car is ridiculous give renault largely make pure ‘merde’
Well, the Renaultsport Megane R26 and R26R are far from merde and manage to compete very successfully with the Focus ST and RS (the R26R being faster around the Ring than the 70hp stronger RS). The Renaultsport Clio equally stands as the best small hot hatch there currently is.
But I find the sentiments very interesting – 20, even 30 years since the last experience with a company’s product and still the same opinion ;) No wonder people are still buying MBs :D It might actually have been the most sensible strategy for GM to drive Caddy into the ground the way they did – they were selling so many more of the so much cheaper to engineer cars for sufficiently long to get, NPV corrected the most out of the brand (this is speculative but looks to be eminently feasible).
On the other hand reestablishing the brand works best if it is a relatively cheap brand. Cheap brand often means younger people, a lesser delay between quality improvement and perceived improvement in quality perception and faster subsequent uptake of the new, better products of a brand. See Skoda or Hyundai / Kia as successful examples of this paradigm.
Renault similarly made some wise choices over the last 10 years. Their investment in safety will probably pay off – it gives them bragging rights to have the safest car range of any manufacturer in Europe (according to Euro NCAP). They changed strategy recently towards much better quality, are getting out of the fleet business, have invested sufficiently to produce very competitive diesels (key in Europe), and have got the lower end of the enthusiast market covered like noone else in Europe. They are also about to get out of the large car segments, which have not been profitable for them for a while. Finally, the large push for electric propulsion will give them bragging rights, similar to those of Toyota on the HSD. Even if the cars themselves are no big sues immediately, they will change the perception of Renault in the markets that matter to them significantly, which will help all their products down the line.
They are especially proving themselves in reliability.
Top Gear Survey
If Renault didn’t make cars then who would occupy the bottoms of surveys?