thats sugar coated for "you are poorly managed"

Well they have surely done there homework, good.

Precisely why Skoda gives Roots Horns in their Big Cars.

These European are so good at sugercoating their words!! I just don't understand our fetish for honking. I find people honking at traffic signals as if their horns have the ability to turn the lights green. And then there are people who use their horns as substitute for airbags! Driving fast, overtaking left and right and continuously honking!! And I surely believe that half the population driving/riding treat their horns as a safety device!!

it is sadly a fact.

i guess many of the imported vehicles that come to india, initially find that their horns are weak compared to other indian vehicles.

forget four wheelers, some of the guys fit their two wheelers with very loud horns. it often happens that you hear a very loud horn from behind and you immediately give way, only to find an idiot riding a 100CC helmet less zooming away.

No one "still" realizes that honking like mad also yields the same results; i.e. people don't move, signals don't turn green, surprisingly these days dogs & cattle yield

"Kutta bhi Bevajah nahi Bhaukta" You will find this slogan in my city written on most walls but sadly it's not working I don't know why pressure horns are not Banned completely?

Audi have a made a very valid point on horns....
My BMW bike's horn went kaput at the end of our 3000 odd km India ride. Another foreign rider on a GS Adventure who did an all India trip after about a month of my ride was also in a similar situation searching for a horn mid way thru his ride. Yes, the Germans never imagined the 'Overtime' work the horns do in India.

Like a friend once told me- In the west you honk when somebody has done something stupid, whereas in India you honk when you are going to do something stupid!!!

Superlike..... !!!

in delhi u will see do not honk written on many cars and autos but still people give a damn and honk like idiots..sorry to say this but i feel like killing those people who honks unneccesary..

How interesting, never really gave much thought to how long a horn would last! Audi have done their research, good for them.

True that in Europe horns aren't used much at all, nowhere near as much as in India..., even here in southern european countries where drivers tend to use them more often. In fact in quite a few built-up areas horns are banned during the hours of darkness, unless to prevent an accident.

Audi’s statement clearly shows that despite a section of society getting richer by the day and move around in exorbitant rides, we still don’t have basic infrastructure in place. Why it is so hard for the government to make good roads and remove stray animals from them. No wonder we are still a third world to most nations despite them doing great business here just because necessities like basic infrastructure are a luxury in India. I must admit that Indian drivers & riders are more vulnerable to bad roads & stray animals moving on roads rather than traffic.

As Safety in concerned good horn is required ,
But considering the noise pollution made by horn, Its not recommended.
In Bangalore if signal is 5 Seconds all commuters will test their horns

If you'll pardon the view of an outsider for a bit, my observation has been that in India, everyone drives for themselves. Drivers use the horn constantly as a means for trying to push over anyone they preceive as being in their way, regardless of whether the "pushee" is actually obstructing traffic or not. No one, or almost no one, cooperates in driving, it seems. No one realizes that if traffic is heavy, everything will go more smoothly if everyone stays in their lane and maintains traffic speed. No one seems to be aware, or at least no one cares, that the lane markings actually mean something, and if slow traffic stayed to the left, and in the marked lanes, faster vehicles could pass much more safely, and traffic overall would flow much more smoothly. Everyone seems convinced that they at least should be allowed past all areas of slow traffic, which can work itself out after they have gone by.

And, it's not just cars. Many bike riders are doubly guilty of this, because not only do they use their horns like sirens in an attempt to clear the road ahead of them, they then run up between lanes at traffic signals, sometimes ending up 10 or 15 vehicles side-by-side at the stop line, only to have a huge clog form as 15 lanes of bikes tries to merge back down to the 2 lanes of roadway. If bikers lined up in the traffic lanes, maybe 2 abreast per lane, in line with the cars, and waited for the signal to go, everyone would get through the intersection much more easily. Even worse are the riders that invent new lanes between the markings on roads away from the intersections, but think only of getting past the car directly in front of them, but not thinking of where they will be once they get past that car. Many's the time I've seen a rider squeeze themselves between two cars, only to either run out of room, or end up trapped behind the vehicle ahead of them after they complete their pass.

Certainly a fair amount of blame can be laid on wandering animals, and even more on the completely undisciplined and barely-skilled horde of autorickshaw drivers that infest Indian roadways, but those two problems notwithstanding, ordinary drivers only make things worse for themselves by not working in concert with the other drivers on the road.

Instill more mature driving skills, and horn usage will drop precipitously; once that happens, the only people who still use horns are those who either are legitimately using them as warning devices, or a$$holes.

@ the mountain: Very well said bro. From what i have observed, if someone is going in the correct lane, no one bother, but as soon as someone goes iinto a wrong lane (bending the rules), everyone behind him starts following it just like a bunch of sheep.