WHAT’S YOUR CHOICE?

With discounts galore, its time to buy your favourite car

At present it is the buyers’ car market in India. Maruti Suzuki, the biggest car manufacturer with a wide car portfolio, the Korean brand Hyundai, the second largest car maker and Mahindra, the third, among others, are offering enticing discounts to lure buyers.

The freebies are triggered as car sales plummet to a record low last month.

Car brands are offering discounts, benefits and other incentives from Rs 30,000 to nearly `2.30 lakh on several models to woo prospective buyers to reduce inventories at dealerships of many brands.

These differ from city to city and town to town across India.

In fact, last week Madhu Arouza Pai, 46, from Goa, who works for a brokerage firm in Mumbai, bought a brand new top end Hyundai Verna sedan for a good discount of over Rs 40,000. Pai, who has a passion for cars, struck a good deal after waiting in the wings for some time. He told me, after severa l enquiries, this was a right time to buy his favorite car for him and his family. He is now proud to show off his new car to his and family members.

Passenger vehicle sales in India declined 17.07 per cent to 2,47,541 units in April, the worst monthly fall in nearly eight years, as weak sentiment, high insurance costs and a liquidity crunch dented car sales. “Indian auto sales are experiencing a prolonged slowdown as it has already seen 6 months of friends slowing sales and growth reversal and positive triggers in the near term appear few,” Ashish Harsharaj Kale, president at Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations. Therefore, it not surprising that dealerships across brands are luring prospective buyers with heavy discounts to clear their stocks and maximise margins. Maruti Suzuki is Arena dealerships are offering discounts on various cars in its line-up this month. Some of these major discounts are to clear the existing stocks of the previous-generation models of the Ertiga MPV, the Wagon R hatchback and others.

For instance, some dealerships are offering benefits of up to `70,000 on the Maruti Suzuki Ertiga (old) model. And if you are looking specifically for the petrol or CNG variant, you can avail discounts in the range of `15,000 and Rs 35,000.

You can also get discounts ranging from `50,000 to `60,000 depending upon the variant and availability of the Wagon R hatchback.

You can get Rs 53,000 off on the manual variant and Rs 48,000 off on the AMT variant on the Alto K10 and some select dealerships are offering discount upto `43,000 on

the CNG variant too. You can also get discount upto Rs 53,000 on Maruti Suzuki Celerio and Maruti Suzuki Dzire upto Rs 48,000. While Hyundai is gearing up to introduce its Venue SUV on May 21, Hyundai dealers are looking to push sales of a number of its hatchbacks and sedans to boost sales during this month. Besides a 3gm gold coin on select models, dealerships are also offering cash discounts, an exchange bonus and other benefits on the Santro, Grand i10, Xcent, i20, i20 Active and Verna. Dealerships are offering nearly `96,000 discount on Hyundai Grand i10, Rs 90,000 on Hyundai Xcent, Hyundai Verna upto `50,000 and Hyundai i20, i20 Active upto Rs 25,000.

The new Hyundai Elantra is likely to be launched in the coming months and therefore, the dealers are offering benefits worth `2.30 lakh on petrol and diesel variants of the sedan, including a massive `1.25 lakh cash discount and an exchange bonus. Mahindra dealers too are offering some lucrative deals on the brand’s range of SUVs and other cars ranging from the KUV100 NXT up to the XUV500. Depending on the model selected, buyers can avail of benefits and discounts ranging from `10,000 to `85,000 on Mahindra Scorpio, Marazzo, Thar, XUV500, and TUV300.

You can get discounts ranging from `50,000 - `60,000 depending upon the variant and availability of the Wagon R hatchback