[sandeep108]

Initial effect of a good car will always be there. Sales figures should start tapering off to around 1k units a month, since value buyers will move to Corolla/Optra or maybe these cars will be attracted to NHC crowd? Who knows. August sales were down to 1850. But September for depreciation / corporate sales may be good for civic.

Yes, but everywhere one turns, there is a civic...

[supremeBaleno]

Not many to be seen in Chennai though. I would have seen maybe max. 4-5.
Is it that the Chennai buyer is too conservative as far as premium on pricing goes or is he holding on awaiting prices to come down after the initial buzz ?

[GTO]

Honda Prices never come down. Just like Mercedes in India.

[himanshugoswami]

In Bangalore, In my office parking lot alone I have seen at least 5 new civics in the last 2 months! and to think they cost approx 13L otr in Bangy!

[navin]

Originally Posted by GTO

Honda Prices never come down. Just like Mercedes in India.

Absolutely and their A.S.S and spares are a nicer than MBIL too.

I think Toyota did itself a disservice by discounting their car. Why did they not up the product instead.

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by GTO

Honda Prices never come down. Just like Mercedes in India.

Oh, they sure do. Atleast in the form of soft discounts, as my experience shows.

When I was in the market for a C-segmenter early'05, I had only the Baleno and the base-model NHC in mind. The Baleno Vxi was like 6.5L onroad and the NHC price quoted to me was 7.42L. Even though I hated the NHC's looks, I admired Honda as a brand, plus there were these out-of-the-world FE figures floating around for the NHC and since the difference was only 70K, I was not averse to going for the NHC. But, Sundaram Motors being the only dealer in Chennai, was in no mood to come down on the price. The sales guy had the gall to finally say that he can reduce the price by 2000 to 7.4L.

I asked him to shove it and went ahead with the Baleno Lxi. A month after I bought the car, he SMS-ed me saying that they are waiving the Tax on the car - effectively 40K off the price. Considering the fact that Baleno discounts were like 50K at that time, this was almost on par with that.

The Civic is currently riding the Introduction wave in its life cycle and will command a premium to skim the market for those that are ready to pay for the novelty factor. As it grows and matures, there will definitely be price corrections. Maybe not on the lines of other cars, but still enough to interest those that do not want to pay the introductory premium.

[GTO]

Hmmm...interesting to know. I have yet to hear of a discount on a Honda in Bombay (unless its a finance discount which is the most stupid. They give you an amount from the interest that you are going to pay them anyways)

[iraghava]

GTO there are discounts available but mainly on models being phased out. I got a cash discount of 38k on my OHC VTEC. Apart from that there are very few discounts available on Honda's infact while buying an Accord last year for a friend the dealer had the guts to offer me a discount of 5k and when I got really pissed about that he upped it to 10k but another dealer offered me a better deal so I went to him.

But Honda never huge offers discounts like GM/Toyota/Maruti. Simply because their products due to a combination of brand and product quality continue to sell well even late in their model cycle.

So some time down the line the Civic will have discounts but not like the Corolla/Baleno at any cost.

[sandeep108]

Originally Posted by GTO

Hmmm...interesting to know. I have yet to hear of a discount on a Honda in Bombay (unless its a finance discount which is the most stupid. They give you an amount from the interest that you are going to pay them anyways)

They do give some corporate discount and expedited delivery in some cases also. But yes, otherwise almost negligible discount. I know a friend recently purchased one, he got hardly any discount.

But yes, I would feel quite safe buying Honda at any time, knowing their pricing policy. I know how my relative feels after buying top-end Corolla AT with works for total 14L+ just 10 months ago (just after launch of new version) and now they are advt. base at 9L to compete with NHC/Optra. If he now tries to sell his car, I doubt he will even get 7L. So 50% depreciation in 1 year due to Toyota pricing policy?

[GTO]

Yup, to preserve resale value is just one of the reasons that Honda and Mercedes maintain their price levels.

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by sandeep108

I know how my relative feels after buying top-end Corolla AT with works for total 14L+ just 10 months ago and now they are advt. base at 9L. If he now tries to sell his car, I doubt he will even get 7L. So 50% depreciation in 1 year due to Toyota pricing policy?

While the recent move by Toyota would have definitely had an impact on the consumer's perception of the brand holding value, I do not think the impact is as severe as you have mentioned.

Reasons being, the new version is a base model carved out newly, while your relative has the top-end model - there is a yawning gap there. Just because, a base model has been introduced at 9L does not mean that a top-end model sold at 14L just 10 months ago, will have a resale value lesser than the base model's sticker price.

However, if instead of creating a new model at cheap prices, Toyota had done an across the board cut in prices of all existing models, then the impact in resale value would have been felt across the models with the top-end model also taking a severe hit. Still, the hit would be based on the discount offered.

[sandeep108]

Supremebaleno, effective price cut is more than 2L - at the time, base model was 10.5 or 11 vs now 8.75. Also often resale value is determined more by the base model than any other parameter, for similar mechanical features. Nobody is going to pay extra for AT, leather, alloys, etc. accessories. Most used car buyers prefer to put them to their choice. I doubt anybody would pay any major difference for L&K / RS versions of skoda than normal / base. I spent 40k on my ICE for OHC, when I sold I did not even get Re1 for it (though in perfect working condition). Guy said I could remove it and take it away if I wanted.

In fact Honda for civic have gone one step further to improve value by keeping trim level same and allowing customer/dealer to enhance car as per choice. Now at least I know that whatever I spend on accessories is without any expectation of resale value - just as it should be.

Honda/MBIL have followed the smart policy of not advt. low prices for their cars, other than emi or similar. Ultimately car buying public at this level want some prestige associated with their purchase - now corolla owners feel it is '8 lakh ka gadi yaar' and ultimate prestige is lowered.

[Mpower]

Just goes to show that when there is a product people like, they tend to loosen their purse strings and stretch the budget.

Civic has created a market and with it volumes that people said did not exist.

[lurker]

Has the Civic been given the 'black' colour options yet ?? Last heard it was to be launched in Sept ?

Has anyone seen it ?

[sandeep108]

I have seen the white and grey, not yet the black.