Disadvantages of buying cars with long waiting periods

There are many people across India who wait for months to get delivery of their beloved car. However, in my opinion one should not wait for more than a month to get delivery of the car.

BHPian fazayal recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

There are multiple threads on this topic. However, I have tried to give my point of view with logical explanations on why it doesn't make sense to buy a car with high waiting period.

There are many people across India who wait for months to get delivery of their beloved car. However, in my opinion one should not wait for more than a month to get delivery of the car. There are many reasons for it:

1. Booking a car with high waiting period is like going on a road with high traffic. More and more people keep on booking that car and waiting period keeps on increasing, making the situation worse. If there is another car available in the market which fulfils all your needs, better to go for it than go for a car with higher waiting period.

2. In many cases you would be exchanging your old car. So you would have to drive the old car for more time. The old car would have higher chances of breakdown, there might be scheduled services in between or even insurance renewal. Resale value would also be lower 6 months down the line. It would also rob you off pleasure of driving a new car for such a long period.

3. If the car has a huge waiting period, you would not get proper buying experience from the dealer. I remember going to Renault showroom during launch of Duster and Ford showroom during launch of EcoSport. Dealer staff were not even interested in attending walk-in customers. They might also create circumstances that would make you cancel the car booking after waiting for sometime because there might be people ready to pay extra money to get that popular car. Even if they refund the full amount, they practically used your money interest free to run their business. Imagine you booked by paying 50k. There are 100 bookings in pipeline. That's a cool 50 lakhs in dealer's bank account to use as interest free working capital!

4. Dealers might also force customers to buy everything in-house for cars with high waiting period. Be it inflated insurance price, finance or accessories. They can't do it legally, so they might very well quote a much higher waiting period for someone who wants to get insurance, finance, etc. done on their own rather than going with dealer.

5. Cost of cars usually go up and rarely come down. For cars in high demand, the price is increased more regularly by the OEM. Customers have to pay the cost of car as on date of delivery. If one buys a car with waiting period of say 6 months, it's very likely that price of car would have increased considerably by then.

6. With high waiting period, there are chances that your EMIs might start even before delivery of the car.

7. Most of the time, high waiting period is for newly launched car. There are higher chances of niggles in a newly launched car than in a car in the market for say 2 years as most niggles are removed by then.

8. You might have to compromise on the variant, colour, fuel options etc. on cars with high waiting period.

9. Read a thread which was about how OEMs fake that waiting period is higher to show that their car is in high demand and they would not give any discounts/offers etc. If customers start walking away when high waiting period is quoted, they would be forced to stop this gimmick.

10. Economically speaking, buyer's market is much better than seller's market. Sellers should be chasing customers and following up with them rather than the other way round. Instead of deferring for six months, a customers spend money now, it's better for economy as well. More people spend in market, more jobs are created and we all benefit as a country.

These are few points I could think of. Would love to hear points for and against.

Here's what GTO had to say on the matter:

You make some really valid points. Agreed with almost all of the disadvantages to buying cars with long wait periods.

Will add one more con = at the start, manufacturers push the higher variants (more profits). You will have to pay more. The base & lower variants are freely available only later. Cheaper variants are as rare as white Ferraris in the months after the launch.

But, I usually zero in on the "one car" I love, and have no problems waiting for it. I look at the situation this way = if I have to drive the car for 10-years, I don't mind waiting another 6 months to get the model that I really, really like.

Here's what BHPian Jeroen had to say on the matter:

Different countries, different ways to procure a car!!

In the USA, if you want a new car, you just rock up to whatever dealer you fancy. About an hour later, you drive away in your brand new car. All paperwork, including registration, trade in, insurance and car loan done!!

Here in Europe, in most countries, every car is made and produced to a specific customer order. Dealers do not have any stock apart from demo cars and the few cars they have in their show room. But it means that it takes 3-6 months before you take delivery of your new car. On the upside is, you get to spec your car to the exact level you want!

Trade in are no issue. The dealer will offer you a price for your trade in car and make an estimate on what the additional mileage you clock till you take delivery of your new car is likely to be. You agree a trade in price and as long as you are in the ball park of that agreed mileage and not any undue excess wear and tear (scrapes and dings), the dealer will honour that agreed price months later. It is never a problem.

My company car lease will expire end of November. So yesterday, I received a mail from our company lease co-ordinator, reminding me that I need to start looking for a new car, so something can be ordered in the next few weeks, so it can be delivered towards the end of the year.

I visited a Porsche dealer last week, and you can’t even get any new Porsche delivered before the end of this year! So waiting times are in excess of 6 months.

Mercedes W123 and W124 at the time had waiting list of well over 2 years!! Taxi drivers would order a new W123 at the same time when they picked up their new W123!!

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