You CANNOT buy a car on Dhanteras 2022 for THIS reason! Dealers STOP taking bookings

Buying a car on Dhanteras might now get difficult because dealers have ceased taking immediate or instant bookings for the auspicious day due to strong demand. According to industry insiders, more than four lakh people have reserved their preferred cars to go home on Dhanteras Day, which occurs on October 23. Between September 26 and October 5, 2022, 5,39,227 automobiles were sold during the festival of Navratri. 1,10,521 passenger cars and 3,69,020 two-wheelers were sold at this event. The best-sellers also have waiting periods.

Those who had reserved their favourite cars in advance might be fortunate enough to have them delivered on Dhanteras. Over 65 weeks are required to wait for the majority of the best-selling automobiles. Ajay Agarwal, a showroom owner of Tata Motors and Renault India, told ANI that sales volumes had been doubling year on year.

"Navratri has been very excellent for us, and we hope that Dhanteras will be much better," Agarwal said that due to demand, the waiting period for best-sellers cars is increasing in showrooms now. There was no immediate or instant booking for the Dhanteras.

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Agarwal said that from Navratri till Dhanteras, they had a gap of 25 days to work for, and they were hoping this would be the highest-ever volume for them in Dhanteras. He said, "North India market is largely driven by festivals and marriages, and luckily in October, November, and December, we are heading towards festivals like Diwali, Durga Puja, which is one of the biggest festivals in North India, and after that, we have very strong marriage dates in November." And he said, "So, demand is very strong.

Customers have been waiting for this period to take the delivery of their car. They had booked for the past 2-3 months."Agarwal said that due to the demand for Tata`s Nexon, waiting periods had increased and added that issues were getting resolved in some models due to better availability of the supply chain. "Like CNG, the waiting period is less, but almost all models are on waiting; some are less, some are more. Renault's lower variants are more on waiting, and higher models are less on waiting," he said.

Car companies put the waiting period for their best-selling cars in their showrooms. Mahindra and Mahindra's (M&M) best-selling car, XUV7OO, has a waiting period of around 66-68 weeks. XUV5OO has a waiting period for some models of 7-27 weeks, Thar Diesel has 23-25 weeks, while Bolero Diesel has up to 10 weeks.

Tata Nexon has a waiting period of 16 to 20 weeks, depending on different model variants, while Tata Punch has 24 to 26 weeks. Nissan Magnite has a waiting period of 10-12 weeks. It is almost the same for Maruti Brezza, the recently-launched Grand Vitara, and Kia Motors` top-selling cars -- Seltos and Kia. Customers who are going to book or have queried about their favourite cars are clearly told by sales persons in showrooms about the waiting period.

Manish Raj Singhania, President Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), said passenger vehicle dealers will see decade-high sales during this festive season. He said that Navratri's overall retail sales increased by a massive 57 percent compared to Navratri 2021. All categories also showed extremely high growth, with two-wheelers (2W), three-wheelers (3W), commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles, and tractors growing at 52 percent, 115 percent, 48 percent, 70 percent, and 58 percent, respectively.

Singhania said that Navratri retails clearly showed that customers were back in showrooms with all guns blazing after a gap of three years. In fact, the 2W category, which was continuously showing weakness when compared to pre-Covid months, also registered single-digit growth.

Singhania said, "We now hope that this trend continues till Deepawali so that apart from PV dealers, which will see a decade-high during this festive, the 2W dealers also have a good season and hence helps them liquidate their stock which they have built in anticipation of a good festive period.

The festive period of Navratri-Dussehra and Dhanteras-Diwali this year has delivered the worst performance for India`s automakers in almost a decade. The main festive season from Navratri to Diwali is the peak period of activity in the personal mobility segment. But, demand remained slow this time, particularly in North India, where Diwali has historically been a sentiment booster.

Vehicle registrations during the 30-day period declined by steep double digits compared to last year's festive period. The rise in this number is surely because of the various material shortages, global supply disruptions, and new launches, too.

(With inputs from ANI)