We have been waiting a while for festive offers from Ford, particularly since its competitors Maruti, Hyundai, General Motors and Honda had already announced theirs. And now we have them.
And we are surprised. Because Ford hasn’t really offered much—only the new Fiesta gets a substantial discount, of Rs. 50,000. So does this make the new Fiesta an attractive buy?
Ford Fiesta discounts of Rs. 50,000
The new Fiesta is a fine car—very well built and with excellent handling. Though it doesn’t match Honda City or Hyundai Verna in brute power, its sophisticated engineering makes it as much fun to drive.
The base petrol Fiesta 1.5SP Style starts at Rs. 8.23 lakh. A Rs. 50,000 rebate brings the price down to Rs. 7.73 lakh. That still makes it nearly Rs. 50,000 costlier than its closest rival, the base Honda City, which is currently available for Rs. 7.24 lakh (after festive discount). Both are similarly spec-ed with Fiesta inching marginally ahead by offering a music system. But Rs. 50,000 for music system—not sure that will tilt the balance in Fiesta’s favor. Also read: Ford Fiesta road test
The base diesel Fiesta 1.5SP Style costs Rs. 9.27 lakh. A Rs. 50,000 rebate brings the price down to Rs. 8.77 lakh. The diesel Fiesta’s closest rival is the new Hyundai Verna 1.4 CRDi which costs Rs. 8.09 lakh. But Verna lacks safety features such as airbags, ABS and EBD. So they are mostly on par in terms of value.
Maruti’s SX4, which offers similar features sans the safety kit costs almost a lakh less at Rs. 7.79 lakh. Fiesta though is a more modern and better handling of the two. Also read: Fiat Linea T-Jet Plus festival discounts
The higher end models too, at best, gain parity with Hyundai Verna and Honda City since Fiesta was priced almost Rs.50,000 to Rs. 1 lakh higher.
The discounts will help those of you who want to buy Fiesta for what it is—an excellent car. But they don’t go deep enough to swing the deal in Ford’s favor for the rest of us.
We had expected deeper cuts from Ford on Fiesta since the sales were are paltry 647 cars in September. In the three months since launch, Ford has sold only 1,829 Fiestas while its competitors Hyundai and Honda have notched up more than 12,000 units in the same period.
Other Ford Discounts
There isn’t much to say here. Ford Figo, which has consistently clocked over 5,000 units per month in sales, gets insurance off on petrol models. Considering Figo represents outstanding value in the premium hatchback segment, any freebie is nice add-on. But that’s about it. Also read: Skoda Laura and Fabia festival discounts
The big Ford Endeavor priced upwards of Rs. 17 lakh gets a ‘token’ discount of Rs. 15,000.
Ford’s other Fiesta, that is Fiesta Classic which sells a very decent 1,500-plus units a month, does not get any discounts.
Conclusion
Ford seems to be happy or at least satisfied with its sales numbers. It’s perhaps constrained by capacity. Whatever the reason, Ford’s discounts are quite limited. It will be interesting to see how Ford does this month in wake of heftier discounts from its competitors.
