Hottest small car deals this Diwali!

The largest segment in the market saw some good deals—and some got better as the month progressed. Here is a quick run-down of what’s on offer—mostly till Diwali. Want to see more? Check out more deals!

Diwali Deals on Maruti WagonR and Alto K10

Maruti best-sellers, Alto and Wagon R, get cash discounts of Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 14,000, respectively. The discounts are on lower-end Lx and Lxi models and have been topped with a music system. That means that Wagon R Lx can be yours for around Rs. 3.21 lakh with a music system thrown in.

A pretty sweet deal considering that Alto K10 Vxi costs Rs 3.17 lakh.

The base Alto K10 Lx goes down from Rs. 3.04 lakh to Rs. 2.94 lakh and you get a music system as well. Not bad at that price point.

Diwali Deals on Hyundai i10 and Santro

The best i10 deals are on cars that come non-metallic shades. There is a cash discount of Rs. 23,525 on the Rs. 3.87 lakh Era bringing down its price to Rs. 3.64—that puts it in the same price band as Wagon R Lxi which costs Rs. 3.65 lakh. Both are similarly spec-ed.

The 1.1 Magna gets a discount of Rs. 23,039 leading to price reduction from Rs. 4.02 lakh to 3.79 lakh making it Rs. 11,000 cheaper than Wagon R Vxi priced at Rs. 3.90 lakh. But i10 Magna does not have a music system or, more importantly airbags—Wagon R Vxi has two of them. So Rs. 11,000 savings might not be worth that much.

The 1.2 Magna and 1.2 Sports get a cash discount of Rs. 25,000 each so they can now be bought for Rs. 3.96 lakh and Rs. 4.54 lakh, respectively. Both have the modern Kappa engine that churns out 79 BHP—the 1.1 Era and 1.1 Magna have the older 67 BHP engine. So if you are looking for power, these two variants are a good alternative to Wagon R/A-Star/Estilo models from Maruti which have sub-70 BHP power output.

However, if you are on the market for power, then Ritz Lxi and Ritz Vxi, both of which are powered by the 84-BHP K-Series engine, can be had for Rs. 4.02 lakh, and Rs. 4.65 lakh, respectively. So there isn’t much too choose between 1.2 versions of i10 from Hyundai and Maruti Ritz based on prices.

Metallic shades of i10 get a cash discount of 5,000 and free insurance worth Rs, 13,000. Considering the fact that negotiating insurance cost waiver in the category is not such a big deal, the discount doesn’t add up to much.

In short, if you are the sort who always wanted an i10, then the discounts are helpful. On the other hand, if the relative price is what determines your choice, then you’d find Hyundai hasn’t really gone far enough.

Hyundai Santro gets first year insurance waiver plus Rs. 5,000 cash discount—not counting for much since both Alto K10 and Chevrolet Spark come with better deals.

Diwali Deals on Chevrolet Spark

Chevrolet Spark gets Rs. 53,000 off so its base model would now be available for Rs 2.79 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) instead of its existing price of Rs 3.32 lakh. The base model is very lightly spec-ed and does have power windows or power steering.

It’s still a shade costlier than the base Maruti Alto LX which comes for Rs. 2.63 lakh. But Alto LX runs on the old Maruti 800 engine. The base Alto K10 LXI is significantly more expensive at Rs. 3.04 lakh—Rs. 2.94 after the discount—making  Spark a good buy.

In fact, for Rs. 3.01 lakh, you can get Spark 1.0 LS which has power steering and 2 power windows—Alto K10 LXI does not have power windows.

The higher-end Spark 1.0 LT which adds music system to the previous models specs can now be had for Rs. 3.32 lakh but remains costlier than similarly spec-ed Alto K10 VXI priced at Rs. 3.17 lakh.