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Kia Carens waiting period close to 1.5 years now

Launched in February 2022, the Kia Carens forays into the list of blockbusters from Kia in India, after a successful run in the Indian car market with the Seltos and Sonet SUVs. The three-row Kia Carens has witnessed a massive upsurge in the demand with long waiting periods for all of its variants across the nation. Some regions are also facing an extremely long waiting period of 74-75 weeks for the entry-level variants, which spans more than a year according to Gaadiwaadi.

Kia Carens waiting period close to 1.5 years now

Like all the other automakers in the world, Kia is also facing an acute shortage of semiconductor chips, which in addition to the soaring demand, has resulted in the long waiting periods for the Carens. Despite the lone manufacturing facility of Kia in Anantpur (Andhra Pradesh) working in its full swing with three shifts, the waiting period has surged due to these factors.

The booking bank of Carens has already breached the milestone of 50,000 bookings and is only rising with the days. In a recent development, Kia has issued a new waiting period list, which will apply to the customers booking the Carens on or after May 2, 2022.

Longest waiting period on petrol variants

Kia Carens waiting period close to 1.5 years now

As mentioned above, the longest waiting periods are witnessed by the entry-level Premium and Prestige variants of the 1.5-litre naturally-aspirated petrol manual versions, which go all the way to 74-75 weeks. The Premium, Prestige and Prestige Plus variants of the 1.4-litre turbo-petrol version of the Carens are commanding waiting periods of 22-23 weeks, 18-19 weeks and 13-14 weeks respectively. Other variants of the 1.4-litre turbo-petrol version like Prestige Plus DCT, Luxury MT, Luxury Plus MT and Luxury Plus DCT are commanding waiting periods of 28-29 weeks, 18-19 weeks, 13-14 weeks and 22-23 weeks respectively.

Coming to the diesel variants, the manual versions of Premium, Prestige, Prestige Plus and Luxury variants have a waiting period of 32-33 weeks. For the Luxury Plus variants, the waiting periods are 13-14 weeks for the 6-seater manual, 22-23 weeks for the 7-seater manual, 28-29 weeks for the 6-seater automatic and 38-39 weeks for the top-spec 7-seater automatic.

The Kia Carens came to the Indian market in February 2022 at an introductory price of Rs 8.99 lakh, though the prices of the entire lineup of Kia Carens got revised in April 2022, with some variants getting steep price hikes of up to Rs 70,000. The Kia Carens is available in India with three engine options including a 1.5-litre naturally-aspirated 115 PS petrol engine, a 1.4-litre turbocharged 140 PS petrol engine and a 1.5-litre 115 PS diesel engine.

The waiting period to reduce by the end of 2022

Kia is planning to increase the production at its Anantapur plant in Andhra Pradesh. Kia is facing massive backorders with thousands of booked vehicles still pending. Kia has already started the third shift and is working to increase the output.