Most cars prices to increase by up to 3% in January

If you’ve not bought a car right now and have been deferring your purchase to the new year, this decision may not really bode well for you. In January, almost all car companies are planning to hike prices of their cars across the board by between 1% and 3%. Would this hike in prices hit you hard?

If you haven’t booked your car or won’t get delivery this year, it’s probably too late. The price that prevails on the date of delivery or final billing is what matters. Read on.

The reason car companies are hiking prices in January is that there has been a further rise in raw material prices (steel, plastic and oil) and the Indian rupee is still not strong enough, with fluctuating exchange rate playing havoc with profit margins of car companies.

Renault is planning to hike prices of all its products including the popular Renault Duster by up to 1.5%. This means an increase of Rs. 12,500 to Rs. 17,500 ex-showroom on the Duster variants, taking the top-end Duster’s price up to Rs. 11.87 lakh! A similar price increase is planned (1.5%) on the Renault Pulse, Renault Scala, Fluence and Renault Koleos.

Nissan too announced that it is increasing prices of all its products including the Micra, Sunny and Evalia, because of rising input costs. The price increase from Nissan too will be about 3% across the board, but its vehicle’s prices continue to be slightly lower than that of its alliance partner Renault, although the pricing would come closer to each other after this hike. Also read: Carmakers threaten price increase to speed up buying decisions

Mahindra is also planning a hefty price increase of up to 2.5% on its model portfolio. This means prices of the Mahindra Scorpio and Mahindra XUV500, which are in good demand could go up significantly. The base Mahindra XUV500 W6 prices could go up by about Rs. 29,500 putting it’s ex-showroom price at Rs 12 lakh in Delhi, while the top-end all-wheel drive XUV500’s price will go up by about Rs. 35,500, taking it’s ex-showroom price up to Rs. 14.62 lakh! This is the second price increase for Mahindra within a year. Also read: Mahindra to increase prices by 2-3% in January

Prices of the Toyota Fortuner could go up by up to 2% making the vehicle more expensive by about Rs. 42,500 for the 4×2 manual variant and Rs. 45,000 for the top-end 4×4 variant.

General Motors has also said that it would be hiking prices in January. Chevrolet is planning to increase prices between 1% and 3% depending on the product category. It’s likely that the newly launched Chevrolet Sail U-Va, as well as the Chevrolet Spark and Beat will get less of a hike compared to vehicles such as the Cruze, Captiva and Tavera. Maruti is also planning to increase prices across its product range, from the Alto up to the Maruti SX4. Hyundai just hiked prices in October. Also read: Maruti increases prices of diesel cars by up to Rs. 10,000

This price hike comes at a time when December discounts are failing to really boost sales numbers as most buyers prefer to wait for the new year to buy a car, as it may fetch higher resale value later. But with price differences of as much as Rs. 30,000 as well as present discounts being offered on some models, buyers may see a net gain of about Rs. 50,000 on some cars, if you choose to buy now rather than wait. Also read: Tata offers up to Rs. 1.5 lakh discounts in December

That Rs. 50,000 is the deciding factor –  will the resale value you fetch cover that say five years from now? It’s a point to ponder.