Due to restrictions on auto financing, high registration charges and soaring prices, the car delivery waiting period of various locally assembled vehicles has touched up to 9 months, according to a report published in Dawn.
Related: Car Sales Declined by 25% in January 2022
Honda Atlas initiated the partial bookings of its new 11th gen Civic model. Due to high demand, delivery time of new Honda Civic goes up to 8 months after booking. Not to mention the company hasn’t officially released any specs, features, images or displayed the actual car in flesh to the public as of yet. Furthermore, the 6th gen Honda City now has a waiting period of three to four months while the BR-V can be had after a waiting period that ranges from two to three months.
According to the report, the waiting time for Toyota Corolla and IMVs hovers between four and five months while Yaris is being delivered within two months. On-money (premium) on Yaris is negligible while Corolla and its flagship Altis Grande variants carry a “premium” of around Rs 300,000. It is also being reported that Yaris, after enjoying a dominance of over a year has started to witness a steep decline in sales, due to which Toyota has now stopped disclosing individual sales of Corolla & Yaris and has started to present them as combined figure just like what Honda Atlas has been doing with Civic & City since 2014.
It is pertinent to mention that sales of 11th gen Toyota Corolla, despite being almost 8 years old has been more than that of Yaris since the last 4 months. So the combined sales figure is largely being aided by Corolla while the Yaris is feeling strong heat in presence of rivals including the 6th gen Honda City and Changan Alsvin sedans.
In case of Changan Alsvin, which is quickly making its place in the market, customers witness a waiting period from 2 to up to 4 months depending on the variant. To get quicker deliveries, there is also a hefty “premium” being charged on the sedan that ranges to up to Rs 200,000.
Al-Haj Proton which launched the X70 in December 2020 and Saga sedan in April 2021 is yet to deliver the booked orders for over a year in case of X70 and for nearly 10 months in case of Saga. The cars already has a waiting period of more than 9 months if booked today. Plus a premium of up to Rs 300,000 is being charged by the dealers to get quicker deliveries of Saga. The local assembling of X70 is yet to commence though.
The waiting period on Suzuki cars is quite long as well. The booking of all Cultus variants has been suspended for the last four months while on-money (premium) on Cultus VXR and AGS models is up to Rs 300,000 and Rs 325,000, respectively. The 660cc Alto, which is the highest-selling car of the country is being delivered in three to four months, while its cheapest VX variant has the longest waiting period of up to 5 months. Alto’s manual and automatic models carry Rs 200,000 and Rs 300,000 on-money. The premium on WagonR is charged at Rs 80,000 and has a waiting time of a couple of months.
Some dealerships of Toyota and Honda, on condition of anonymity, said that their showrooms have been facing a big slowdown from the banks offering auto loans. This is due to massive price increase in vehicles after the imposition of Federal Excise Duty (FED), heavy registration charges on over 1,000cc vehicles and financing curbs imposed by the State Bank in the last quarter of 2021.
The report further added that Lucky Motor Corporation (LMC) has already suspended booking of Picanto automatic from December 2021, while the company had closed down bookings for the manual model from Feb 2 due to semiconductor chip shortage. However, the delivery commitment for Picanto is July 2022, followed by April/May for Sportage variants. The delivery time for newly launched Kia Stonic is up to June, while Sorento and Carnival are readily available.
According to Kia dealerships, the Sportage is still in high demand despite various issues like high prices, massive registration charges and State Bank’s curbs on auto financing. As per sources, the on-money on Sportage is Rs 40,000-50,000 while Stonic carries up to Rs 150,000 followed by Rs 200,000 on Picanto automatic.
Related: Cars Sales: Booked vs Delivered
However, to check the menace of on-money high taxes for different engine power capacities have been fixed by the government on registration, where the booking was made by Person A and registration was made in the name of Person B. In addition, compulsory payment of Kibor +3% interest rate by the manufacturers had been fixed on delivery beyond 60 days on initial deposited payment. Sources in the Engineering Development Board (EDB) said that the auto assemblers had paid over Rs 3 billion to the customers on late deliveries from 2016 to June 2021.
Source: Dawn
A computer animation professional with over 23 years of industry experience having served in leading organizations, TV channels & production facilities in Pakistan. An avid car enthusiast and petrolhead with an affection to deliver quality content to help shape opinions. Formerly written for PakWheels as well as major publications including Dawn. Founder of CarSpiritPK.com
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