One of the last items on my to do list before I relocated from Chennai to Mumbai was to sell my 'value for money' car. The reason I decided to do this was, to avoid all the hassles of obtaining a NOC from Tamilnadu RTO, re-registering the vehicle in Mumbai, pay a truckload of money as road tax in Mumbai and claim a refund for the same from Tamilnadu RTO. Most importantly, I guess, it was my phobia of dealing with the bureaucratic government machinery (read RTO), which encouraged me to cordially part with my 'Rampyaari' in Chennai. Which is what I did, on the day I left Chennai.
Little did I know that once I reach Mumbai, the search for a new car would be an even bigger headache! Solely because of such a wide variety of products on offer! It is so confusing!
The last few days I have been doing some research on various car brands & models trying to ascertain what is right for me, and my pocket! I have already discounted the Germans, the Czech and the English brands because they are out of my reach. The Japanese, the Koreans, the Americans and last but not the least, our own home grown Indian brands are what I am looking at. To begin with there are so many competing brands. Each brand has a suite of models to cater to each segment of the Indian market. Each model has at least 3-4 variants depending on the features included in the variant! Phew!
Consider this: A Indo-Japanese (now almost fully Japanese) brand has 15 different models of cars. One of the models has 8 different variants! The difference between each of the variant is only the existence / non-existence of one or two features!
Given this landscape, how does one decide which product to buy? And I have not even stepped into a car dealership to look at the actual cars!
The problem of plenty confronts the consumer. We were probably better off a few decades back, when the only choice that one had was between an Ambassador and a Premier Padmini!
4 comments:
Well, welcome to the world of consumer choices,this is precisely what i have written in my blog ,when i bought my mobile phone. The choices are a plenty and versions so many.It isn't easy.
You say you have discounted checzs and germans , well i would urge you to rethink again.Its law of economics right, good things cost you money.
However knowing you quite well, i can also see the other side of utility economics, you want to choose and what gives you the optimum satisfaction.
Would wait and see what you are buying.
Also how come you have missed the italians and the French in your search.
The French and the Italians are being fronted by Indians. The Indo-French connection is not worth it. The Indo-Italian connections doesn't have the reach, but I agree, is worth a look.
Yes, utility economics is the way to describe it...whatever I buy, it should be 'value for money'; just right in all the aspects of my expectations with the car.
Will keep you informed once I finally decide on a car; expect it to be in December.
I am little curious to know what price did u get for your "Rampyaari". You know why? Ours are batchmates!!
I am really tempted to buy a new car but may not... (thats a different story!!)
Let me give you my piece on this.. at this stage in life, somehow I think a SUV would be nice to dirve.. Xylo is coming in my dreams, these days!
Would be happy to know what you decide..
@Venkat: Xylo is not a bad pick at all, provided you have the space to drive a SUV around. In Mumbai, unless I have a driver, a SUV is a difficult proposition, with the shortage of driving as well as parking space.
I finally got Rs.2.3 lakhs for my Rampyaari. If you decide to sell, please let me know. I will introduce you to the chap who arranged it all; to the last piece of documentation.
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