Maruti Swift draws 3-mth waiting period

The Maruti Swift has a waiting period of three months (in some cases) from the date of booking at present, according to a leading Maruti dealer here.

Dealers in the city were not willing to give priority allotment even at a premium of Rs 75,000 offered over the retail price.

According to a leading auto consultant, three months is pretty long a time for some impatient customers to switch their loyalty to alternative attractive models such as the Hyundai Getz.

The Getz, launched in the B-plus segment by Hyundai late last year, compares squarely with the Maruti Swift and is available off the shelf.

Maruti confirmed this and cited sourcing problems from the vendors as a major reason for the order backlog. Currently, Maruti Udyog has a booking for over 20,000 vehicles.

"The response from customers is overwhelming. Our vendors have not been able to supply the huge chunk of components within a short period. Even before the launch of the Swift on May 25, we had booking for 9,000 cars. The company has the capacity to make only 5,000-6,000 cars a month," a source said.

Maruti despatched around 3,000 Swift units in May and 6,000 in June. Currently, the Swift is about 85 per cent localised in India, with some high-end technological components such as sensors and gear-box components being imported from Japan.

Three versions of the Swift "" LXi, VXi and ZXi "" were launched in the last week of May at introductory prices ranging between Rs 3.85 lakh and Rs 4.83 lakh. However, within 10 days, the prices were increased by Rs 8,000-Rs 10,000.

In response to this price increase by Maruti, Hyundai reduced the prices of its Santro by about Rs 19,000. However the Korean giant has not altered the price of the Getz.

The Swift bookings were not hit despite hiking the product price in early June, said dealers. Sources close to Maruti are confident that a customer loyal to the brand Swift will not shift his focus to any other car just because he has to wait for few months.