It seems as if the long waiting period has become a culture of the Indian car market, if one wishes to own a car, he/she has no option but to wait for a minimum couple of months to get delivery of their desired vehicle. But this was not the scenario earlier, it was just with a few popular models from Maruti Suzuki India like Swift siblings. Now when the MSI has somehow managed to bring down the waiting period of most its cars, other car makers are encountering the same issue. And the situation is even worse in the case of some new cars including Honda Amaze and Ford EcoSport, for which people were waiting for too long, and they are bound to wait MORE.
Honda that never had this long waiting period problem, started facing the production constrain ever since it rolled out its much anticipated product Amaze. So is the case with the born-in America brand Ford, which recently rolled out the EcoSport mini SUV in India. While the Amaze still has 4-5 months waiting period, for any variant of the EcoSport, one will have to wait for about 10-12 months, i.e. almost a year!
We have been constantly receiving lots of queries on 'too long waiting period' of these two cars, which people are wanting to buy, but they have no option than to opt for other cars. And this only goes against a brand's image, which has the product, but not the production capacity and the ability to deliver the car timely.
In an interview with Honda a couple of months back, when we asked them what would they do if the waiting period goes even longer in months to come, they gave us hints at increasing one more shift at their Noida facility, which is finally happening. And the move is appreciable, this would result in shorter waiting period of 2-3 months.
But Ford which was confident of handling the long-waiting period situation hasn't yet decided what are they going to do to control the chaos. The waiting period for all the variants of EcoSport has gone upto 12 months, and many of the people who had booked the car have either cancelled their bookings or planning to do the same.
Now the onus is on the car manufacturers how to deal with these long gestation periods, as there are a number of concerns being raised by perspective customers on this issue.
Source : CarDekho - Honda Amaze - Long Waiting Period Causes Anxiety to Consumers
