Maruti compensates early bird S-Cross buyers for value loss

Car market leader Maruti Suzuki is now compensating early bird buyers of its S-Cross launched in August last year, which met with a lukewarm response and forced dealers to offer huge discounts to buyers.

Maruti while shifting to new drive technologies and vehicle designs, is also working to maintain customer loyalty.

The first car that was distributed through Maruti's NEXA network, before the Baleno, the S-Cross received a relatively weak response that drove NEXA dealers into offering massive discounts, ranging from Rs90,000 to over Rs2 lakh for the 1.6L S-Cross (DDiS 320) and from Rs40,000 to Rs66,000 for the 1.3L S-Cross (DDiS 200).

Now, the car maker is trying to compensate those 'early bird' customers many of whom were left out of the discount deals and are a disappointed lot.

Now, to those who lost in purchase price and resale value, Maruti is offering a compensation to make up for it.

One of the early buyers of the S-Cross Samrat Chaudhari received a cheque for Rs90,000 and a 2-year / 20,000 km premium MCP (maintenance cost protect) package / extended warranty from NEXA, for buying his 1.6L S-Cross (Alpha variant) before the price correction. Another person received the free extended warranty for his S-Cross as it was purchased before the prices dropped.

Maruti, famous for its simple, cheap and featureless cars, has learnt lessons from its competitors. Maruti was still using the almost-obsolete carburettor technology when competitor Hyundai launched the Santro with multi-point fuel injection, which helped it meet Euro norms and made it more fuel efficient.

Maruti is now shifting to a new ''liquid flow'' design language, letting go the old boxy looks.

It also took some bold steps, such as launching a premium dealership network called Nexa. The Baleno and the crossover S-Cross are sold through this network. Maruti gets 12 per cent of its revenue from Nexa, and is angling for more.