The car purchase conundrum | It's not easy buying a car in 2023-24

The last 2-3 years have been interesting from a car ownership perspective. There have been many postive and negative developments. Listing a few below.

Starting with the positives:

1. Lots of new models have been introduced
2. Mainstream cars are safer
3. Home grown car makers have introduced world-class models
4. Many players have introduced usable sustainable powertrains. Eg: Tata's CNG, Toyota's hybrid
5. Entry of organized players into the used car business
6. Turbo petrols and EVs are democratizing performance
7. Lots of demand, and equivalent supply, for fun vehicles. Who would've foreseen the potential demand for the Petrol Thar 10 years back?

Listing some of the negatives:

1. Due to inflation, cars are much more expensive
2. Car loans are more expensive
3. Huge waiting times
4. Ambiguous regulatory environment causes fear
5. Unreasonably high used car prices
6. Diesel cars are much more expensive and complex
7. No proper ATs below 10 lakhs.
8. Very few value for money options beyond 30 lakhs
   

Despite the headwinds, the demand for vehicles have shown no signs of cooling off. While the macro-economics are interesting, the goal of this thread is to understand the individual experience. If you're in the market for a new, or used, car, what is your personal state of affairs?

Please post more details about your experience through replies.

Sharing my sad state: My last car is already here SCross 1.6. Although I'm very enthusiastic, I'm no longer actively interested driving a car in this country; may be for a short 1-2 Km like a test drive is OK, but don't wish to own & fight the traffic. Made peace with traveling by public transports especially train, bus & Uber/Ola

Perhaps I'm unique in this forum, but this is my plight

I think, biggest issue with both petrol and diesel cars / SUV's as now, which I see is -

- DPF clogging issue in diesel vehicles.

- Not much clarity (IMO) on ethanol blending and its effect on BS-4 and few BS-6 (which are E-10 compatible) vehicles.

I am relatively less worried as I have BS-4 diesel & petrol vehicles, so I am trying to postpone my purchase decision and hold on to my vehicles as long as I can. But I had to buy one now, I would be in a conundrum.

Not simple buying a car today at all. One needs to take an informed decision after a lot of research. EV or not? Diesel bans & DPF issues. Sedans dying. Some cars are overpriced, others have long waiting periods.

My two paise:

- Bought the car I loved = Mahindra Thar 4x4 in the exact spec I wanted (red & convertible). To my surprise though, the more I researched, the more I moved my original choice from turbo-diesel to turbo-petrol. BS6 diesel headaches, the f-a-s-t turbo-petrol and low 5000 km / year running were the main reasons.

- OTOH, am retaining my 530d. First time I'm keeping a daily beyond the 10-year mark for the simple reason that any upgrade to this car simply isn't worth the giant moolah I'd have to spend. And that the BMW has aged really well. Even by current standards, it's handsome, luxurious, fast & comfortable.

Yes, Buying a car in 2023, was a tough choice for everyone in my family, but thankfully all of them are quite happy with their respective purchases, I added a Brand New Kia Seltos to my garage, whereas my other family members have a few other Kias as well. My cousin bought a Mahindra XUV700 AX7 AWD Luxury Pack this year and is more than satisfied with his purchase as well. Overall everyone in our family has upgraded from either Sedans, MUVs or Hatchbacks to SUVs this year in line with the current trends.

It is so much worse for us Delhi guys. The kind of resale values we get for our immaculately maintained 6-7 year old diesel cars can make a grown man cry. You can’t buy diesel anymore. NA petrol engines are LAME, turbos drink, then there is the entire ethanol angle. And the asking prices are through the roof.

Basically, if you live in Delhi NCR and have plenty of running, you are screwed. Your only options are EV (immature tech, Tata’s monopoly) or CNG (no power, no automatic, limited options) or just keep filling petrol and pay through your nose for it.
Hybrid is again a monopoly situation with an extremely poor availability.

It’s a very tough call, and I have gone the EV way with the Nexon EV LR. You pay the premium but at least you are rewarded with zippy performance, fantastic refinement and negligible running costs. Have clocked almost 4000km already in less than a month. It has taken over from my diesel City (now sold) as the daily use workhorse.

In the market for a car right now, and the sub-20L (or even a shade over) options feel neither exciting nor VFM. Iffy quality, overdone styling, equipment issues, boring to drive, or some combination thereof.

20-odd lacs is a lot of money, and it's pretty disappointing what one can get for it these days.

P.S. And good lord enough chimes to give a clock factory an inferiority complex! Whatever happened to simple, fun-to-drive cars?

You can buy the lower variants are significantly lower price than the top variants and you will get simple fun to drive cars too but OEMs have taken great care to ensure that customers are aware of what they are going to miss and eventually opt for the top variant aka VFM.

Then there are vehicles themselves that are not as well equipped as the segment leaders but on the side promises better power train, fun to drive characteristics - they have to offer heavy discounts to move the stock, this is how the market is.

Indian customer now wants everything and they especially want OEMs to sweat it out , bring in their very best or be ignored. I have been part of so many car purchases this year alone, the money part of it is already committed, once the OEM is able to communicate to the customer that their product is the best fit for their use customer is not bothered about how the SA treats him or if there are discounts on offer, waiting period , none of it matters as much as the product itself , get it right and sales is guaranteed.

I sometimes have the same gut feeling but I think it is partly due to a rose-tinted view of the past and mostly due to inflation.

If you account for inflation, a 12L car in 2013 would cost 20L today. I've used the Consumer Price Index for this - see https://www.rateinflation.com/consum...istorical-cpi/

Once you keep that in mind, the options today are fantastic! Cars are much safer now, equipment levels have shot through the roof even in entry-level cars, automatics have won the battle, we even have hybrid or fully electric options that are genuinely usable every day! And while styling is subjective, we no longer see those awful sub 4m sedans and I think that alone gives the point to the Class of 2023 over the Class of 2013.