The Hindu Business Line : Carmakers on overdrive to woo customers

The festive season is just around the corner and the sales of passenger sedans have been yo-yoing over the last few months. These seem reasons enough for car companies to woo the buyer with new promos. In the meanwhile, carmakers have also been taking turns reworking their models and offering new features to steal a march over their competitors. Honda, for instance, refreshed its City ZX with some new interior features and added a few safety options to take on the emerging competition from the Suzuki SX4.

Ford's Fida Edition

Now, Ford has launched a new variant of its flagship sedan Fiesta, which is targeted at the value and style conscious mid-size sedan buyer. Called the Fiesta 1.6 Fida Edition, the new variant gets a few exclusive features on the outside and inside. But the most attractive part of this new variant is likely to be the price - a captivating Rs 6.60 lakh (ex-showroom, Chennai). The new Fida Edition gets two new body colours - Copper Rust and Panther Black. The other exterior features that have been added are new turn indicators integrated into the electric rear-view mirrors, a feature usually offered in cars in the pricier sedan segment. A new set of nine-spoked alloy wheels is also part of standard fitment. For the interiors, the changes that Ford has incorporated in the new Fida Edition include colour coordinated leather-vinyl seat covers and perforated vinyl door trims. A new MP3 player with four speakers and a roof antenna are also part of the standard features on offer. This limited edition Fiesta also comes with the usual convenience features such as front fog lamps, programmable keyless entry, intelligent rear de-fogger, remote boot release, trip computer, driver's seat height adjustment mechanism and battery saver.The Fiesta Fida Edition will continue to have the same 1.6-litre Duratec engine that delivers a peak power of 101 PS. With a major chunk of Fiesta's sales coming from the diesel engine variant, the new limited edition of the petrol engine should help boost its sales.

Hyundai's Car Care Clinic

Hyundai Motor India has launched its third nationwide Free Car Care Clinic, in an effort to extend its service and free check-up to a larger number of its customers. The Free Car Care Clinic will offer a comprehensive 80-point check-up and examination of the engine, transmission, electricals, under-body, AC, body panels, etc. Hyundai customers can utilise this free check-up at any of its 320 dealer workshops across the country. Customers can also enjoy free car wash and discounts on all spare parts. A discount of 20 per cent will also be given on labour and, for the first time, a 20 per cent discount on extended warranty is also being offered. There are special discounts also on service merchandising such as engine flush, anti-rust coating, engine `de-carbonisation' and car polish. The Free Car Care Clinic, successfully introduced in 2006, was subsequently conducted in January and February 2007. This time around, the Clinic will be a two-week long campaign, running from October 3 to 17 at over 320 Hyundai dealer workshops across the country. To honour and recognise the customers who take special care in maintaining their car, the `Best Maintained Car' award will be given for cars which are over five years old and have been driven 100,000 km. Additional attractions such as Twenty-Twenty discount offer to customers with car mileage of more than 100,000 km have also been introduced for the first time.

- S. Muralidhar