Here's Why The Delivery Of Your Car Is Getting Delayed (2024)

Waiting periods of Volkswagen’s Tiguan go up to 6 months for some variants, and up to 5-6 months for the 1.5L Taigun. For luxury carmakers Audi, SUVs like the Q5 & Q7 have waiting periods ranging from 2-5 months.

New Delhi: Buying a new car in 2022 is becoming a little more time-consuming than normal. Production issues caused by various factors including the ongoing covid pandemic and global semiconductor shortages mean that your brand new motor could take multiple weeks or months longer than usual to arrive on your driveway. According to a report in Mint, some top-end models of Mahindra & Mahindra’s newest SUV XUV700 are currently having a waiting period of 88-90 weeks, whereas certain diesel variants of the Thar have delivery timelines as high as 43-44 weeks. For Tata Motors, waiting periods are not as high, as dealers seem to have been allocated high-traction models in advance.

Waiting periods for the mid-sized SUV Nexon are at 6-8 weeks on average, 6 weeks for the Punch, and around 12 weeks for the compact SUV Punch, the dealer told the publication.

Waiting time for Skoda, Volkswagen, Suzuki, Audi

According to the report in the publication, waiting periods of Volkswagen’s Tiguan go up to 6 months for some variants, and up to 5-6 months for the 1.5L Taigun. The company’s flagship Polo, which is now near the end of its life cycle in India, is also attracting waiting periods of 2-3 months. Skoda’s Kodiaq is sold out for the rest of the year, and production of the new Slavia will also only ramp up by May.

For luxury carmakers Audi, SUVs like the Q5 & Q7 have waiting periods ranging from 2-5 months. Ultra-luxurious performance cars from Lamborghini are on a waiting period of 24 months.

Waiting periods were highest for the Ertiga at 5.5 months for the CNG variant, and 5-6 weeks for the petrol variant.

Customers placing orders with multiple dealers

Customers are placing orders with multiple dealers in hopes of securing an early delivery of their car. Dealers are also observing that customers end up cancelling an existing booking if they are able to secure an early delivery of a model which may not be their first preference.

In fact, the shock of higher sticker prices of cars has somehow been softened by the high delivery timelines, and customers are willing to shell out a premium to get timely delivery of their cars.

“We are seeing a very healthy booking inflow, which is leading to waiting periods and pending bookings going up. As of now, we have over 300,000 pending orders, out of which almost 120,000 are for the Ertiga. Waiting periods for CNG models are particularly high”, Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director, Maruti Suzuki told Mint.

He further shared that while the automaker has been able to improve its production month-on-month since September, with monthly volumes doing better than estimates, getting production back to 100% is still a while away – and in light of recent disruptions, the exact impact on production will depend on how long supply chain interruptions last.