After a group of industrialists, doctors, and a few others from Aurangabad announced in November 2010 that they would buy 101 BMW cars, it was touted as a record deal.
After a group of industrialists, doctors, and a few others from Aurangabad announced in November 2010 that they would buy 101 BMW cars, it was touted as a record deal.
Two months and four meetings between the buyers and the carmakers, the wheels seem to have come off the deal.
“We had several meetings with the company representatives and they made some offers,” Pankaj Agarwal, who was heading the car buyers’ group, said. “But they offered small discounts compared to what we got from Mercedes.”
In a similar deal, the rich and the wealthy from Aurangabad had bought 150 Mercedes cars in October 2010, putting the city on world map. It had also prompted traders in Kolhapur to form a group and buy 180 Mercedes cars in December 2010.
It appeared as if a competition of sorts had started among the tier-II cities in Maharshtra to form groups and buy luxury cars in a bunch.
It served two purposes — not only did they get good discounts, but they also got authorised service centres at their doorsteps.
For instance, in Kolhapur, even though there were several Mercedes car owners, they had to drive their cars all the way to Pune to get them serviced.
With a 180-car group purchase, the company promised to set up shop right in Kolhapur. The groups spoke of making their city proud, but it was the lure of discount that worked in their favour.
But the BMW has failed to woo the Aurangabad buyers because it did not entertain such requests.
“Mercedes not only offered us good discounts of up to Rs7 lakh, but also gave us simultaneous deliveries,” Agarwal said.
“BMW offered us neither — no sizeable discount and no ready delivery.”
BMW offered a discount of Rs4 lakh on their 3-series model, Rs3 lakh off on 5-series model, and Rs4.5 lakh off on X5 and X6 models.
“Our group was not too enthused as similar discounts were available to individual customers as well,” he said.
Even though about 25 from the group have gone ahead and bought BMW cars, the others are now in talks with Audi, another luxury carmaker, to clinch a better deal. Agarwal, however, refused to give out details saying they were in a preliminary stage.
While an official BMW spokesperson did not offer any comment, sources in the company said that BMW never offered such discounts.
“It would have been a discrimination for our other customers who don’t come to us in groups. Secondly, there was on official deal. The group had approached us, we hadn’t approached them,” the source said.
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