Vrooming away in style in a diesel car

KOCHI: With petrol prices going through the roof and the price graphs showing no signs of relief, even fervent bhakts of petrol cars seem to be growing weary. Latest trends in sales point out that this weariness might be penetrating into the second hand car market. So much so that a number of persons who presently own first hand petrol cars are finding themselves on the list of takers for second hand diesel cars.“Earlier the demand was always higher for petrol cars. About 65% of the walk-in enquiries used to be for petrol cars and the rest for diesel. But in the last four months trends have reversed. Now 65 per cent of the inquiries come for diesel cars and only the remaining for petrol. More importantly these inquiry figures are also translating into sales figures. There are several cases where people who have petrol cars are now trying to switch to second hand diesel cars," says Anand, Assistant Sales manager, Mahendra & Mahendra First Choice, multibrand second hand dealer. The trend though is not uniform throughout the spectrum  change. “The trend is not too visible in the case of luxury cars. The price  here is quite high, even in the case of second hand ones. Besides one has to give ready cash, since there is no question of  loans. Only a small elite section can afford this and this segment is not affected by petrol prices.” says, an employee of Unisave Marketing Networks.  Consequently the most hit segment seems to be the low end  cars. “Earlier Wagon R and Santro were the second hand cars with the highest demand. Now it has shifted to cars like Indica. Earlier, the logic was that when you look at the cost of purchase and maintenance, petrol cars were always more affordable. But now that logic is changing because of the price in petrol,” says K P Saju, Dealer, Civic Motors, Kochi.