Just pay half the price and take home a gleaming new Mercedes-Benz
GERMAN LUXURY CAR-makers Mercedes-Benz now offer their customers the option of getting a new car on lease instead of buying it with full payment.
Launching their fi nancial services business in India on July 19, Daimler, the parent of Mercedes-Benz, said that the bouquet of services this division will offer would include individual lease plans.
The facility offers one of the most fl exible options to customers. “One does not need to pay the full price of the car. Normally, as per the leasing model, the company gives the car on lease for a period of three years, working out a residual value upfront. This value, which on average is 50 per cent of the cost of a new car, is something the customer need not pay. All that he pays us is the remainder value of the car, which is nearly half its cost, and he can get the car on lease,” said Sidhartha Nair, GM of Daimler Financial Services India.
Procuring the car at half the cost is not the only attraction. The service and maintenance costs as well as the insurance fee are also borne by the company. If a new Mercedes model costs, say, Rs 30 lakh, Daimler Financial Services will now give two options to an individual customer. He can either get fi nance for buying the car and register it in his own name or else he can take it on lease.
In other news, the company disclosed its plan to unveil its compact range in the Indian market by the end of 2012. The cars with left-hand-drive option would be introduced globally later this year in Europe and in India by the end of 2012, Mercedes-Benz India MD and CEO Peter Honegg said in Chennai. “We plan to bring the left-hand drive variants to India by 2012-13 as completely knocked down (CKD) units,” he said, but declined to state the price.
Right now we don’t have the facility to manufacture the compact class at our Chakan facility near Pune,” he said.
Mercedes-Benz India manufactures the C, S and E Class at their facility at Chakan. Going by the outlook for this year, they would clock over 7,000 units in sales compared to last year’s 5,800 units, Honegg added.
