Maruti WagonR has been crowned the prestigious title of India’s best-selling car for the third consecutive year. In FY24, the largest carmaker in the country sold 200,177 units of the WagonR. This is slightly lower than what is sold in FY23 (212,000 units) but higher than FY22 (189,000 units). Note that Maruti WagonR was first launched in India back in 1999. It has a legacy of 25 years. That is mighty impressive. What’s even more interesting is the fact that it remains at the top of the sales charts even after 25 years of existence. In this post, we shall try to take a look at the reasons for its immense success.
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5 Reasons Why Maruti WagonR is India’s Best-Selling Car
Variants For Every Budget
Maruti Suzuki offers tons of variants at attractive price points to ensure that every customer gets what they want. That is critical since potential buyers know that they can demand any combination of powertrain, transmission and features, and there will be a trim which will possess all these aspects. That is a smart strategy from Maruti Suzuki, which comes after studying the mindset of Indian consumers for a very long time. Also, the Indo-Japanese carmaker has worked on the feedback from the consumers to implement into the final product. That is one of the reasons why the hatchback sells like hotcakes. The prices start at just Rs 5.54 lakh and go all the way upto Rs 7.38 lakh, ex-showroom.
CNG Option for Low Running Costs
Maruti Suzuki has been quite bullish on CNG powertrains. That is why it offers CNG fuel options in many of its offerings in our market. CNG is a great alternative to beat the perennially rising petrol and diesel prices. What’s nice is that the infrastructure in big cities is well-developed in terms of CNG repair, installation and gas filling stations. Hence, people don’t need to do anything extra to get a CNG car. With regard to the running costs, it is much cheaper to run CNG than petrol. Sure, you have to compromise a bit on the boot space and performance. But you end up saving a lot, especially if you drive a lot.
| ARAI Mileage | Petrol | CNG |
| 1.0L MT | 24.35 km/l | 34.05 km/kg |
| 1.0L AT | 25.19 km/l | – |
| 1.2L MT | 23.56 km/l | – |
| 1.2L AT | 24.43 km/l | – |
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Spacious and Practical Cabin
Another factor that has played in favour of the WagonR is its trademark tallboy silhouette, roomy interior and practical cabin. Despite being a relatively compact hatchback, you would be surprised to find a decent room inside the cabin. This is true not just for the passengers but also for the boot compartment. In its current iteration, the WagonR comes with a colossal 341 litres of cargo capacity. That is larger than some compact SUVs as well. Apart from that, the tallboy stance ensures that there is enough headroom even for the taller passengers. All in all, sitting inside the WagonR doesn’t feel cramped.
Well-Priced AMT (Automated Manual Transmission)
A key reason why the Maruti WagonR is the best-selling car in India is the option and convenience of an AMT gearbox. We have seen a huge shift in the mindset of car owners in the last few years towards owning a car with an automatic transmission. That is particularly true for city dwellers to navigate through challenging traffic situations. Not needing to press the clutch and shift the gears manually in bumper-to-bumper traffic could be a huge boon. Hence, the WagonR comes with an AMT gearbox. Unlike other automatic transmissions, it is much more affordable and easy to maintain since it is, essentially, a manual gearbox just with an automatic clutch operation. The prices for the AMT version start at just Rs 6.50 lakh, ex-showroom.
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Maruti’s Trusted Aftersales Network
Finally, getting associated with a brand like Maruti Suzuki ensures that you won’t even have to worry about sales and the aftersales network. It has close to a whopping 5,000 service touchpoints across the nation. This means that you can find a Maruti dealership or service centre at just about any corner of this vast nation. As a result, the potential customers get peace of mind knowing that they are never too far away from one Maruti Suzuki touchpoint. We have seen how this could be a problem for a whole bunch of other carmakers who are relatively new. People have to drive long distances to get to the service centres. But with over 4 decades of being in the country, Maruti Suzuki has that figured out. It also leads to low costs of spare parts and maintenance due to localization and easy availability of components. These are the top 5 reasons why the Maruti WagonR is the best-selling car in the country for a third consecutive year.
