Indian buyers are very particular about the mileage and maintenance of their cars. In fact, the automobile industry is growing rapidly in India. This translates to a large part of the population buying cars for the very first time. The natural choice is the small budget hatchbacks, which have low maintenance and high fuel economy or fuel mileage. But there are a lot of new buyers who want to step up from the regular compact hatchbacks and move directly on to the premium hatchbacks. This, essentially, translates to the three highest-selling premium hatchbacks in the country, Hyundai i20, Maruti Suzuki Baleno and Tata Altroz. We take a look at the maintenance costs associated with each of these.
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Hyundai i20
Hyundai recently launched its popular i20 and it is getting a lot of attention from the customers already. It has been around for a long time and has always seen strong sales. The i20 comes with a ton of features and a relatively low maintenance cost is what makes it so popular. Let us take a look at the average cost of ownership for the i20 for a period of 5 years. The regular servicing of i20 costs somewhere around Rs 2,000 for the first interval. It keeps increasing for the subsequent intervals. At the 5th interval, the cost comes to be around Rs 6,500. Therefore the average of all the 5 years is somewhere in the region of Rs 22,000. Considering the fact that it is a premium hatchback with a ton of features this cost is very affordable. This can be attributed to the fact that Hyundai is the second-largest carmaker in the country and the availability of spare parts is easy.
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Tata Altroz
Tata has launched the Altroz only a year ago to compete against the likes of Maruti Suzuki Baleno and Hyundai i20. It was difficult to compete against these two giants but with a great product with a ton of features, Altroz managed to be successful. The 5-star safety rating also contributed to its success. However, it is a bit expensive to maintain when we look at the costs of repair and servicing. The first service will cost around Rs 2,000. But thereafter, the prices increase gradually to Rs 7,500 for the last interval. This sums up to Rs 27,000 for the period of 5 years.
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Maruti Suzuki Baleno
Maruti Suzuki is the segment leader, just like almost every other segment in India. The largest car manufacturer in the country has made it a point to keep the maintenance costs of its product low because of the ease of availability of spare parts and a lot of service centres around the country. Therefore, the service costs at each interval are less than the rivals. The first service costs Rs 1,500. Over the next several intervals, the cost comes out to be Rs 6,000. The average for 5 years time frame sums to Rs 21,000. That makes the Baleno very easy to maintain.
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