Suzuki Wagon R is the most hyped and most marketed hatchback at the moment. This is also the newest entry by Suzuki which means this is the car most accurate with international markets not standards. Wagon R was supposedly brought in as a replacement of Alto however in the excitement or you can say spur of moment Suzuki forgot why Wagon R was brought in and that’s why replacement of Suzuki’s bestselling car in Pakistan is not getting the response they expected which is why we don’t see many Wagon Rs on road despite its been launched a few months back. Now let’s have a look at why Wagon R is not getting the response Suzuki expected.
When I asked my non petrol head friends or ladies as what they think of Wagon R their first response is oh it looks like the first model of Santro and despite the fact I used to like Santro back in the day when they refer it as Santro they don’t mean it in the good way. If you all remember the first generation Santro in Pakistan was not liked by many which is why the later generation was introduced by Dewan and to help the customers forget the sour taste the newer Santro was called Santro Plus. So people in general don’t like shape of Wagon R which is “odd looking high from the ass”; what else?
If anything last one decade taught us Pakistanis is that we know which car stands where and this is all thanks to our used car dealers bringing pre-owned JDMS. Now everyone knows Wagon R is a 660cc small hatch in Japan which is coming from Japan as well. Even though Suzuki has given Wagon R “a 1000cc fuel efficient K series engine” people think of it as the perception of Japanese Wagon R which is cheaper than Alto; somewhat a fancy version of Suzuki Pickup. I mean come on! The name says Wagon and that doesn’t give you the impression of a smart hatch.
Coming to price, Suzuki played it really correct when their hatch lineup was Mehran, Alto, Cultus and Swift. When Alto was discontinued it became Mehran, , Cultus and Swift now instead of getting Wagon R placed in its position Suzuki placed it like Mehran, Cultus, Wagon R and Swift that too with some confusion. Wagon R VXR is priced Rs.15,000/- higher than Suzuki Cultus VXR but a basic thing like RPM meter lacks in Wagon R VXR and is available in Cultus VXR. Mehran is not anyone’s preferred choice, Cuore and Alto are gone which means there’s a huge void for a new car buyer with budget of under 1 mil in the local market. Had Suzuki priced it correctly I’m sure they would’ve been able to sell a lot more Wagon Rs than they have. What Suzuki needs to understand is that it’s not 1999 anymore that no matter what they throw at the consumers they will happily get in line to get it. Buyer of today has options and they know how to get best value for money.
Currently Suzuki Wagon R is available in three variants and seven colors. All the variants are powered by Suzuki’s 998cc K108 12 Valve DOHC engine with a 5 speed manual transmission which Suzuki says is very fuel efficient. Following is a little detail of their models range along with prices.
Now you see the price of basic Wagon R is Rs.900,000/- which in today’s time is kind of unrealistic for a car which doesn’t even have air condition. I would say that Wagon R is a nice car for a small family or someone needing a car for domestic usage and at the moment it is probably the most fuel efficient local hatch in the market however it is not good value for money considering that perception is still that Cultus is a better car than Wagon R so that’s what all the status conscious people go for despite it being a 25 year old car. But that’s my personal opinion.
OA
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