Plan to buy 101 BMWs fails to take off

A group of young businessmen from Aurangabad, the tourism capital of Maharashtra, have called off their plans to buy 101 Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH (BMW) cars due to non-arrival of an agreement with the BMW dealer.

These businessmen, who were keen to get at least a 15-20 per cent discount on various BMW models, failed to strike a deal as the Pune-based dealer, Bavaria Motors expressed inability to do so. Pankaj Agarwal, a young entrepreneur told Business Standard, “We had at least five meetings with the dealer. During our negotiations, the dealer had offered to provide discount of Rs 4 lakh on 3 series, Rs 3 lakh on 5 series and Rs 4.5 lakh on X5 and X6. However, the dealer had not offered any discount on X1 models. These models range between Rs 28 lakh and Rs 1 crore.” Ultimately, the buyers did not accept the small discount offered by the dealer and thus rejected it.

Agarwal recalled that recently about 150 Mercedez cars were purchased at one go in Aurangabad wherein the dealer had given 15-20 per cent discount, along with a complementary service package of three years. “But, in case of BMW, the company dealer declined to entertain similar package to the buyers and thus the deal could not materialise,” he added. The entire deal was estimated to be of Rs 40 crore.

A senior executive of Bavaria Motors, who did not want to be quoted, confirmed the deal had not materialised. “It was not possible to match the discount proposed by the buyers from Aurangabad,” he added.

Meanwhile, businessmen and entrepreneurs have not given up their passion to go in for swanky cars in Aurangabad. A group led by Sachin Mule, who himself is a dealer of Tata Motors and Skoda, is pursuing talks with Audi for the purchase of 51 cars of various variants.

Mule said “Initial rounds of talks with Audi have taken place. We have submitted our proposal for the purchase of 51 cars (A4, A6, A8 and Q7 models). We have sought a discount of 15-20 per cent. These cars are priced at Rs 30-80 lakh. However, the company has yet to respond to us.”