Another round of car price hike in April

Car makers are gearing up for another round of price hike from April 1 to offset the cost of OBD (on-board diagnostics) compliance changes, with Honda and Hyundai today announcing that they would pass it on to customers.

Maruti Suzuki India also said it currently studying the implications of the OBD compliance changes but did not immediately confirm if there would be a price hike or not.

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Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) will increase prices of its vehicles across models by up to 2 per cent from April to offset the cost of OBD (on-board diagnostics) compliance and freight increase.

"We we are increasing car prices from April 1, 2013 by an amount of up to 2 percent. The details are still being worked out," a company official said. The increase in prices will be primarily on account of OBD compliance effective from April 1, 2013 and freight increase, the official added.

At present the company sells hatchbacks Brio and Jazz, sedans City, Civic, Accord and sports utility vehicle CR-V at prices ranging from Rs 4.1 lakh to Rs 27.38 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) across the models.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) Vice President (Sales & Marketing) Rakesh Srivastava said the company is also hiking prices of its vehicles without disclosing details.

"The price increase has been necessitated due to On Board Diagnostic Compliance Changes (OBDC). We will try to minimise the hike so as to cause less inconvenience to our valued customers. The price increase across models will come into effect from April 1, 2013," he said.

HMIL sells a range of vehicles starting from entry level small car Eon to sports utility vehicle SantaFe which are priced between Rs 2.77 lakh and Rs 26.45 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

Most of the automobile companies had hiked prices in January this year citing increased inputs costs and currency fluctuations. After the Budget, prices of SUVs have also gone up as the excise duty on the segment was hiked to 30 percent from 27 percent earlier.