Tata Motors Offers 4 year warranty on Nano.

Tata Motors will offer a four-year manufacturers warranty on Nano to boost customers' confidence as the sales of the world's cheapest car sputtered to just 509 units in November.

The auto major will offer the warranty for four years or 60,000 km, (whichever is earlier), to existing and new owners of the Nano, the company said in a statement. "The new buyers have the option of a comprehensive maintenance contract at Rs 99 a month."
The automaker was previously offering a warranty for 18 months or 24,000 km, with no maintenance on the car which cost Rs 1.23 lakh for the base model. The base model is now priced at Rs 1.37 lakh (ex showroom Delhi).
A couple of spontaneous fires, lack of easy finance to purchase the cars and rising prices have hurt sales of the Nano, which was launched as a one-lakh car for the people wanting to upgrade from a two-wheeler. The company said it sold more than 71,000 Nano cars since July 2009.
Analysts feel fire-catching incidents have raised safety issues in the minds of consumers. "The company should have introduced a scheme, a repurchase guarantee which will build confidence among the new customers," said an analyst at a Mumbai-based brokerage firm, not wanting to be identified. The company investigated the incidents and said that there were not any manufacturing defects in the car but offered additional protection in the exhaust and electrical systems.
Tata Motors attributed the decline in sales to its inaccessibility to reach smaller towns. These new schemes will help attract the first time buyers and get an emotional connect' with the customers, said a senior official of the company. "For a first time buyer, a car is a significant purchase decision and these schemes will increase affordability of the car." The company is setting up special Nano access points for customers in the hinterlands to experience and test-drive the car. Through these reach-out initiatives, coupled with customer benefits, Tata Motors will cover the entire country with open sales by March 2011.
On Wednesday, the company told its vendors that it will increase production of the Nano, hoping to restore confidence among the vendors. Nano vendors, concerned over falling sales and a cut in production, met the automobile major's top brass in Mumbai. Faced with huge pressure on margins, exclusive vendors of Nano are diverting production to other manufacturers as the domestic car market has been growing at a rate of 25-30%.