A Diagnostic Study on Consumer Perceptions, Buying Motives, and Friction Points in the Mid-Size Passenger Vehicle Segment: An Empirical Analysis at Garve Škoda

Dealership showrooms are where a manufacturer’s brand promise is either turned into a booking or lost to a neighbouring dealer, yet published work on Indian passenger-vehicle retail rarely looks inside a single showroom. This paper reports a three-month practitioner study at the Pimple Gurav showroom of Garve Škoda, an authorised Škoda dealership in Pune, carried out by two sales-consultant interns between 15 May and 15 August 2026. The quantitative base is a structured log of 45 walk-in customers kept by the first author; the second author’s observations from the same showroom, and the first author’s exhibition and outbound-calling experience, supply the qualitative material. The Kylaq was the most-enquired model (42%), automatic transmission was preferred by 59% of customers who stated a preference, and quality (53%) led a closely bunched ranking of buying motives in which safety (47%) was not clearly behind comfort, roominess or driving feel (49% each). Sixty-four per cent of customers took a test drive, but only three (7%) had booked by the end of the study window. In our experience the main brake on conversion was price: customers repeatedly reported discounts at neighbouring Škoda dealerships, and at other showrooms of the same dealer group, that Pimple Gurav could not match, which we link to the trade’s practice of discounting aged-warranty (“DAN”) stock. We argue that discount inconsistency inside a single dealer group is an under-documented form of horizontal channel conflict and suggest practical responses. The findings are exploratory.