Stated, reported, estimated: the three kinds of price

A stated price is one the maker or a dealer published, and it carries the date and the state it was published for. A reported price is one found reported publicly: we show it as a band of about twenty-five thousand rupees each side and we never name where it came from, because the point is to send you to a dealer rather than to another website. An estimate is worked out from a priced sibling in the same family, and it says so.

Every price on the site wears its kind beside the figure. That is the single most important habit to carry away from this manual: a band is not a list price, and an estimate is not a quote.

None of them includes registration: registration, road tax, insurance and body building on a chassis are extra and differ by state. Makers revise prices in January, April, July and October, and the date on a figure tells you when it was last seen rather than when it was true.