This festive season, car manufacturers are doling out huge discounts to woo customers reeling under the twin hikes of interest rates and petrol prices. If you plan to buy one, you can take advantage of these deals, the best in the past five years, as car companies pump out great deals to propel sales.

While discounts are available on every model, it's the petrol variants that are grabbing the maximum share as the high price of fuel has made customers leery of buying these. Currently, petrol cars are coming with discounts as high as 25% on the ex-showroom prices, while diesel cars have a long waiting period for delivery.

As companies and dealers struggle to increase footfalls and inquiries at showrooms for the first time in the past three years, cash discounts are being offered on many cars, including Tata Indica and Skoda Fabia. It's a similar tale for the market leader, Maruti Suzuki India, which has also been grappling with a longstanding labour dispute at its Manesar plant. It too has increased discounts across its entire line-up.

Carmakers are keeping in mind the miserable past few months as sales dropped by 16% in July and 10% in August, and are now trying their best to woo customers back. The current slowdown in the Indian auto mart is crippling sales targets of the car industry, forcing them to sweeten the deals further.

Industry insiders say that the festive season will offer better deals as retail sales in September have not been encouraging. German carmaker Volkswagen has introduced limited period options of its Polo hatchback and Vento sedan, Breeze, with additional features, such as a new navigation system, leather seat covers and rear parking distance control, at no additional cost.