SALES and demand for Honda vehicles built in Swindon are not suffer as a result of a UK price hike next month 

On Monday, Honda UK announced it would be introducing an average 2.3 per cent price rise over a range of its models in the coming weeks.

The Japanese carmaker said it had not touched its prices in the main since January 2014 and this latest change was to bring its motors in-line with competitors, rather than outprice them.

As a result, the company said there is every confidence these increases will not make potential customers baulk at showroom prices or kill off recent growth at the Swindon plant.

Philip Crossman, managing director at Honda UK, said: “With this minor price rise, we are simply aligning our pricing with our competitors as we have not had a price rise in almost two years, unlike our competitors.”

Today, the HR-V, a mini SUV manufactured in Mexico and launched in September, saw its mark-ups increase by 4.4 per cent on average.

For Swindon-made models such as the Civic hatchback, Civic Tourer and CR-V, the increase will applied on January 4.

The CR-V had a slight price increase at the start of this year when the mid-life model change occurred.

From January 2016, prices will rise by 1.9 per cent starting at £22,770 for the 2.0 S i-VTEC 2WD.

The Civic hatchback and Civic Tourer will see a price rise of 2.3 per cent, having not seen a rise since January 2014.

The mid-life model change saw a price decrease of up to £1,500 across the range. The 1.4 S i-VTEC entry model will now start at £16,470.

The Jazz, which used to be manufactured in Swindon, has also not been in touched since January 2014, but prices for the SE and EX models will rise by 2.3 per cent on average.

“In the wider context we must ensure industry price competitiveness,” said Mr Crossman.

“To achieve this we have undertaken a comprehensive review of our product pricing over the last three years to understand where Honda sits in comparison to our main competitors and have determined that we need to raise prices accordingly.”

With pricing for the Japanese automakers products remaining largely unchanged since January 2014, Honda was keen to stress the market has moved substantially since then with one competitor increasing their prices by 3 per cent in the last 12 months alone.