Automobile Blog

Maruti Suzuki aggressive overtures to maintain leadership position

With the arrival of new models and market hotting up for 2010, Maruti Suzuki the numero uno is pulling out all stops to defend its 50+ per cent market share in the domestic market. There are reports that is reportedly working on a new engine which would replace the engines (F8D) of Alto (800cc) and Wagon R (1100cc) as also indicated in a report in The Financial Express. It is expected that once the engine is replaced, the price points would be brought down significantly and help Maruti asell more of these cars. The business daily adds that the new engine is expected to be more powerful than the current one and is expected to be a revolutionary change. The engine, which has a codename – Yp3, will be available in cars by the end of 2010. While the Alto will have 2 cylinders, there would be 3 cylinders for WagonR. It is widely believed that this methodology has been envisaged after the successful run of KB series engine in Estilo (1.0 litre), Ritz (1.2 litre) and A-Star (1.0 litre). Alto and WagonR will get the codenamed engines YP3 which will replace the current F8D engine.

Furthermore, there are indicationa that Maruti Suzuki WagonR too would get styling changes both on the exterior and interior. The exterior changes include an all new headlamp, new front fascia and new tail lamp styling. On the interiors, the new WagonR will get an all-new instrument panel.

Although Maruti Suzuk’s spokesperson could not be immediately contacted, a senior official of the company had earlier said, “We have exhausted our quota of new cars with eight new launches in India in the past three years. Now we are looking at strengthening our leadership by refreshing our old portfolio.” The company has developed the new KB series petrol engines with an investment of Rs. 1,200 crore, which will be strapped in several of these cars”. However, when queried about the proposed models which will undergo a facelift, he maintained, “Maruti follows a policy of refreshing models every five years,” without revealing anything.

Meanwhile, the country’s largest passenger carmaker has decided not to pass on the benefits of lower taxes on the new petrol version of its Swift superhatch. It was reported nearly a fortnight back that Maruti has announced that the petrol version of the aforesaid model will now be fitted with Suzuki’s K12 series BS-IV compliant 1.2-litre engine (which now attracts only 8 per cent excise duty), instead of the old 1.3-litre unit (which used to attract 20 per cent duty). This new petrol engine (which is also doing the duty on Ritz) is mated to a revised five-speed transmission, thus enhancing the fuel economy from 15.9km/l for the old 1.3-litre engine to 17.9km/l for the new one. The new engine, with a power output of 84bhp and 11.5kgm of max torque, will bring in improved transmission thus enhancing overall performance. (Earlier 1.3-liter petrol produced 87bhp and 11.3kgm of torque).

When contacted by reporters, Maruti Suzuki’s official spokesperson has confirmed that the company is not resorting to any price deduction even after saving around Rs. 40.000-50,000 due to excise duty benefits. The reasons cited by the spokesperson were high input costs, huge costs involved in modifying the engines and other miscellaneous factors.