India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki announced on Friday, September 3, that it is proactively recalling 1,81,754 units of some petrol variants of Ciaz, Ertiga, Vitara Brezza, S-Cross and XL6. This, Maruti Suzuki said, is to inspect for a possible defect in these units, which were manufactured between May 4, 2018, and October 27, 2020. “Recall campaigns are undertaken globally to rectify faults that may be potential safety defects,” the company said.
Maruti Suzuki said it has decided to recall the affected vehicles “for inspection/replacement of the Motor Generator Unit”. This will be free of cost. Affected vehicle owners will receive communication from Maruti Suzuki authorized workshops, it said.
The carmaker added that the replacement of the affected part will start from the first week of November 2021. Till then, it requested customers to avoid driving in waterlogged areas and avoid spraying water directly on electrical/electronic parts in the vehicle.
“Customers of suspected vehicles can also visit the ‘Imp Customer Info’ section on the Company websites www.marutisuzuki.com (for Ertiga and Vitara Brezza) or www.nexaexperience.com (for Ciaz, XL6 and S-Cross) and fill-in their vehicle’s chassis number (MA3, followed by 14 digits alpha-numeric number) to check if their vehicle needs any attention,” Maruti Suzuki said in a statement. One can look for the chassis number on the vehicle ID plate and also in the vehicle registration documents.
Earlier this week, Maruti Suzuki India said it was raising prices across all models, and blamed rising commodity costs.
"Rising commodity prices, especially those of steel, copper, rhodium and palladium amongst others have left us with no choice but to raise prices across models," Maruti Suzuki India's Executive Director, Marketing and Sales, Shashank Srivastava said.
According to Srivastava, the company tried not to raise prices to revive demand by cost-cutting and other measures. He added, “But continuously rising material cost has left us with no options. The quantum of increase on average will be around 1.4% depending on the model.”
(With IANS inputs)