Maruti Suzuki, subsidiary of Japan's globally celebrated Suzuki Motor Corp., and also leading carmaker of India, suffered a major ignominy when it had to acknowledge publicly that it is on the verge of recalling 100,000 cars in India and abroad on account of potential fuel leakage problems. There is almost no doubt that this is the first time when such a giant automobile maker is going through such a bad phase. As per the latest reports, close to 50,000 of the popular A Star hatchbacks have been recalled since November, from India and from export markets including Europe, Australia and North Africa. This has also been corroborated by company spokesman Puneep Dhawan.
It is worthwhile to mention that Maruti Suzuki makes about one of every two cars sold in India and with the A Star, it is transforming India into a small car production hub for export. However, there are other aspects as well. The recall comes in the shadow of Toyota Motor Corp.'s worldwide recall of 8.5 million vehicles in order to fix acceleration and braking problems in more than a few models. But none of them is in India. Keep in mind that A-Star is branded as the Alto in Europe, where it is also retailed as the Pixo by Nissan. It is known as the Celerio in non-European markets.
Now the question lies regarding the origin of this crisis. In accordance with the company, automobiles manufactured between November 2008 and August 2009 consist of a flawed fuel pump gasket and O-ring, which can leak as soon as the fuel tank is topped. On the word of Mr. Puneep Dhawan, company spokesman, the hitch was found out during an internal check and there is a relief too, no customers have complained up to now.
The news had an instant impact on the company's shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange and it did suffer a jolt.
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