Maruti Dzire production to be boosted to cut waiting periods, says Maruti Chairman

The chairman of Maruti Suzuki, Mr. R.C. Bhargava has said that the production of the Dzire compact sedan would be boosted shortly. This is to cut down waiting periods. There is high demand for the Dzire sub-4 meter compact sedan from both the personal car market and the cab operator market. This has led to waiting periods of the car reaching up to 16 weeks (4 months) in case of specific variants. The all-new Dzire, which is the third generation model of the car, was launched in India during May 2017, and ever since, the car has been a best-seller, not only in its segment, but also across all segments.

Here is what Mr. Bhargava said when asked about how Maruti plans to tackle the long waiting period for the new Dzire,

The demand for the new Dzire is very high. There is a waiting list. We would be ramping up the production close to 20,000 units in a month.

Once Maruti ramps up production of the Dzire, the car’s waiting periods are likely to fall to less than one month, even in case of variants with the highest demand. The car sold in India gets two engine options – a 1.2 liter petrol engine with 82 Bhp and 114 Nm, and a 1.3 liter turbocharged diesel engine with 74 Bhp-190 Nm.

Both engines get 5 speed manual transmissions as standard. 5 speed automated manual transmissions (AMT) are offered on both engines as options. This makes the Dzire the only compact sedan in India to be sold with petrol-automatic and diesel-automatic variants.

The car is available in 14 variants, in a wide price bracket ranging from Rs. 5.43 lakhs at the lower end and Rs. 9.39 lakhs at the higher end. ABS and twin airbags are standard across all variants. The new Dzire is based on the Suzuki HEARTECT platform. This platform uses light-weight, high-strength steel extensively, lowering the overall weight of the car. This is the reason why the new Dzire is both peppier and more fuel efficient than the older model. Maruti claims an ARAI certified 22 Kmpl mileage for the petrol version, and 28.4 Kmpl for the diesel version.

Via BloombergQuint