[nickatnite]

Originally Posted by senindra

Hey Nick, I did read this somewhere that the Alto production has been stopped, however did not know how genuine the piece of information actually was. What is your source of information, would appreciate if you share with us.

Someone at Maruti in Haryana. I had received a call re: my dad's SX4 and i got talking. The customer service manager at my Maruti Service station was the first to mention this fact to me. He mentioned it matter of fact, without any fanfare. The 800 is also going soon.

[Car-Agey]

Originally Posted by nickatnite

Someone at Maruti in Haryana. I had received a call re: my dad's SX4 and i got talking. The customer service manager at my Maruti Service station was the first to mention this fact to me. He mentioned it matter of fact, without any fanfare. The 800 is also going soon.

I was chatting with one of my relatives who works for Maruti when one of his friends who also works for Maruti joined us. This friend works at the mother plant at Gurgaon where as my relative is posted at Manesar. Following is the info I could gather from them.

1. Production has stopped tempprarily as the demand is slow and they have no more space to park the new production. This happend during this season every year, but this time it is slightly longer due to even lower demand. And will commance as soon as the demand inceases during festival season.

2. Production of A-Star has already begun, but none of them has seen the actual car as it is being produced at the Manesar plant.

3. Maruti had produced five or six prototypes of "facelifted Zen Estilo" a couple of months back, but they had no knowledge if it actually will be launched.

4. Sale of SX4 are really down as per my relatives words, they are producing only 10 to 15 engines for SX4 every day. (he works at the engine division).

[agspins]

Today had been to the Gurgaon factory...
1.Production of alto is still on , both the export model(LHD) and domestic model(RHD)
2.All the compounds are jam packed with productions...
3.production of A-Star has started Manesar
4.Also production of Splash has either started or is about to start...even test production is being carried out at gurgaon plant..got a chance to peak in the Body Press ,saw some splash units around on the line..
when asked some people around they said its test production..
5.production of 800 is also pretty low...

[rajchetan]

I doubt MSIL is ever discontinue any of its current products. In Fact even though i hope they stop 800, i am very sure they will continue and price it around the 1.5lac range to fight the soon t be launched NANO.
The alto will continue with a face lift for sure with a minor price correction.

Of the existing lot the only car that they might require to really pull things together is the ESTILO.

[Car-Agey]

Originally Posted by rajchetan

I doubt MSIL is ever discontinue any of its current products. In Fact even though i hope they stop 800, i am very sure they will continue and price it around the 1.5lac range to fight the soon t be launched NANO.
The alto will continue with a face lift for sure with a minor price correction.

Of the existing lot the only car that they might require to really pull things together is the ESTILO.

Agree with you on this. I will not be surprised if the facelifted ESTILO is launched.

[sudipt123]

I am inquisitive to know,
considering a-star will be sold alongside the alto with a 3-cylinder 1.0L petrol engine- it still won't be a match against the 1.1L Hyundai i10 (forget the kappa here) although the dimensions of the a-star suggest that it will be in the league of the i-10.

[blue_pulsar]

Originally Posted by sudipt123

I am inquisitive to know,
considering a-star will be sold alongside the alto with a 3-cylinder 1.0L petrol engine- it still won't be a match against the 1.1L Hyundai i10 (forget the kappa here) although the dimensions of the a-star suggest that it will be in the league of the i-10.

I don't think that the size will be in the league of the i10. It should be priced max to the estilo level, else I'm sure there will be no takers. And going by the engine size also suggests that it will be in between the Alto and the Estilo.

[sudipt123]

Originally Posted by blue_pulsar

I don't think that the size will be in the league of the i10. It should be priced max to the estilo level, else I'm sure there will be no takers. And going by the engine size also suggests that it will be in between the Alto and the Estilo.

blue_pulsar, the a-star (concept) as described in the website CONCEPT*A-STAR has the following dimensions: -

a-star vs i10
Length- 3580/ 3565
width- 1680/ 1595
height- 1400/ 1550
w.b.- 2360/ 2380

i presume that the production model of the a-star will be retaining the same dimensions except the low- profile 205/45 R17 tyres and wheels.
Also, if you see the pics in this post, the a-star doesn't really look to be a estilo sized car, it looks almost as big as the splash.

coming back to the engine aspect, will a 3-pot compare to the 1.1 4-pot of the i-10? I've heard 3- cylinder engines are more noisy and produce more vibration compared to the 4-cylinder ones.

[nikunj_cal]

Originally Posted by rajchetan

I doubt MSIL is ever discontinue any of its current products. In Fact even though i hope they stop 800, i am very sure they will continue and price it around the 1.5lac range to fight the soon t be launched NANO.
The alto will continue with a face lift for sure with a minor price correction.

Of the existing lot the only car that they might require to really pull things together is the ESTILO.

Why do you want the M800 to be stopped ??

[nikunj_cal]

Originally Posted by agspins

Today had been to the Gurgaon factory...
1.Production of alto is still on , both the export model(LHD) and domestic model(RHD)
2.All the compounds are jam packed with productions...
3.production of A-Star has started Manesar
4.Also production of Splash has either started or is about to start...even test production is being carried out at gurgaon plant..got a chance to peak in the Body Press ,saw some splash units around on the line..
when asked some people around they said its test production..
5.production of 800 is also pretty low...

Production of A-Star is in fact great news. I am beginning to think that MSIL may put A Star in the same league as Maruti Estilo. Maruti knows that Maruti Estilo did not go down well with the Indian Junta and lost a considerable Market share in that segment . In fact Wagon R ( which is again not liked by many because of its looks) is the only other option in that segment. A Star could be the third option with better looks to re enable Maruti to capture the Zen Segment . I loved the looks of the A Star personally and I think it should go down well with the mass market.

[blue_pulsar]

Originally Posted by sudipt123

a-star vs i10
Length- 3580/ 3565
width- 1680/ 1595
height- 1400/ 1550
w.b.- 2360/ 2380

Wow! Its pretty big! Compare that with the Swift:
Swift Vs a-star vs i10
Length- 3695/3580/ 3565
width- 1690/1680/ 1595
height- 1530/1400/ 1550
w.b.- 2390/2360/ 2380

But the A-Star's height seems hard to believe. Even the Alto is 1460m tall. The Zen is 1405mm tall

[vineetmanghani]

Spotted a couple of highly camouflaged Suzuki Splashes on the road from Qutub Minar to IIT Delhi today. All the lights etc were heavily taped, and the Maruti Suzuki logo was literally scratched off from the back (one could see the marks where the logo was apparently "wiped off"). Anyways, managed to click a few pics with my phone camera:

[nikunj_cal]

Gr8 catch Vineet !!!


Hey are those alloys in the first pic ???


ABS is definitely written , wonder if it was a VDI with ABS ?

[madhokritesh]

Great Pic.... any idea when is it going to launched ? also what price tag will it carry?

[karanraheja]

Originally Posted by madhokritesh

Great Pic.... any idea when is it going to launched ? also what price tag will it carry?

Splash will be launched around April '09. Price will be around i10, lil cheaper
than the Swift. It ll come with 1.3 DDIS too!!!