Maruti Suzuki to call back over 50,000 cars

Maruti Suzuki India, the country’s largest carmaker, said on Tuesday it will inspect a select batch of its bestselling Swift and Baleno hatchbacks for a possible defect in the brake vacuum hose.

The company said in a statement the “service campaign” will check cars manufactured between December 1, 2017, and March 16, 2018. Maruti said that would cover 44,982 units of the Swift and 7,704 units of the Baleno. Vacuum hoses, made of rubber, are used to power car components such as brake boosters, windshield wipers and the like. The company would bear the cost of changing or fixing the fault, the statement said.

“It’s a service campaign and not a recall as the issue is not related to safety,” a company official said.

Globally, in a service campaign, an automaker does not have to notify every customer of a faulty vehicle, instead, the customer has to coordinate with a dealer. A recall, on the hand, makes it mandatory for the manufacturer to notify the customer and rectify the issue, with the process being monitored by an official authority.

India, however, does not have a formal recall policy, instead, the automakers adhere to the Voluntary Code on Vehicle Recall (Code) set by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), an industry body of automakers.

Maruti said, beginning May 14, the car owners included in this service campaign will be contacted by dealers for inspection and replacement of the faulty part. Car buyers can also check if their vehicle needs repair by submitting the chassis number of the vehicle on a company website. A chassis number is a unique identifier that is embossed on the car, usually within the engine bay, and also found on the vehicle registration document.

SIAM’s code, published in 2012, says “if in the opinion of manufacturer some vehicles have issues which pose a safety defect”, such vehicles are “voluntarily inspected and rectified” by the manufacturer or importer.

Maruti Suzuki sold 461,773 cars between January and March this year.