It is not a secret that Suzuki is working on its own set of engines which will be used by Maruti Suzuki branded cars in India. What is news though, is that their new 1.5L diesel engine is in its advanced stages according to a report on Economic Times.
This is obviously apart from the 800cc 2 cylinder mill that will soon undergo production on the Celerio diesel and other cars. However, while the 800cc engine, which will also find application on the LCV Y9T, is getting the last chinks in its armor revoked, the new 1.5L diesel engine is still in its developmental stage.
Like Honda, Suzuki is developing two variants of the four pot mill, a 1.6L for Europe and a slightly smaller 1.5L for India to keep it in the excise duty benefit bracket. This goes in with the international trend where most big shot manufacturers are shifting to a 1.6-1.5 L diesel engine size to give their cars an optimum of power/mileage along with local market tax benefits.
This move does make a lot of sense for Maruti Suzuki, considering that it will enable them to get rid of the dependency on Fiat for the engines. However, another interesting bit that comes out of this piece is that Maruti Suzuki will use this new engine in conjunction with the Fiat’s Multijet, which means, that it will share the load and will NOT completely replace the motor.
Maruti has been selling its cars with a 1.3L mill sourced from Fiat and there are speculations that the S-Cross will get the 1.6L Multijet (again from Fiat) when it launches early next year. This development also points out to the fact that XA-Alpha, S-Cross and Ciaz update (whenever it comes) may get this 1.5L diesel engine sooner or later.
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