Maruti Swift 2011 Bookings Suspended

[k_nitin_r 8]

New bookings for the Maruti Swift 2011 have been suspended due to a worker strike at the manufacturing plant in Manesar, Haryana. The strike, which has been in partial effect since last June, has been for the recognition of the old workers' union and for reinstating the leaders of the union. The strike has reduced the output of the Manesar plant to about a tenth of its capacity. With 90,000 existing bookings for the Maruti Swift 2011 and less than 1,000 deliveries, Maruti has suspended new bookings for the Maruti Swift 2011.The Maruti Swift 2011 has had styling changes over the outgoing model, which is no longer in production, and utilizes a plastic fuel tank instead of a metal fuel tank for greater fuel efficiency. The increasing prices demanded by local steel suppliers have made this an easy decision and has the advantage of reduced maintenance (the old metal fuel tank had to be checked for rust).New car buyers can, however, opt for the Maruti Ritz which is a slightly cheaper hatchback and more modern styling. Both the Maruti Swift and the Maruti Ritz are available with petrol and diesel options, and the recent trend with 75% of Maruti sales coming from diesel vehicles had led to the introduction of the Maruti SX4 diesel, a mid-size sedan that shares a lot in common with the Swift DZire.

[sheepdog 10]

Hummm, I'm not sure what to think about plastic fuel tanks. I would think that in short order the gasoline would cause a break down in the plastic. I wonder if there is any reasearch into the life span of a plastic gas tank?I hope they get their strike settled soon, if they have that many cars sold, they need to get busy making them, since a lot of people aren't going to wait around, they will end up getting some other kind of car. And speaking of cars, I've been seeing something on Tv that I havent seen in a really LONG time, a commercial for Fiat! They have a limited edition Fiat 500 coming out, kind of a neat looking little car, but nowhere near as cool as the old X19, or Spiders. (of which I actually have one of each) I googled it but didn't see what kind of gas milage they got.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Things are looking worse for Maruti Suzuki right now. They had the strike at their plant located in Manesar so they shifted production to their plant located in Gurgaon, and, guess what, the workers at the Gurgaon plant are protesting to support the workers at Manesar (though some say that they are trying to get paid without working because organizations pay staff for the days that they go on strike). When doing business in India, there are some states for organizations to avoid and Tata learned it the hard way when they setup their first plane for the Tata Nano and later had to shutdown the plant before they could even begin production. Meanwhile, Maruti Suzuki's other models, the Ritz (the Maruti Suzuki Ritz is known internationally as the Suzuki Splash), and the Maruti Suzuki Swift DZire (a sedan version of the Suzuki Swift)Coming to the issue about the plastic fuel tank, there are various kinds of plastic. There are the kind of plastics that go into making polythene bags, there are plastics that are used to build vehicle bumpers and mirrors, and there are plastics that flexible flap that covers the sockets on your cellular phone. I guess the term plastic is simply a name for a genre of chemical substances. Plastics differ in their physical properties (and possibly chemical properties too). Some plastics, such as the bags used in hospitals for storing laundry, dissolve in water and thus exhibit properties very different from the plastic bags that you get in supermarkets with your grocery. Bio-degradable plastics exhibit different properties, reacting to enzymes secreted by microorganisms to dissolve or breakdown the plastic thus minimizing the environmental impact of the specific form of plastic.Plastics have their own advantages and disadvantages of their metal equivalents. The first is the weight of the material. Plastic products are considerably lighter than their metal counterparts. A metal container is often heavier than a plastic container as is the case with the old Maruti Suzuki Swift fuel tank, which was made of metal, and the new Maruti Suzuki Swift fuel tank, which is made of plastic. Secondly, plastics do not have the lustre that metal does and therefore they are more pleasing to the eye than are the metal objects when viewed in bright sunlight. In some cases, however, plastics do reflect light and product glare and is therefore an undesirable property of some plastics. Some forms of plastic have a longer life than their metal equivalents because they are unaffected by the corrosive action of water and steam, which is one of the benefits that the engineers at Maruti Suzuki claim for the new Maruti Suzuki Swift's fuel tank. This can be observed in old vehicles that have rusting exteriors but the mirrors, mud guards, bumpers, and interior plastics are unaffected by the environmental corrosive factors. Metals develop stress fatigue cracks that are often not visible at first but only become apparent when the metal section actually collapses due to pressure, as seen on some old aircraft bodies that break apart when in mid-air due to the air pressure different between the interior and the exterior of the aircraft fuselage (I believe the last incident was with a Quanta jet).Sometimes, metals are seen to have its own advantage over plastics. Metals are often stronger than plastics and the dents resulting from impact can be fixed by hammering the metal and leveling the surface with putty. Plastics, on the other hand, have to be replaced though there are some instances of the use of epoxy adhesives for making spot repairs. I have not had much luck with the use of epoxy adhesives but that can be attributed to the inavailability of suitable clamps and stands for setting when I used it for various applications. A glue gun is an alternative which I have not tried yet but for the most part, the automobile workshops simply toss away the old part and fit in a replacement. Metals seem to resist heat better than plastics in the absense of water. Some plastics harden and become extremely brittle due to heat and perhaps due to the age of the plastic (this can be observed on shoes that have been on display at stores).Speaking of Fiat, the Fiat 500 is available in India. The Fiat 500 is priced higher than any of the other offerings from Fiat and therefore is almost non-existent on the streets of India but you could often see the Fiat Palio or the Fiat Grand Punto hatchbacks or the Fiat Linea sedan on the streets sold at the distribution outlets of Tata (Fiat vehicles are serviced at the authorized service centers of Tata too). Fiat is almost non-existent in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai, Sharjah, et al.). In India, Fiat does not sell as many automobiles as most other automobile manufacturers, but most of the diesel powered vehicles sold for under 10 lakh (roughly $22,500) currently being sold in India today, which accounts for most of the vehicles in India, are being powered by a 4-cylinder Fiat diesel engine (Hyundai, Tata, Fiat, and Maruti Suzuki use the 1.3 litre diesel engine from Fiat while the other automobile manufacturers use their own 3-cylinder variant to cut costs yet they are priced higher than the vehicles bearing the 4-cylinder diesel engine from Fiat; the manufacturers generally license the technology for the Fiat diesel engine rather than outsourcing the production to Fiat). The Maruti Suzuki Swift diesel, the Maruti Suzuki Swift DZire diesel, the Maruti Suzuki Ritz diesel, the Maruti Suzuki SX4 diesel, the Fiat Linea, the Tata Indigo eCS, and the Tata Indigo Manza are powered by the Fiat 1.3 litre diesel engine so what Fiat does not have in terms of vehicle market share, it more than makes up for from licensing deals with other automobile manufacturers for its diesel engines.