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The Pulsar 220 S which is the non-faired version of Pulsar 220 has been discontinued by Bajaj due to its less number of sales. The company had already discontinued the bike nearly two months ago at the time of the unveiling of its new Pulsar 200 NS motorcycle. But the news has been confirmed now only by the dealers of Bajaj and the company has also striked off the bike from its website. Bajaj will officially withdraw the Pulsar 220 from the market in the later part of this year. It is to be noted that Bajaj had recently launched the speedlines edition of the Pulsar 220 bike. We have to wait to know the new decisions of Bajaj regarding its Pulsar 220 motorcycle.

Maruti has launched its new Ertiga MPV at a starting price of Rs.5.89 lakhs (Ex-Delhi). The company has offered six variants for Ertiga in which three are petrol and the other three are diesel variants.

The petrol variants of Ertiga are powered by an all-new 1.4-litre K-series petrol engine delivering 95PS of power while its diesel variants feature a 1.3-litre DDiS engine delivering 90PS of power. The engines are mated to a 5-speed manual gear box.

Available in seven colours, Ertiga can accommodate six to seven members. Ertiga is based on the Ritz platform while its headlamps resembles the Swift. The interior features three rows of seats holding dual tone upholstery.

Ertiga Petrol offers an impressive ARAI mileage of 16.02kmpl while the Ertiga Diesel offers 20.77kmpl.

The Delhi ex-showroom prices of the variants of Ertiga are as follows:

Petrol:

i) Ertiga Lxi – Rs.5.89 lakhs

ii) Ertiga Vxi – Rs.6.60 lakhs

iii) Ertiga Zxi – Rs.7.30 lakhs

Diesel:

i) Ertiga Ldi – Rs.7.30 lakhs

ii) Ertiga Vdi – Rs.7.90 lakhs

iii) Ertiga Zdi – Rs.8.45 lakhs

A spy picture of Mahindra Verito CS was caught testing in Bangalore. The new Verito CS features a shortened boot and will measure less than 4 metres only. Hence, the excise bracket of the car will be just 10 per cent and will not be 24 per cent. It is expected that the Verito CS could feature the same existing diesel engine but the petrol engine may be either a 1.2-litre engine of Renault or the new petrol engine being developed for the Mini Xylo. The other details about its additional features and specifications are not known. Hope that Mahindra would neglect all the disadvantages of the existing Verito and give us the new Verito CS with lot of goodies and at an affordable price of less than Rs.30,000 to Rs.50,000 from its predecessor.

Maruti plans to replace its age older Maruti 800 with a completely new model. The same F8D engine of Alto has been updated by Maruti in order to power the new model. The company’s new model is expected to be launched by this year end at a price tag of Rs.2.5 lakhs to Rs.3.5 lakhs.

Maruti had already stopped selling the Maruti 800 in India’s top cities from September 2010 itself. This is because, the Maruti 800 could not meet the Bharat Stage IV emission norms which were made mandatory in those cities from that time.

Sources informed, “A replacement for the 800cc model makes sense as it hasn’t been selling very aggressively at about 2,000 units a month. This will be a totally new small car, though based on an existing platform. The existing two Alto models will remain since they have strong volumes (around 20,000 units/month).The market leader will focus on fuel efficiency and low maintenance as the primary drivers — the main purchase considerations in the compact segment. However, the design of the new model will be sharp and reflect Maruti’s new styling language.”

A Skoda Rapid car was caught fire in Delhi near Deepali Chowk at Rani Bagh on last Sunday. Mr.Nitn Mehrotra, the owner of the car had bought it only in February. He reported that he had parked the car and gone to see a doctor. When he came back, he found the car on fire. Police informed that a short circuit in the car had lead to this incident. Recently, in this same manner a black colour VW Vento had caught fire in Pune. Hence Volkswagen and Skoda have to investigate seriously regarding these fire accidents and must prevent these issues happening once again.

Toyota, the Japanese auto major plans to launch its all-new Camry sedan in the month of August in India. From July, the car will be assembled at the company’s plant in Bangalore. As like the existing Camry, the new one also will be available only as a petrol variant. The new Camry will feature a 2.5-litre petrol engine coupled with a six-speed automatic transmission.

The 2.5-litre Dual VVT-i Petrol, 4 Cylinder inline, 16 valve DOHC engine of the new Camry has an engine displacement of 249cc and will churn out 181PS of peak power at 6000rpm and 231Nm of maximum torque at 4100rpm.

Mr.Sandeep Singh, Deputy Managing Director (sales and marketing), Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd., said that their plan is to start assembling the car in July and launch it in August. He also said that the new Camry will be priced above Rs.20 lakhs but will share the exact price only during the launch.

The new Camry features Reverse parking sensors, HID headlamps, Smart entry system with start/stop push button, Audio, MD & Bluetooth Telephone controls on steering wheel and Integrated touchscreen with DVD, USB, Aux and Bluetooth and so on.

We earlier mentioned that Ertiga, the much-awaited new compact MPV of Maruti will be launched on April 11,2012. But now it is confirmed by the company that the Ertiga is to be launched on April 12th and not on April 11th. The seven seater Ertiga is the company’s entry-level high-end MPV which will be available as both petrol and diesel variants. Maruti plans to make the debut of its 1.4-litre K-14 VVT engine in India through Ertiga. The petrol variant of Ertiga will feature this K-14 engine while the diesel variant will be powered by a 1.3-litre DDiS super turbo engine which offers 20.77kmpl. Ertiga is manufactured at the company’s plant in Gurgaon and Maruti aims to sell around 5000 units of the new compact MPV every month. After its launch, Ertiga may compete with the new Xylo.

Fiat’s Indian subsidiary, Fiat India told that to supply diesel engines for RiO, it is in talks with Premier. Regarding this, Mr. Rajeev Kapoor, CEO of Fiat India Automobiles reported that they are currently in talks with Premier to supply diesel engines. It will be the 1.3 litre multijet, 75 bhp engine which they are also supplying to Maruti Suzuki.

He said they are going to announce within a month about the number of engines and the duration of contract. This engine will be fitted in their compact SUV RiO.

Regarding Maruti’s supply, Mr. Kapoor said that the contract with Maruti is for three years under which they will supply one lakh units every year. He added that all engines to be supplied to Maruti and Premier will be produced at the company’s Ranjangaon facility in Maharashtra.

Fiat plans to increase the number of exclusive showrooms in India with an aim of increasing its sales in the country. For this plan, Kapoor quoted that at present there are two exclusive showrooms, which will be ramped up to 25 in 20 locations by the end of this year. The exclusive showrooms will be opened by only those dealers which are currently operating joint showrooms with Tata Motors, he added.

Finally, Mr.Kapoor concluded that they will announce a detailed network and product strategy by the end of this month. After this year they will ramp the number of exclusive showrooms.

Mahindra has launched the updated 4*4 version of Thar SUV at a price of Rs.6.86 lakhs (Ex – Delhi). The new Thar CRDe holds an AC and an engine immobilizer as its standard features. It is powered by a 2.5-litre common rail turbo diesel engine coupled to a five-speed manual transmission. The engine churns out 105bhp of maximum power at 3800rpm and 247Nm of peak torque at 1800rpm.

This on-off road vehicle features an air-conditioner only in its CRDe version and the DI engine version of Thar still remains without AC and is cheaper than the Thar CRDe around Rs.87,000. The new Thar CRDe has a ground clearance of 200mm and will be well suited to the urban road conditions.

Tata Motors has announced that it will be replacing the anti-roll bar bush of Manza when they are brought for service. This part replacement will be done at free of cost. The anti-roll bar bush is a plastic component that is connected to the suspension of the car. The company claims that eventhough there are no customer complaints, the part is being replaced with a new one as it is more powerful than the existing one. This is not recalling and is just replacing. Each and every current Manza’s anti-roll bar bush will be replaced by the company in a short period of time.