After the brake failure of Suzuki Celerio during testing by Autocar and What Car? at the Millbrook Proving Grounds, the Japanese company issued an immediate recall and stopped sales in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Owners have also been told not to drive their cars.
Suzuki is working to resolve the problem with the braking system and in an update on the investigation, a Suzuki spokesperson told Autocar: “We have a solution to the problem. It has been worked on within Suzuki Motor Corporation”
In a statement the company said: “The safety recall relates to a possible fault in the brake pedal release mechanism. A rectification by Suzuki Motor Corporation is currently being implemented and delivery of modified brake components is expected in the coming week. "Safety is of the utmost importance to Suzuki and it expects to return vehicles to customers as soon as is possible,"
Right-hand-drive cars sold in India and Thailand are not affected by the problem, Suzuki has confirmed.
"The Celerio model has been on sale in India and Thailand since 2014 and so far Suzuki has no prior experience or knowledge of this phenomenon," concluded the official release.
Maruti Suzuki officials however refused to comment on the issue and a company spokesperson said “Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC), Japan develops such vehicles that fully meet the requirements of each market, using its engineering know-how and expertise. We regret that we cannot share such information relating to SMC’s engineering know-how and expertise.”
Though Suzuki confirmed that the Celerio’s faulty brakes affected only the cars made in the Rayong plant, we decided to test the India-made car too, to see if it had the same problem with the brakes, but there were none.
Autocar India’s emergency braking tests are normally conducted from 80kph to a standstill, however for in this we raised the speed to 130kph or 80mph to match the parameters of Autocar UK’s full-force braking test, which resulted in brake failure in the UK car.
However, the Maruti Celerio took 77.18 meters and 5.84 seconds to smoothly come to a halt from 130kph and while these figures are not segment best, the Celerio’s ABS-equipped brakes worked reliably even after multiple tests.
Though the Indian made Celerios are not affected by the recall, Maruti is understood to be conducting its own investigation just to be sure.