Maruti Suzuki has increased the production of Eeco to around 13,000-14,000 units as the Omni was discontinued in March
Maruti Suzuki has increased the production of Eeco by around 13,000 to14,000 units per month as the company officially discontinued the Omni in late March. The Omni was in the market for over 35 years and the company has sold over 15.7 units of the minivan but the model didn’t come with any safety features.
From July 2019 onwards, ABS is mandatory for all cars while other safety features like the driver-side airbag, front-seat belt alert, speed alert system and reverse parking sensors must be offered as part of the standard features list. The company had to make so many changes for the Omni to add these systems.
It is the reason why they decided to discontinue the model and instead they are working on an updated Eeco, as the model will have to meet the crash test regulations coming into effect in October 2019 and it will be followed by the pedestrian safety rules next year. Maruti has already introduced an updated Eeco earlier this month with several standard safety features.
The new model comes with safety features like ABS, driver side airbag, front-seat belt alert and reverse parking system as standard. The updated Eeco comes with a new three-spoke steering wheel from Alto as the earlier steering wheel didn’t support airbag system. Apart from this, the company hasn’t made any other changes.
The Tour V variant of Eeco is not available with speed alert system instead the company has given speed limiter, which is more useful especially for fleet customers. The Eeco is powered by 1.2 L four-cylinder petrol engine with 73.42 PS of power at 6,000 rpm and 101 Nm of torque at 3,000 rpm. This engine is mated to a 5-speed gearbox.
Maruti is also offering the Eeco with a CNG option as it produces 62.54 PS of power at 6,000 rpm and 83 Nm of torque at 3,000 rpm, mated to the same 5-speed gearbox. We can expect the new model to come with a slightly different design theme and modern interior with lots more features. The Eeco is also likely to get BSVI engine also.
The signs of Maruti Suzuki ramping up the Eeco’s production to fill in Omni’s gap can be clearly seen in the April 2019 sales charts. The Eeco is one of the very few models within Maruti Suzuki’s stable to endure positive YoY growth as the brand suffered 19.6 per cent sales drop last month.
With 10,254 units, the Eeco registered 37 per cent YoY sales increase as against 7,475 units in the same month last year. Only 1,395 units of Omni were dispatched in April 2019 as opposed to 8,411 units in April 2018 with 83 per cent de-growth as the production was stopped and the existing stocks were sent out.