LONDON: Suzuki suspended launch of new Celerio city in UK market due to braking issues. Suzuki reveals that a safety mechanism caused the issues.
As reported on CarandVanNews Suzuki cancelled the launch of the Celerio after the magazines Autocar and What Car? Experienced two instances of the brake pedal assembly giving way, while performing an emergency braking test from 80mph in controlled conditions at Millbrook proving ground.
Speaking to CarandVanNews at the launch of the new Suzuki Vitara SUV, Suzuki GB sales and marketing director Dale Wyatt reveals that the fault was caused by a safety mechanism fitted to right-hand drive versions of the Celerio.
“It’s designed to break away in an accident and cause the pedal to retract from the feet,” Wyatt says. “It’s not the same design in the left-hand-drive car, clearly something protrude into the driver’s side of the cabin to require a different design on right-hand-drive versions.
“What we had was a safety mechanism anticipating a crash and activating way too early”.
Wyatt adds that he was proud with Suzuki’s immediate response to the issue. Within a day of the incidents an engineer had flown into the UK from Japan to confirm the fault. The following day Suzuki head office called an emergency safety meeting and on the day after that the car was recalled from sale.
“While it was bad news for us the timing was good, because there were less than 40 customers on the road in Celerios, in the Republic of Ireland where the car had gone on sale in January,” Wyatt says.
“The dealer network responded really quickly, all the customers were put straight into courtesy cars”.
He adds that the recall effectively destroyed the opening weekend marketing campaign for the Celerio. “As sales & marketing director on the Saturday of the launch I had booked and paid for a double-page spread in The Times and Daily Telegraph newspapers.
“On the Monday I had invested significant amounts to have every billboard in the country plastered with posters for the Celerio – they went up on the Monday morning and came down in the afternoon, as the car was off sale.”
It was all the more frustrating as the Celerio had already proven the most successful car launch in Suzuki’s UK history. “We’d sold 1,000 cars before the car officially went on sale, for a brand like Suzuki that was fantastic so yes we were gutted.
“But luckily those with pre orders were due to receive them in March and the factory responded fantastically, the whole management team with real pace”.
1501 Suzuki Celerio 03Wyatt reveals that three weeks on from the event the UK dealer network has received 800 new brake assemblies, allowing them to repair every car currently in existence.
“The process is not difficult, the old pedal assembly is taken out, the new assembly goes straight in there is no risk of getting it wrong. By the first weekend of March every car will be back on the road.
“It’s embarrassing, annoying, but I’m incredibly proud of the way Suzuki responded to the issue,” he adds.
Wyatt believes that while the incident will set back the Celerio launch programme by around six weeks – a six-week TV advertising campaign had to be replaced by one for the Swift supermini and now the Vitara launch campaign is beginning – he doesn’t believe there will be lasting damage.
“It will slow us down, but the target audience is more mature and they can see the truth. The public are used to recalls and all they want is the manufacturers to act responsibly. In our case it was dealt with immediately, at the most senior level”
