Maruti Suzuki recalled on Wednesday 13,157 die­sel variants of Swift, Ritz and Dzire models

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made during November 13-December 4, 2010.

The biggest Indian carmaker has asked its dealers to contact customers and inspect connecting rod bolts to find if they are faulty.

“It’s a precautionary recall. There is no safety issue associated with cars in which the connecting rod bolts are faulty. If found faulty, the part could disrupt the performance of other engine components, ultimately causing the engine to stall,” said IV Rao, managing executive officer (engineering) of Maruti Suzuki India.

The connecting rod bolt is used to tighten connection rod with the crankshaft of a diesel engine.

The replacement would be done free of cost and export vehicles are not impacted, the company said in a statement.

Maruti sources connecting rod bolts from an Indian component manufacturer. Rao declined to name the manufacturer or the cost of replacing the faulty part. “We have been sourcing the part from a well-known component manufacturer that imports bolts from Italy. The cost of the bolt is marginal,” Rao said.

Analysts ruled out negative impact on the company’s stock on Thursday due to the announcement. “A public announcement gives a positive impact to the consumer, especially because India has no clear recall guidelines,” said Mritunjay Kapur, country MD of Protiviti Consulting.

The carmaker announced the recall after the stock market closed on Wednesday. This is Maruti’s third major recall. The carmaker had recalled 100,000 A-Star models in domestic and overseas markets in February 2010 to replace fuel gasket pumps. It had recalled 76,000 Omnis in India to inspect the fuel hose system in 2001. It had also recalled 500 units of Zen in 2005 to plug leakage of coolant and had repaired speedometers in some Omni and 800 models in 2008.

Maruti is not alone in recalling cars in India. In February 2011, Honda Siel Cars India recalled 57,853 City sedans to replace faulty motion springs. Honda had also recalled 8,532 City sedans in January 2009 to repair defective power window switches. In 2008, Skoda Auto had recalled some Fabia hatchbacks to upgrade technology to improve fuel efficiency. And in November 2010, Tata Motors said it had “called back”, and not recalled, about 70,000 Nanos to add safety features.