India's leading carmaker Maruti Suzuki is recalling 100,000 cars in India and overseas due to potential fuel leakage problems, it said Tuesday.
About 50,000 of the popular A Star hatchbacks have been recalled since November, from India and from export markets including Europe, Australia and North Africa, said company spokesman Puneep Dhawan.
Maruti Suzuki, a subsidiary of Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp., makes about one of every two cars sold in India. With the A Star, it is transforming India into a small car production hub for export.
The recall comes in the shadow of Toyota Motor Corp.'s global recall of 8.5 million vehicles — none of them in India — to fix acceleration and braking problems in several models.
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The A-Star is branded as the Alto in Europe, where it is also retailed as the Pixo by Nissan. It is called the Celerio in non-European markets.
Cars manufactured between November 2008 and August 2009 have a faulty fuel pump gasket and O-ring, which can leak when the fuel tank is topped off, the company said.
Dhawan said the problem was discovered during an internal check and that no customers have complained so far.
"We have been recalling proactively," he said.
In the 10 months ending in January, Maruti Suzuki sold 706,488 vehicles in India, up 22.3 percent from the year-ago period, while exports surged 141.9 percent, to 120,097 vehicles.