Toyota Stops Fortuner Sales in India

Toyota Kirloskar Motors has stopped taking bookings for its premium SUV Fortuner in India. According to the company, there is enough backlog for the model and it needs to clear the same before it takes any more bookings for Fortuner.

"The average waiting period for the SUV Fortuner is around six months and we have closed bookings as we do not want our customers to wait. We will re-start bookings in June -July once we are able to clear the backlog," Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) Deputy Managing Director Sandeep Singh said.

Toyota’s announcement comes at a time when the company is facing tough times and has problems in India as well. There have been complaints of faulty brakes in Fortuner from 220 customers in India alone. The company is rectifying the brake kit problems on case to case basis. "Therefore, in order to improve customer satisfaction we are only modifying or improving the brakes, therefore this is not a recall. We have received 220 customer feedback till date," a company spokesperson said.

Toyota will resume bookings for Fortuner by June-July when the waiting period is down to three months. Currently Fortuner has waiting period of six months. Toyota has already sold 6500 units of the model and still has pending orders of 6000 units from the Indian market.