Rahul Sharma had bought the Zen from Maruti in 2005. He claims that he was induced to make the purchase, by an advertisement that claimed the Zen had a fuel efficiency of 16.7 km/litre. But he found that he could never get more than10 km/litre from the vehicle.

Car makers are up in arms against any additional tax on diesel vehicles in the Union Budget (to be announced on 16th March, 2012). The proposal is to levy additional excise duty of about Rs. 81,000 on new diesel car buys. While it is still a proposal, it surely is a lot of money.