[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by NFS2024

Tell me about it. Two cars, over 2 lakh Kms later

Nearing there. Currently at 1.9L kms on the national engine and hoping to complete atleast 2L kms, if not a lot more.

Never let me down. Quite a gem!

Originally Posted by svsantosh

The '1.3' made 'The Engine' accessible to the Nation!

Diesel engine, especially. Multijet (especially under the hood of the Swift) made diesel engine accessible to the masses and dispelled several old myths of diesels being noisy, smelly, underpowered and costly to maintain.

[iamahunter]

"The value of something can only be know once its gone."

This absolute gem of an engine was so brilliant. Used it in my Swift for more than 8 years and a little above a lac kilometers. It never let me down any any kind of situation. Long drives, city drives, traffic jams etc.. it took it all so easily and never felt stressed. I was never worried with this in my car, last minutes plans never required the engine to be serviced or checked. Most of the trips were cranked last minutes and filled en-route.
Overall, I am guilty of not maintaining this engine to the T, why? because it did not need. Post the 2nd free service, the car never saw the service center. Oil filter, air filter and engine oil was all changed and looked after by myself as it was not a tough job to do it. But that also was done on long intervals, minimum 15k kms or have stretched till 25k kms as well(always used synthetic oil, Mobil 1). I never faced any breakdown due to engine in all these years, such was the awesomeness of this wonderful 1.3 SDE in its DDIS avatar.

We sold the car in December 2019, and surprisingly the car fetched us a very good value, thanks to the 1.3. The average by our DDIS was 15.5 kmpl in the peak city traffic and 20.08 on its last highway trip.

[Brishti]

Now maybe the new 2.0 BS6 will become India's national diesel engine. Most likely not though its way too expensive and big. So a reworked/sized down version might be on the cards?

Also when Ford could work the BS6 magic on that old old 1.5 why cant FCA do the same?

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by Brishti

Also when Ford could work the BS6 magic on that old old 1.5 why cant FCA do the same?

The power-torque range that this engine served is now getting overlapped by modern turbo-GDI petrol engines. Diesel engines are being pushed up towards more powerful segments only as the green drive takes pace. Hybrids / EVs are just around the corner too (perhaps a decade at most away) in most of the MJD's core markets.

So investing heavily on an engine that isn't powerful enough by today's standards of faster & larger cars probably didn't make a viable business case. As a person interested in engineering R&D - I surely would have loved to see it made BSVI compliant.

[greatgyan]

2007 Swift Diesel Model, 2+ lakh kms on the odo, almost every other part of the car is giving problems now, but the engine is still rock solid, has still got that pull in the mid-range which pushes you back into the seat.
I kind of learned my driving on this car, still remember the sudden surge of torque in the mid range and how you would be pushed back into your seat.

Loads of memories with this one, RIP 1.3 MJD, You'll be missed dearly!!

[coolkurt]

Both my cars are powered by Fiat's mighty multijet engines. The S Cross with the 1.3 and the Hector with the 2.0.

It was a toss up between the Ciaz and the S Cross, and we settled for the latter, with a stonker of an engine, it's reliability is legendary. The mid range is brilliant and the surge when the turbo finally kicks in makes it a very fun to drive car.

Since I just bought both the cars, I see the two engines serving my bidding till the end of the decade.

[GTO]

When it arrived in 2007 (ironically in a Maruti, not a Fiat), the 1.3L MJD was way ahead of its time. In 2020, it feels old, but not dramatically outdated. Says a lot about the competence of this little motor. It also saved Maruti from irrelevance in a market that was then hungry for diesels. Maruti shareholders should hold a prayer meeting today.

Beautiful engine . Job well done, now go rest in peace. Your time is up.

[fhdowntheline]

Very fond memories of my Dzire 1.3MJD pushing me back in the seat post 2K rpm. Slick shifting gearbox too. Only once did the car go limp on me, but that was sorted out after cleaning the throttle body and the air filter.

[Durango Dude]

FIAT survived in India by just making the engine while Maruti made a killing with it. As the legend goes, Maruti and Tata tuned the engine better than FIAT for Indian conditions and mated it to the AMT gear box. I think they should have allowed it to survive with an update to make it BS 6 compliant. When Hyundai can update it's 1.2 CRDi to BS 6 why not Maruti? I'm guilty of not driving a vehicle powered by this engine and feel sorry for it. It was a true legend.

[Thermodynamics]

One of the earliest examples of multiple injections per combustion cycle. Introduced in 2002 and by 2005 was awarded as International engine of the year in 1.0 to 1.4 litre Category.

Two decades ago, there was a pre-conception that Diesel means unreliable, dirty, noisy, vibrations and $$$ to maintain. But engines such as this changed that perception, Diesels became smooth and easy to maintain.

[adi.mariner]

This gem of an engine changed an entire generation's view towards Diesel Engines. Diesel engines were for Commercial vehicles only was the thinking for a lot. Back to back test drives of the Petrol and Diesel Swifts convinced my father to go for the Diesel one in 2009. We also got the SX4 Diesel home when it was launched. A couple of my friends also got Diesel cars as their next buys. Sad to see this engine not being upgraded to BS6. Sad day for Fiat as well with the royalty they were earning coming to a stop.

[artemis_fowl]

Please switch off your mobile phones and stand up for the national Diesel engine of India.
I hope someone will compose a fitting tribute for this engine.
On another note, time for Fiat to well and truly pack its bags.

I remember, we were going to buy the Swift diesel (yes, my dad was also bitten by the Swift Diesel bug) but the extremely high waiting period made us settle for a top-end petrol. Such was the craze for the car that people would be ready to pay hard cash on the spot! This engine will surely be missed.

Here’s a (small?) list of cars that run (or ran) on this engine (Am I missing a few cars?)

Tata:
- Vista
- Manza
- Bolt
- Zest

Premier :
- Rio (does this count?)

Fiat:
- Punto (and its various iterations such as Avventura, Urban Cross, Punto Evo)
- Linea (and Classic Linea)
- Palio (can someone confirm this?)

Chevrolet:
- Beat (derivative of the 1.3 MJD)
- Enjoy
- Sail
- Sail U-VA

Maruti:
- Swift
- Dzire
- SX4
- S-Cross
- Vitara Brezza
- Ertiga
- Ritz
- Ciaz
- Baleno
- Ignis

A grand total of 22 cars used this engine!

P.S: How come only 8.10 lakh engines were produced? The number of diesels sold by Maruti alone would take the number of MJDs to over a million. Can someone please explain this?

[RK79]

Affordability and reliability are the two words coming to mind while thinking of this engine. Tata and Maruti made the most out of this engine. Being a regular user of this engine, it never gave up on me in the last five years. Can anybody enlighten if FCA has any plans for replacement for this engine?

[Rocketscience]

So it is a usual day when my cousin shows up and agrees to let me drive his car, me a car enthusiast since childhood, grew up watching Fast and Furious and playing NFS with Nitros being the magic which propels the car forward like a rocket, 17 years old i must admit and having learnt driving on a Civic, currently driving an petrol i20, just casually takes the keys, drive this car, its normal if only a little louder than my other cars, i shift to second, the road is empty i decide to give it the beans and just like that all hell breaks loose this car pushes me back to the seat and launches itself and i'm left with on my face, the adrenaline rush was comparable to riding on an aircraft and that day i will cherish forever.

This was a very special little engine that defined an era and made many switch to Diesel, changed their mind dramatically that they were nothing like the loud, crude, excruciatingly slow engines anymore, they are better in more ways than one than the petrol options in many cars. , in 6 months from this we bought the Cruze and my college time and that era had been nothing short of a joyride. Even that engine was a distant cousin to this engine.

P.S I know it was'nt the only turbo Diesel in India even when it was first launched but it sure was the first in an affordable/mass market sector and definitely the most popular, i was a young driver and had only driven a handful of cars at that point and this personal account is not exaggeration for the sake of it.

[coolkurt]

Originally Posted by artemis_fowl

P.S: How come only 8.10 lakh engines were produced? The number of diesels sold by Maruti alone would take the number of MJDs to over a million. Can someone please explain this?

This is the number that was manufactured by FIAT at the Ranjangaon plant in Pune. Maruti had a license to manufacture Fiat 1.3 engines and they paid a royalty to FIAT. That way they were not dependant on supply from FIAT and saved on the investment cost of building an engine from scratch. I'm sure those numbers are much higher. The Brezza, S Cross and Diesel Dzire are still being produced till March.