Only Petrol Toyota Corolla Altis facelift will get the CVT gearbox: Bummer of the Day!

2011 Toyota Corolla Altis Facelift

Diesel cars and shortchanged are synonymous with each other, at least in the land we all call Indiyeah. Who is to blame? The Indian government of course. Now, what else can you expect if a certain Shiela Dikshit in an ill timed and retro grade move goes ahead to tax diesel engined vehicles higher than petrol engined vehicles? And it isn’t Miss Dikshit alone.

The Indian government too could have done a Shiela Dikshit in the 2011 union budget, but the move thankfully didn’t happen. The manufacturers for their part say that producing the diesel engines costs more than petrol engines and there is definitely an element of truth in that statement. Now, what has all this done for the car buyer who buys a diesel car for the frugality and longevity on offer?

The diesel car buyer has always had to suffer lesser features than the petrol engined car even to the extent of certain critical safety features. For example, the Maruti Suzuki Swift Diesel does not come with airbags even on the top end variant even though it costs plenty more than the petrol variant. And so does the Nissan Micra, on whose diesel variant even airbags have been omitted to keep costs low.

The car makers say that adding these features would bump the price of diesel cars to such an extent that they would become too expensive for the car buyer who, in their opinion, would simply balk at the higher price tag. The latest car to get hit with this syndrome is the Toyota Corolla Altis Diesel which will arrive with a facelift soon.

While the facelifted 2011 Corolla Altis’ petrol engined variant will get a seven speed CVT gearbox, the diesel engined variant will have to make do with a manual six speed transmission. Now, for anyone who has driven the Corolla Altis Diesel would agree that the diesel engined Altis really suffers from turbo lag due to the smallish diesel engine mated to a biggish car.

If anything, the Corolla Altis Diesel is the car that really needs the CVT gearbox, which could make the annoying turbo lag a non factor, thus making the Corolla Altis Diesel a much better car than it currently is. But Toyota thinks that the cost of the Corolla Altis Diesel would touch the stratosphere if they produce it with the CVT.

Therefore, no CVT gearbox for the Corolla Altis Diesel which is precisely why this bit of buzz finds itself being called our “Bummer of the Day”. By the way, the face lifted 2011 Toyota Corolla Altis’ launch which was originally scheduled for May 2011 will be delayed by some time as the production loss at Toyota India continues due to the parts shortage from Japan.

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