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Diesel Mazda 6 delayed

The arrival of the new diesel in 2009 will be available months after the second generation Mazda3.

A softer 2-litre diesel engine is available now but has less power and torque than the current 105kW oil-burner that arrived for the Mazda 6 last year.

But a fresh 2.2-litre engine is being developed in Hiroshima that has been targeted by Mazda Australia, which will become available in 2009, and has been earmarked to make its debut in a Mazda6.

Mazda is said to be working on building a new automatic transmission in-house, which will become the cornerstone of its next generation Activematic gearboxes that will be married to the new diesel.

On current model Mazda6 sales; the diesel demand is running at about 90 per month with the wagon accounting for about two-thirds of that volume.

James Muir, president and chief executive of Mazda Motor Europe, confirmed the development of the auto box.

"A diesel/auto is in the cycle plan."

"We are developing our own automatic in-house at the moment,” Muir said.

It is expected that the new automatic will be mated to the new diesel by mid-2009, which will be several months after the expected arrival of the second generation Mazda3.

The new Mazda6 has just been launched in Europe and the timing of the production cycle means that Australia will receive the first batches of the car for sale in March next year.

The arrival of the new diesel in 2009 will be several months after the second generation Mazda3, which is tipped to be launched toward the end of the first quarter of that year.

The delay on diesel is a hiccup but Mazda sees no value in adopting what essentially is an engine that will be outdated in the space of a year.

"The diesel we will get for the Mazda6 will have more power and torque than the current engine,” Alastair Doak, Mazda Australia national marketing manager, said.

There is also conjecture on the future of the turbo MPS version of the new Mazda6 because of complications within the new family. The second generation car is now made in two different sizes, one larger one for the United States, and the standard car for the rest of the global market.

But Ryuichi Umeshita, program manager for the Mazda6, says the indecision over whether an MPS will be given the go ahead relies purely on a business case.

"If we have an MPS in the standard car it will not be in the US-spec car and that does not make a good business case,” Umeshita said.

The US-spec Mazda6 is a significantly different version of the car the rest of the world gets being larger dimensionally and it runs a powerful V6 engine, which is claimed to be up on power over the current MPS.

"I want to have an MPS Mazda6 but the demand from the customers needs to be there."

"But currently we don't see that demand.”

There is also the issue that a suitable automatic transmission needs to become available as an option for an MPS, particularly in the Australian and Japanese markets.

It is known that Mazda is developing its own version of an Activematic transmission that could become available by 2009, which would suit timing for an MPS version two years into the model life of the new 6.

"The MPS is still being discussed and while it hasn't been ruled out the program hasn't been signed off yet,” Doak said.

 

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