auto news desk, Vehicle manufacturer Jeep India has decided to discontinue the petrol engine variant of its Compass SUV in India. Because the 1.4-litre turbo-petrol unit fitted in it does not meet the new BS6 Stage 2 emission norms that came into effect from April last month. The company has started phasing out the petrol engine with the discontinuation of its manual variant in December 2022, after which the petrol engine was available only with the DCT automatic gearbox, which has now been discontinued.
Now petrol engine will not be available
Jeep had already discontinued the 1.4-litre turbo-petrol engine in overseas markets due to stricter emission norms. This engine was available in markets such as South America and Europe. Which was replaced by a new and more performant 1.3-litre turbo-petrol engine in the 2020 facelifted Compass. Given the stricter BS6 Stage 2 emission norms in India, Jeep will replace the old 1.4-litre engine with the new 1.3-litre here as well. The engine should have been changed, but Jeep did not do so considering local sales and exports.
so new engine not found
Petrol engines account for around 50-60 per cent of Compass sales in India, and in some metro cities like Delhi it accounts for up to 80 per cent of total sales. On an average, only about 650 units of this SUV are sold in a month. That is, the share of petrol variants in a month is 350-400 units. Hence, there is no great advantage for the company in bringing out a new engine for just a few hundred units a month.
Jeep Compass Trailhawk also discontinued
Apart from the petrol variants, Jeep has also discontinued the top-spec Trailhawk variant of the Compass which was available with a 2.0-litre diesel engine and 4X4 drivetrain. The model has been removed from the Jeep India website, but some dealers still have a small stock of it.
may return in 2026
The petrol engine may return to the Compass line-up in India with the next-gen model expected in 2026. An all-electric version is also expected to arrive. Jeep Compass competes with cars like Tata Safari and Mahindra XUV700 in India. The Safari only gets a diesel engine, while the XUV700 gets petrol and diesel engine options.