I recently bought a new car. It has a 1.2 L turbo petrol engine. I had been told that I will get bad FE till the first service or so. Yesterday I talked to the sales man, he said that I will start getting better FE after the second service which is at 15,000km. I am wondering whether my car needs a software update for the ECU, but apparently mine is running the latest one.
But in the City, I am getting about 8.5 kmpl (19.99 mpg). on the Highway though, I am getting 16kmpl ( 37.63 mpg ), which is fine. For reference, the officially rated FE is 16kmpl (37.63 mpg ) to 22kmpl (51.7 mpg). People have reported 11-12 kmpl (25 - 28 mpg) in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Any advice?
For those who are wondering, I have bought a Tata Nexon Petrol ( I live in India ) .
I had been told that I will get bad FE (Fuel economy) till the first service or so. Yesterday I talked to the sales man, he said that I will start getting better FE (Fuel economy) after the second service
That's very odd, when I bought my car fuel economy had stabilized after about 1,000km (600 miles) and very slightly down from there afterwards.
When a dealership salesman says that it usually actually means "I have no clue what's wrong with it and I'm going to hope that it either sorts it self out or that by the time he comes back it'll be someone else's issue" - So I would NOT take his word for it.
City, I am getting about 8.5 kmpl (19.99 mpg). on the Highway though, I am getting 16kmpl
That's very low for a 85 horsepower engine - especially considering it's mated to a mechanical transmission with a clutch. (the automatic on these is just a robotically controlled manual transmission (AMT) not an inefficient torque converted automatic)
A turbocharged 3 cylinder engine with an MT/AMT should definitely get better efficiency than what you're describing.
My similarly sized (Kia) Crossover with a 4 cyl 100 horsepower naturally aspirated to a conventional torque convertor automatic transmissions gets 47-53 mpg (19.9-22.5 kmpl) in combined driving and in city driving with heavy traffic it can get as low as 35-40 (14.8-17.0 kmpl)
With that being said, looking online - most TATA Nexon owners are getting similarly poor gas millages.
So that might be the norm...
So I'm unsure if it's running inefficecnly of it's just the engine design preventing it from achieving decent efficiency.
You can connect an OBD2 scanner and see if there are any values that are out of the norm? (Especially fuel trims, upstream O2 not bouncing, etc.)
But to me it does feel like that's just how that model is built.
(BTW, how smooth shifting is the AMT?)
Thanks @dan! That is a very helpful answer! I will look into the 02 values and fuel trims. I have however been told that people have had this issue until 10,000 kms of driving. My car has just 350 kms on the ODO yet. I feel like it can be resolved with a software update from the OEM.
The car I have is kind of the updated version of the AMT. When I drove the older one, I HATED it. The gearbox was seriously laggy and jerky and the engine was plain unrefined and the torque curve was not well calibrated either.
But with this one, I am really surprised as to how refined they have made it. Until you smash the throttle, you don't really feel the shifts, especially past 2nd gear.
It sounds like the ECU might be programed to run differently when the engine is wearing in.
At only 350 km, I'd recommend waiting to see if it stabilizes.
Also I'd recommend not waiting until the next service (in 14650km) and replacing engine oil every 7,500 km.
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The upstream O2 values should bounce around in regular fast intervals , and the downstream should have a steady value. Fuel trims on a new car should be ideally within +/- 2.5% but with the car being brand new and now worn in yet they might be higher.
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The new AMT sounds great!
I have an AMT on my other car, a 2009 Corolla - and in "Electronic" shift mode the "MMT" drives horribly - feels like a drunk driving student. (rolls back, shifts too early/late, hesitates, occasionally can't find R, surges at low speeds because it's attempting to upshift but looses too much speed and has to downshift, fries the clutch at stop lights, and each shift takes ages and just feels bad) But in manual mode I'm able to drive it smoother and quicker than any conventional automatic out there.
Later I had the opportunity to drive the PSA 6 speed AMT (in a C4 Picasso, surprisingly it was built by Magneti Marelli) and that gearbox was just awesome, smooth, quick, bulletproof, easy to work on, except for a slightly slow 1->2 it was just almost perfect.
But just when AMTs got good they just disappeared from my market (new cars began coming with crappy DCTs) and I'm happy to hear that the advanced and smooth AMT technology still lives on! 😀
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If you happen to know what's the shift quality on other modern AMTs like Suzuki's AGS, Renualt's EasyR, and others please feel free to share.
Hey! Sorry for the late reply. But yeah! In India it has been proven to be a very cost effective way to get automatics. Here, the market is moving more towards Automatic cars. You should check out the videos for the Suzuki Baleno AGS(Auto Gear Shift). It is sadi to be the smoothest AMT in India.
Yesterday I talked to the sales man, he said that I will start getting better FE after the second service which is at 15,000km.
Sales droids are programmed to be expert at lying.
I had been told that I will get bad FE till the first service ... the sales man, he said that I will start getting better FE after the second service... I live in India
then they will tell you "For sure, by the third service, you will definitely be getting AMAZING fuel economy. Trust me."
🥲🥲
I'm getting 51MPG on my 2.2L 175 HP 4 cylinder Lexus diesel that's 17 years old. Diesel is about £2.10 ($2.56) a litre here in the UK though so nothing for me to laugh about.
