Team-BHP - Maruti S-Cross : Official Review

Quote:

Originally Posted by abhinav.s (Post 4037589)

Congrats on the first milestone and wishing you many more such wonderful years with the S-Cross. 19-20kmpl in B'lore city traffic with AC is phenomenal FE that you are able to extract. Please share your driving habits, usual commute route and commute hours to understand the secret better! :)

Thank you Abhinav. I commute in one of the most congested route in Bangalore. It's from Whitefield to Electronics City and back (~50KM/day total).

Generally I start early @~7:25 AM. It takes anywhere between 1 hr to 1:15 in the morning. (I used to reach office in 45 mins couple years back). Evenings, invariably it takes 1:15 - 1:30 hrs on any given day and sometimes it's gets extended to 2 hrs.

I'm not an 'accelerator flooring' type of driver. It's pretty sedate driving in city. (where do you have the option to floor the pedal is another valid question:)). I always switch off the engine in traffic blocks and signals if it's going to take more than 30 seconds to move ahead. In majority of the cases, the assessment regarding the time will be correct as the best thing the horrible Bangalore traffic has taught me is about reading the situation.:D

Generally do the coasting in neutral if I need to stop the car some distance ahead... Approaching a speed breaker / approaching a signal and during the downward slopes that you are familiar with.

I know, many people will contest the idea of coasting in neutral as the engine still consumes fuel, whereas coasting in gear without the accelerator input helps the fuel delivery to engine completely shut off.

But, practically, coasting in gear has never helped me to achieve the fuel economy that I get with the neutral coasting.

Sharing here some snaps on the fuel economy during the last 1 year of my S-Cross ownership. Starting with the initial ~16KMPL during the first week of ownership. On an average, I get 19-20KMPL during the fuel filling cycle. Always do tankful when the fuel indicator reaching the last 2 marks and it will be in the range of 32-35 litres of diesel. Also, always do fuelling at the Shell petrol station near graphite India (near my home) and in majority of the cases from the same fuel dispenser itself.

Since I had been associated with a leading tyre manufacturing company for ~8 years of my career, have little bit of knowledge about the importance of tyre condition / pressure / size etc on the vehicle dynamics and the fuel economy. I do check the tyre pressure at the same fuelling station during each refuel (once in 3 weeks). Also, once in a while check the pressure with my own calibrated pressure gauge to see that the fuelling station indicator in within the tolerance limits. I maintain 35PSI all 4 tyres, 2PSI above the recommended pressure of 33PSI.

Hope some of these inputs may help BHPians here to extract little more fuel economy in their machines.

Guys please observe my city driving pattern of 1.6 zeta and comment if it has any adverse effects on engine.

This is first diesel for me and during city driving I like to drive sedate and avoid forced overtakes. I found car pulls effortlessly with right feet off accelerator from 20kmph - 3rd gear, 30kmph - 4th gear and 40 kmph - 5 gear and while changing gear I remove my right feet off accelerator and press accelerator only after clutch is fully released. Engine doesn't show any signs of stress and gradually RPM and speed increases. During city driving I also like to keep RPM below the explosive RPM threshold viz 1750RPM. Normally overtakes below 1750 RPM are also easily done and seemingly good amount of torque is there. It seems turbo lag is more prominent when large sudden increase in RPM is induced e.g. from 1000 RPM to 2000 RPM but much less lag observed with gradual RPM increase. Handling city driving in this manner is completely easy and I am loving it. This experiment was done with maximum 2 people on board.

So far appx 20% city and 80% highway usage undertaken. Average milage hovering around 18-19.
On highway its a different ballgame altogather clap: I am sure it can put to shame many costly cars in India.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ank.nsit (Post 4035913)

The turbo lag along with narrow power band is very much present in all 1.6 S-Cross. In fact the 1.3 MJD too suffer from lag, but is much less compared to 1.6.

Why do you say that?
Turbo lag of 1.6 has been discussed on this thread multiple times.

Not to offend the current 1.6 owners, but I really fail to understand the reason behind the hype of 1.6. Even the veterans like GTO consider it to be an amazing engine, but why? Just because of that huge push back effect(320Nm) at 2000 RPM band? What about the power before and after this RPM?

I guess there is something which I failed to observe/understand in my multiple test drives of 1.6.

I own a 1.6 Alpha S-Cross and I can assure you that the Engine is a gem. There is turbo lag under 1750rpm but that is manageable and maybe a deal breaker for some people but once you cross that 1750rpm mark there is no shortage of power until the rev limit. So if you think
That the power is only available in a narrow band then you are wrong. I have taken the car at speeds of 160kph and even beyond 3000rpm the car feels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajay_satpute (Post 4037757)

Thanks Sree ! It was almost like reading a book called "Extracting Fuel efficiency for Dummies". :) I am going to apply all these tips and hope to improve the efficiency by 10% at least. Currently, I get about 16-17 kmpl in Pune city traffic.

Ajay. you can definitely achieve a little more economy. 17 KMPL is a very good figure (I presume it's with AC) in congested traffic :thumbs up. Still scope for improvement is there.

You can try one more thing. Clean the air filter once a month. It's just a 10 minutes job. Release the two clips and take out the filter element and tap the filter gently on the floor. No need of compressed air cleaning and all. The engine feels more smoother once you clean the filter. This will also help in better FE.

Also, proper shifting of gears at correct speeds is a contributory factor for FE. 1.3 can follow the pattern as below.
1. First gear is needed only for starting from standstill. Once the car starts moving 2nd can take over.
2. 2nd gear can come into play at 10KMPH (Even high incline and steep ramps can easily be done in 2nd)
3. 3rd can start at 25-30 KMPH
4. 4th at 40-45
5. 5th 55-60

Quote:

Originally Posted by govigov (Post 4037973)

Sir, which tyre do you use on your s-cross and what size?

I'm on the stock only. JK Elanzo 205/60 R16. After 18000 KMs, the tyre is as good/bad as new except a few minor cracks in the treads which are nothing but common for a hard compound tyre like this.

Ofcourse you will loose out on comfort and may have to bear with road noise. But I seldom travel with windows rolled down.
So, AC and some light music, I'm not at all disturbed by the road noise.

There are better tyres available, but this one is not as bad as many have projected here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sree73 (Post 4037687)

Generally I start early @~7:25 AM. It takes anywhere between 1 hr to 1:15 in the morning. (I used to reach office in 45 mins couple years back). Evenings, invariably it takes 1:15 - 1:30 hrs on any given day and sometimes it's gets extended to 2 hrs.

I'm not an 'accelerator flooring' type of driver. It's pretty sedate driving in city. (where do you have the option to floor the pedal is another valid question:)). I always switch off the engine in traffic blocks and signals if it's going to take more than 30 seconds to move ahead. In majority of the cases, the assessment regarding the time will be correct as the best thing the horrible Bangalore traffic has taught me is about reading the situation.:D
.

Thanks for the tips Sree. I too drive in Bangalore traffic towards EC and my commute is around 60 kms for the round trip. My FE has been hovering around the 16.5 KMPL mark for the last 6000 kms. Yeah and this is with AC running all the time.

Will try some of the tips to see if it helps move the FE towards the 19-20 kmpl mark.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr.Naren (Post 4036438)

Fellow 1.6 S-Cross owner just texted me in FB about software update. This has reduced the turbo lag and engine feels smoother according to him. He had complained to SA regarding poor low end/turbo lag. When I took delivery of my 1.6 S-Cross in May 2016, SA did mention to me about updated tune for recent batch. I too had felt that turbo lag in my car was less than TD cars. I hope this information is true and I suggest fellow 1.6 owners to confirm about this.

Thanks to Rahul Rayer from Chennai!!
Attachment 1542805

Mine is an Aug 2015 batch. Have not got a chance to drive a 1.6 from the recent batch. Is the software update possible for my car as well? Is this an update or some Re-map offered by Maruti ? Any sort of reduction in Turbo Lag would be awesome:)

Quote:

Originally Posted by arvind71181 (Post 4038383)

I too find that the lag in my car is very less. But then, I felt the same with the test drive car as well, which I am sure would have been running the map which was there at the time of the launch. So not sure, if the map has been updated since launch. No complaints though :)

Map update hardly takes 5 minutes. Maruti might be doing it silently for customers who come for service :D. They might have updated the map of TD cars too. I have driven 3 different 1.6 TD cars and have found that turbo lag is more compared to my car.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.O (Post 4038725)

My 13k km run 1.6 Alpha just broke down. Clutch pedal just went in and not coming back. It comes back to the original position if we pull it out using our hand. When we depress it again it, it goes in and doesn't come back. There is used to be a faint hissing noise coming from inside of the bonnet while depressing clutch. Any idea what went wrong.
Thank You.

Slave cylinder failure or the clutch springs would have gone bust. Can happen to any car and any manufacturer. Should be a one off case since this is the first time I am hearing this in the Scross. Mostly manufacturing defect.