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Guess its the experience and Pune traffic. I'm getting between 12 & 13 in Blr traffic. Avg speed is 19km/hr.

Manjo

now let me guess your avg speed basis your FE & amogh's FE @29kmph

as per my gustimate, your avg speed on MID should be around 20. pls check

Well .. 19-20 km/hr average speeds are terribly low (not that 29 km/hr avg speed is good !!)

Avg Speed : 19 km/hr - FE : 13 km/lit
Avg Speed : 29 km/hr - FE : 18 km/lit

For 52% more average speed I am getting 38% more fuel efficiency ??

Amit is also getting similar FE to what I am getting. And I am pretty sure his average speed is better than mine.

In any case, here is how I drive my car.

First thing when I start the car, I keep the engine running at idle for around 30-45 secs. Only then I shift into first gear.

While driving.. I make sure that the rpm stays between 1100 and 2200. Punto does stroll happily in higher gears at low rpm. But if you check the "Instantaneous Fuel Consumption" .. it starts shooting up if you drive at low rpm's in higher gears. So I make sure that I am maintaining the right rpm - gear combination.

Tip : To check how the engine responds to your driving style set the on board display to "instantaneous fuel consumption" and observe how the figures change.

I am pretty sure if you do this over a considerable amount of time you will tone your driving style to achieve optimum fuel efficiency.

Yep,been doing that for the past 3 or 4 days,have raised the, f-e from 11 to 13 by observing the instantaneous f-e stat tracker,thank you so much for the advice,one question though... why the idling engine at the start?

Well.. just a habit. I have been doing this for all my cars.

I think its always better to warm up an engine before you start putting it through its motions.

Even we humans do a warm up before starting to work out dont we ? lol:

One more thing : I observed this when one of my friends was driving a Punto. He is used to driving a Hyundai and Maruti and this was the first time he was driving a Fiat.

Since he was not used to the "long" clutch play of the Fiat, I observed that he was not releasing the clutch fully. The on board display was on instantaneous fuel consumption mode. When I asked him to take his foot off the clutch the FE figure jumped by almost 1.5 - 2.0 km/lit.

Warming up while stationary will affect the overall FE figure. Manufacturers now recommend that you drive off as soon as the engine starts and to go easy on the acceleration for the first few minutes.

The GP has a hydraulic clutch and there will be no 'play' in the pedal (at least on a new car). What you are referring to is the pedal 'travel'. Riding the clutch even marginally causes more damage in the form of wear and tear on clutch and pressure plates, clutch release bearing etc. in cabled clutches (Hyundai & Maruti) than on the hydraulic variety. Advise your friend to lose the habit as soon as possible.

Cheers,

@amogh,

My gear lever moves up and down while I accelerate and break, though the movement is very small, I find it uncomfortable. Are you also feeling the same with your gear lever?

Will get back in the eve wen i get to the car. I use the instantaneous fuel consumption mode nowadays and i changed my reading from 11.5 to 12.6
but sometimes i tend to do so much a feather touch that i have to move from 5th to 4th even if its a slight incline. stupid: I will keep track of the RPM too and see.

One other thing; i take my GP twice a week for a full body water service. They asked me if i want to do a engine bay + underbody cleaning too.
I thought the underbody is fine, but will the engine bay cleaning be fine, its a local waterwash centre.

And day before wen i was getting it serviced i noticed that the reversing light has come got loose, is rather hanging. i pushed it back into position but still feels not perfect. Should i take it to the dealership immediately?
Also my bonnet release inside is loose, came off while driving ones.

Thanks Ravveendrra !! Yeah .. I did mean the "clutch travel" and not the "clutch play" stupid:
But one query though : I have read on numerous forums (on TBHP and other websites too) that a diesel engine consumes far less fuel at idling than a petrol engine. So would 30-45 secs of idling have a significant impact on fuel efficiency ?

The reason why I am asking is all the 3 diesel cars we have in the family give excellent fuel efficiency (Octy, Safari and Innova). I will now calculate the FE by driving off as soon as I start the engine.

Hi Cliffhanger !!

No .. I have not observed anything like this. I suggest you get it checked from the dealer. I don't see any reason why this should be happening on a new car.

The attached are my readings...

@ manjo

I see that you are looking at the Trip A average consumption.

I suggest you reset your "Trip B" to zero and then track the FE. If you look at Trip A figure, it is bound to be low than what you are actually getting. If anything, it will improve with time.

The reason is "Trip A" includes all the running the car has done from the time it was built / tested at the factory / driven to your dealer's warehouse / driven for PDI etc. And the consumption during these drives is bound to be high (Those drivers are not as careful with new cars as we are. After all, they don't own the cars !!) You can read some "horror stories" about how new cars are driven here : http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...showrooms.html

Yes, I do agree that your "Trip A" FE is low. My current "Trip A" FE is 14.7 km/lit.

Ignore the "AcA" figure for the time being, reset "Trip B" to zero and keep an eye on the "AcB" figure.

Hope this helps

Is Tripmeter A non-resettable? What is he has reset his Trip A figures out from the factory?

Trip A is also resettable just like Trip B. What I do - I reset Trip A while filling petrol to tank-full everytime. This gives me tank-full to tank-full FE & also kms reading which helps me manually calculate tank-full to tank-full FE

I reset Trip B to monitor FE, distance, avg speed etc for shorter trips like daily residenace to office etc

Oopss .. sorry .. I conveniently assumed that Manjo makes use of "Trip A" the same way as I do (I use Trip A to keep a log of my monthly running .. I have not yet reset Trip A since I got the car)

But looking at the km reading I don't think Manjo has reset the Trip A meter lol:

@ Manjo : what is your current AcB ? (Trip B average consumption)

Is it same as AcA ?

I have not resetted any.. My AcB is same as AcA now..
My wife starts yelling wen i start sitting with my car.. (She is really mad me buying this after a new Innova..:D)
I will do today and see after a week or so..