[Newpunter]

A few months back, I did a trip from Bangalore to Hyderabad and back. During this trip, on my way back, I decided to try out if I could complete the trip without having to refuel. I almost made it to Bangalore, but had to refuel near Chikkaballapura, since the car was running on fumes by then.

This got me thinking if I could do a Bangalore-Hyderabad-Bangalore trip on a single fuel tank, if I planned my trip better and drove consistently from the beginning. My relative's place where I stayed in Hyderabad, is around 568Kms from my home in Bangalore, so I would need to drive around 1136 kms on a single tank of fuel.

I was planning to do a trip again during the 4th week of March, so I set this goal as part of the trip.

I decided on a few ground rules to achieve this, many of which are pretty obvious :

1. Drive in a relaxed manner with as little accelerator input as possible.

2. Maintain a speed between 80-105 kmph as much as possible. Only cross these limits if absolutely necessary.

3. Brake as slowly and as little as possible. I noticed that Sudden braking and sudden acceleration are the biggest reasons for low mileage. So planning your braking as much as possible is an easy way to increase the mileage.

4. Reduce the number of starts and stops of the engine. We decided to have a maximum of 3 breaks in between (Breakfast, Coffee and Lunch).

5. Start as early as possible, so that we can take advantage of the lesser traffic, as well as the lesser temperatures (which would lead to lower use of the A/C).

6. Keep the A/C at 23 degrees for the entire trip. No need to sacrifice on being comfortable just because I'm on a mileage maximization drive .


With these rules set, I filled up my car on the night of the 22nd and we planned to start early on the 23rd of March. Unfortunately, I had to violate Rule number 5, right at the beginning of the trip. Our son was running a fever for the past few days and we had hoped that it was behind him. But on the morning of the trip, I had woke up early at 4:30 AM and got ready, but the kid had a fever. So we thought that we may have to cancel the trip. But in a few hours, he seemed to be ok, so we decided to go ahead with the trip.

Unfortunately, this meant that instead of starting at around 5:30 AM, we started at 8:40 AM and it was already pretty hot by that time. So the fuel consumption would be a little more than I had planned for. Since, we had started late, we didn't have to stop for Breakfast, which reduced our number of stops to just 2.

I maintained a constant speed of around 90-100 kmph for most of the trip and there was very little traffic, so we made good progress. We reached our destination in Hyderabad by around 5:55 PM.

This was the summary of our onward trip :



It took a total of 9 Hours 16 minutes (including a 2 breaks totalling 1hr 07 minutes). At the end of the trip, the dashboard showed an available range of around 610 kms. I was happy since I only need to cover another 568 kms on the way back.

Unfortunately, as they say, even the best laid plans can go awry, and in my case, they did . My original plan was to keep the car idle till our return trip, in order to save fuel. Unfortunately, we had to go to another place, which was around 31 kms on the other side of Hyderabad. So this added around 62 kms to our original plan. So now, I had to be extra careful on our return trip.

On the day of our return, we started at around 6:00 AM from the other side of Hyderabad and reached home by around 4:50 PM (including 3 planned breaks totalling 1 hr 44 min). I stopped for refuelling at KR Puram, which was 25 kms from my home and the dashboard still showed around 40kms of range left. I could probably have reached home without refuelling, but I didn't want to risk getting stuck in the unpredictable Bangalore traffic, with no fuel.

The conditions were also not very favourable, since it was pretty hot during the day, and the A/C had to work on overdrive to keep the car cool at 23 degrees. In spite of this, the car completed the trip without refuelling till almost the end, for a total of 1198 kms ( 1178 kms from fuel pump to fuel pump). I think I can call this experiment a success, considering all the parameters. In more favourable conditions during cooler temperatures, I think this can be done quite easily.

A summary of the return trip :




Details of the total Trip:

Car : Skoda Rapid DSG (Oct 2017)
Total Distance Covered : 1198 Kms ( 1175 between refuelling)
Total Driving time : 17 Hrs 20 min ( 19 Hrs 58 Min including breaks )
Cost of Fuel : Rs. 4530/- (Approx)
Number of Passengers : 3
Breaks : Coffee Day (Gooty), Hangouts (Kurnool), Birbal Darbar ( Kodathi Gate)

[ImranHyd]

Awesome. You need to teach me how to drive. I guess patience is the key.

[Newpunter]

Originally Posted by ImranHyd

Awesome. You need to teach me how to drive. I guess patience is the key.

I'm not the most patient driver either . It took a lot of discipline on my part to not get distracted by the other drivers overtaking me. It also helped that the traffic was comparatively light during this trip.

[itwasntme]

Sorry if I missed it but is it a petrol or diesel?

Personally, I avoid the 'fumes' bit and refuel when there is 100 km left, only because of the risk of the dirt (at the bottom of the fuel tank) entering the sensitive fuel system internals.

Interesting experiment though. You are pure EV material :-)

[Shreyans_Jain]

Leaving the car idle for more than 20 seconds actually consumes more fuel than switching it off and then starting it again. This is a basic PCRA guideline and something that has been established time and again.

It is not desirable to run the car ‘on fumes’. As much as a thrill it is to push the car to its limits, this puts a lot of strain on the fuel pump. This is critical in today’s time, where changing regulations mean the fuels we are getting are anyway beyond what the fuelling systems of most cars were designed for. It is a best practice to not let the fuel gauge go into red. For the sake of the fuel pump.

[GeeTee TSI]

I get a peculiar pleasure too in doing door to door round trips on the same tankful of fuel (without refueling).

In my Octavia 2.0 TSI I have only managed Bangalore Chennai, a little over 700 kms door to door. I had a remaining range of 80kms and yes, the low fuel warning had come on.

The city crawls really sap the range of the car thereby limiting such noble endeavours!

[Travelfarbeyond]

Though its awesome but I'm not surprised given its a Skoda Rapid at helms. I owned TDI 1.6 Rapid 2011 model and have done 900 KMs twice on a single tank full with AC on and maintaining 90-100KM on highway.

Rapid is magical when it comes to mileage. I have witnessed mileage of 19km/l in NCR Delhi and that too with AC on all times. I have Octavia now and its a fuel guzzler in heavy traffic whereas Rapid always maintained healthy mileage.

[androdev]

Running the tank almost dry is not such a good idea. I just try to maximise the FE shown by the car computer without getting carried away too much - as you can potentially drive the tank empty or avoid braking when required to save few drops of fuel.

https://gmb.net/blog/explain-fuel-pump-failure/

Most fuel pumps are lubricated by the fuel in the tank itself. If the consumer operates their vehicle at a low fuel tank level on a regular basis, that can lead to lubrication issues and premature wear...
...
Try not to let the fuel level fall below a quarter of a tank, as that can cause the fuel pump to overheat

[Mustang_Boss]

I used to do regular Hyderabad-Bangalore(Whitefield) drives atleast twice a month, for the last one year. Total distance - 1150 Kms. Just please, Don't ask why.

In my opinion, its not possible with petrol cars [Maruti's] which have a fuel tank size of ~32-35 liters only. The best FE i could pull was ~24 with just one person in the car.

I never exceed 100 nor drop below 70. I drive carefully, with no additional weight in the car and still, this is the best that i can manage. I used to clean car air filter before the drive starts.

My car/s [Ignis/K10] both never exceeded 23/24 kmpl for the whole trip. But a car with 50+ liter tank, autobox which revs at ~1600 rpm @ 80kmph could do it, if one drives carefully.

Long legged diesel cars like Jazz/Etios could easily achieve it.

[condor]

Steady, deliberate driving & braking can really push the fuel for a longer distance. You have dont about 1.2k with the Rapid.

I can do close to 800km on a tank on my 2-tonne Safari Storme. Have done the half - 400 on a half tank on BLR-Hubli: and this was before I had tried some FE optimizing experiments). For practical reasons, I wont try it without some stock in hand.

[07CR]

Originally Posted by Newpunter

Car : Skoda Rapid DSG (Oct 2017)
Total Distance Covered : 1198 Kms ( 1175 between refuelling)
Total Driving time : 17 Hrs 20 min ( 19 Hrs 58 Min including breaks )
Cost of Fuel : Rs. 4530/- (Approx)
Number of Passengers : 3
Breaks : Coffee Day (Gooty), Hangouts (Kurnool), Birbal Darbar ( Kodathi Gate)

Interesting experiment. What is the fuel tank capacity of Rapid? I believe a 50+ should make it possible to cover the 1000 km+ journey.

I myself had planned to do the same when I was on a Pune-Goa-Pune journey in Ecosport S TDCI. I reached Goa, and had little more than half the tank and range showed 500~ kms. Unfortunately, I travelled a lot in Goa (100 kms) and I needed to reach early on the return journey, hence refuelled just before starting the return journey.

The range when I refuelled again in Pune (next day) showed a promising 960 kms(despite covering the return journey on heavy throttle). I believe with a light foot, even 1200 kms is possible in Ecosport Diesel (52 L tank), without damaging the fuel pump.

[speedmiester]

Definitely the distance is doable in a single tank of fuel.

I did this route on a single tank in Oct 2021 in S-Cross 1.6. This was a solo trip with AC. I fueled up at a fuel station in Bangalore and completed 1179.9 kms before I fueled up again at the same fuel station.

The tank could take in 42.1L on refuel giving a FE of 28.02KMPL. I wasn't very slow, I still averaged 61KMPH over the entire distance.

[Redex]

Hi,
the distance on a tankful does not really mean anything. You need to give the number of litres used not just the price. The important figure is the kms/l measure. Tank size is meaningless if you don't quote the quantity of fuel.
Regards Neil

[Newpunter]

Originally Posted by 07CR

Interesting experiment. What is the fuel tank capacity of Rapid? I believe a 50+ should make it possible to cover the 1000 km+ journey.

The Rapid has a 55 litres tank. It can easily do a 1000 kms trip on a single tank with A/C on all the time. On the highways, I get around 22-23 kmpl pretty comfortably. My home town is around 850kms away from Bangalore and I usually have around 150kms of range left by the time I reach home. This is inspite of going through heavy traffic when crossing Vijayawada on the way.

Originally Posted by androdev

Running the tank almost dry is not such a good idea. I just try to maximise the FE shown by the car computer without getting carried away too much - as you can potentially drive the tank empty or avoid braking when required to save few drops of fuel.

Thank you. I don't usually do this. I refuel as soon as the low fuel light comes up. This was just for the sake of experimentation. By the time I refuelled, it was still showing a range of around 45 kms, so I think there was still around 2 litres or more of fuel in the tank.

Originally Posted by itwasntme

Sorry if I missed it but is it a petrol or diesel?

Personally, I avoid the 'fumes' bit and refuel when there is 100 km left, only because of the risk of the dirt (at the bottom of the fuel tank) entering the sensitive fuel system internals.

Interesting experiment though. You are pure EV material :-)

It is a Diesel vehicle. I doubt you can do this on a Skoda Petrol vehicle :-). Regarding the EV material, I'm usually a pretty fast driver. My Ather Gen 3 gives me only around 60 kms on each charge. This is one reason I haven't upgraded to an EV car yet. I'm so used to the range on my Rapid that getting in an EV gives me range anxiety right from the start.

Originally Posted by Redex

Hi,
the distance on a tankful does not really mean anything. You need to give the number of litres used not just the price. The important figure is the kms/l measure. Tank size is meaningless if you don't quote the quantity of fuel.
Regards Neil

Sorry, I only have the estimates of the fuel consumed. That is the reason I didn't share them. My experiment was to complete the trip on a single tank of fuel. The Rapid has a 55 litres tank, so assuming there was around 2 litres of fuel left when I refuelled, I think the average mileage came to around 22.6 km per litre.

[Redex]

Hi,
running the fuel tank to almost empty. It is an urban myth that the fuel system will get blocked or damaged by debris. The amount of debris in the tank is the same whether it is full or nearly empty with fuel. When the vehicle is in motion all the debris gets stirred up and could be caught in a filter at any time. The debris will not enter the system as the inlet/pump is protected by a filter. There is always a dead space that the pump cannot suck fuel from, hence there is always residual fuel in the tank, this space traps large heavy debris and water.
Due to my high mileage (about 35,000 to 45,000 kms per year). I always run my fuel tank to nearly empty. I fill my tank 50 to 60 times a year from nearly empty. Been doing that for nearly 50 years. Never had a fuel system blockage. I work in my sons garage so have plenty of experience.
Modern fuel injection systems are easily damaged by the smallest pieces of debris, that,s what the fuel filters are for. If it was detrimental to run the tank nearly empty every user manual would tell you not to do it.
The only advice they give is to avoid running the fuel level so low that the system will need bleeding.

Regards Neil