[PassionateDrive]

Very nicely written thread man. Congratulations !

I have couple of common things with your trip here:
a. Even i have got my best FE figures of 22 km/ltr on my i20 CRDI (in the entire 11 years of ownership till date) on this very road: Mumbai to Ahmedabad
b. I had done my first long distance (500+) solo drive on a section of this road (Mumbai - Rajpipla - Mumbai)

Off-course, these two were distinct trips. The first one was with 4 people onboard. I usually don't stress too much on the FE figures, but this particular trip was very different. I could distinctly recollect that I had a very light foot throughout the entire journey with a sole purpose - max FE !

Thanks for sharing.

[PrasannaDhana]

Originally Posted by Maverick Avi

I was quite happy to go through the post as not many people in this forum might care about fuel efficiency as enthusiasm and fuel efficiency are not the best of friends while driving.

Enthusiasm and fuel economy may not co-exist (unless you drive a smaller turbo diesel) at the same time, but any car can be extracted with either of them

PS: All actual tankfull to tankfull figures, driven over the same routes/traffic, both during best and worst fuel efficiency periods.

Here, an example from my Safari Storme Varicor 400




From my Kwid 1.0



In both the cases, there is almost a solid 100% difference in fuel efficiency when the car is driven enthusiastically (very) vs driven sedately.

But what I impresses me is the nature of smaller turbo diesels (<1.5L). Their fuel efficiency is bloody consistent

My ciaz 1.3



My Altroz 1.5



The catch here is that I have never tried to extract max fuel efficiency with the turbo diesels so far, atleast with regards to the stats i have obtained so far using fuelio.

Best I have gotten from ciaz was 24 kmpl in the past, that too not being very sedate.

This makes me glad that I didn't pick a turbo petrol when u was shopping for a new car.

I have a lot of fun on the turbo diesels and still, they return 16+ kmpl, as seen above.

That said, driving sedate has to become an habit. Else you will find your car returning quite inconsistent figures. Classic example is my storme and my inability to stay sedate after one economical tankfull.



@Crow
Everything being said, congrats on getting 23.6 kmpl on the petrol swift. One must have some self control to do that.

[RijuC]

I visited Kaudiyala just next day of Diwali (6th Nov) from my Gurgaon residence. Driving distance is 314 km one way. Started after midnight at 12:50 AM. Reached Har-Ki-Pauri parking area at 04:45 AM through Delhi-Meerut expressway, with two loo breaks of about 10-15 minutes each.

Car was same, Swift VXi(O) October, 2016 model. Tyres were filled at 33 psi, stock tyre set (Apollo 3G).
Made it full tank in the morning of 5th Nov. from the BPCL petrol pump adjacent to my Society. It was normal petrol. Usually I fill from HP or Indian oil pumps, avoid this neighborhood pump. However, this time I needed a good sleep for the night drive and didn't go far.

AC was running at minimum to avoid fogging. Me and wife were shivering. However, had to keep it ON. Luggage was minimal- with Laptop and few water bottles it would be maximum 15 kg. However, we are in plus side (170 kg for 2 persons)

While returning next day, we faced massive traffic jam, it took 3 hours to cross Rishikesh area. Stopped at Haridwar for the Sandhya Aarti at Ganga Har-Ki-Pauri ghat, had a heavy tiffin, packed late dinner and reached home by 12:45 AM on 7th Nov. Return journey also was with AC ON. It was very hot in the afternoon when we were struck in the traffic jam in Rishikesh.

Attaching the MID reading of 20.3 kmpl figure. Refueled after few days of office commute, 781 km, 38.24 Litre of petrol after reserve indication came on instrument console.

By the way, I started driving properly from June, 2020 (Lockdown learner).

[viXit]

Where are The honda i-Dtec guys!!??

Congrats crow. Man, how did you stay awake on this drive!!

We need you to take a diesel car on a trip like this. With none of that SCR, DPF BS. I'm sure you'll be in the mid thirties. Waiting to hear about your encounter with the Vento. Pls do link that post here when you write about it

[car_guy1998]

We own a 2014 Honda City iDTEC and has run 1,23,000 Kms till date.

And, this is the figure I got after driving the car for more than 50 Kms within the city limits and didn't cross beyond 50 Kmph.

[Ranabegins]

I just completed a trip of approx 3100Kms(Patna-Agra-Delhi-Rishikesh-Mussoorie-Delhi-Patna). We were 4 people in a 2013 Honda Amaze diesel and the boot was full to the brim. We got a mileage of 20.5Kmpl. Our mileage was around 22 when we started our journey back from Delhi but we needed to reach home early so we drove spiritedly on Lucknow expressway & Purvanchal expressway and that brought the mileage down.
Apart from this, last year I got a mileage of 18.3kmpl in my 2010 A star in a 2200km road trip from Patna to Nainital and back.

[divyadeeptsi]

Last month I did Delhi - Amritsar- Delhi on my 2021 Polo TSI MT.
On the way back left Amritsar around 9.30pm and planned to take it very easy and maximise fuel efficiency as I had ample time and more importantly Petrol costed 106₹.

We were 2 people on board with some luggage.
I cruised from Amritsar to Jalandhar @80-90kmph and was astonished to see the fuel efficiency reached 27kmpl +. Pic attached.

Couldn’t keep it that slow since I was feeling sleepy & the empty Tarmac was too tempting, so started to put all those 110 horses on work, managed to get 95kmph + avg speed and reached delhi around 3.30 am. Even at those speed avg fuel efficiency for Amritsar- Delhi stood at a highly impressive 21.3kmpl.

[fhdowntheline]

Just adding some Hyundai perspective, although I haven't driven around much recently, I have experienced quite a decent mileagei in the Creta (Diesel AT) . On some of the earlier trips, its been 22kmpl+ and like posted earlier, through a bit of hypermiling /coasting, the indicated efficiency goes beyond 25kmpl easily. And I cant talk enough about the creamy smoothness of the engine itself, coupled with an equally cooperative transmission. Sometimes you wonder if you are indeed driving a diesel car.

[haisaikat]

A delightful read and some remarkable numbers achieved there on Fuel Efficiency, also the photo of the Milk Bun with Butter made my taste buds drip from this distance. Average Speed of 60+ is remarkable in itself, the max I have achieved on long highway trips is a little over 50 kmph and mostly with my driving style it 37 - 39 kmph.

I have one question around the below tips of yours, can you please elaborate on this?

Try to follow sedately driven cars at a safe distance to reduce wind resistance

[dpat17]

Originally Posted by viXit

Where are The honda i-Dtec guys!!??

MID milage figure for my 2nd Gen Jazz with 70K on Odo.
90% highway 10% city with cruising speed of 80 kmph on highways.
Actual milage on T2T basis ranges somewhere between 25.5 - 26 kmpl.

[jphukan]

Swift's K-series engines are fun as well as frugal when you need them to be. The best I have achieved in my 2016 Swift ZXI with 2 people and luggage for a weekend trip was 22.5 kmpl (tankful to tankful) over a 300km journey from Bangalore to Wayanad. I was almost always below 80kmph the entire trip. The worst on highway with spirited driving was 16.xx kmpl over a 250 km stretch.

On the other hand, on my BRV CVT with 3 people and packed to gills luggage (almost 700 litres gobbled up), I got 17.6 kmpl (tankful to tankful) for about 500+ kms (between Jabalpur and Hyderabad). Again I was cruising between 80 and 100 kmph and was taking full advantage of CVT transmission to keep the revs below 2k RPM almost all the time. Added advantage of such cruising was a complete "no speed ticket" drive as well

[carzone]

Petrol cars can do wonders with FE as well. Speed cameras these days have compelled us to drive sedately and we've started extracting more FE.



Extracted 24.7 highway to highway on a hot afternoon day last month in Maharashtra on my Aura AMT. This was over a distance of 150 odd kms, but a petrol automatic providing this kind of FE is pure surprising, more so for me, after coming from driving a City Automatic which has barely managed 15-16 kmpl on a 800+ km highway journey.

[Crow]

Thank you so much for the wonderful support, suggestions, anecdotes, and warmth shown in this thread. I never really expected my thread to go on the home page and draw so many responses, but it makes me feel like an important part of this community. Thank you once again.

I was a bit overwhelmed to see so many replies, so I decided to take some time before replying to all of you. Here it goes:

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Wonderful narration there Crow and why am I not surprised with the FE figures .

Regarding the food stops, this entire 400 km stretch is what I call a "Food Corridor" as there are so many of them that missing one and releasing foot from the accelerator pedal will take you to the next good one.

Don't mind intruding into your thread but since this is also about solo driving, I have on earlier occasions referred to a lot of such tips and best practices that I have followed and managed solo for 1800 km at a stretch too.


Thanks again for penning down your experiences Crow. Enjoyed reading it.

Thanks so much, Parag. I am a huge fan of your threads and particularly the formatting you use, which makes useful information easy to absorb. I left around 4-4.30am both ways based on the advice I read in your threads and that's what led to these amazing FE numbers.

I was actually amazed to read how fast you managed to cover Thane to Bengaluru overnight, because the same stretch (till Belagavi, because I usually go to Goa) takes me much, much longer during the day. Even for this, I followed your advice: Each journey and each driver are different. There's no point in trying to emulate someone else's achievements.

That's why I was able to keep things under control during the drive. My goal was to drive safe, stay awake, and try for a good FE. I must confess though, the return journey was a bit disappointing at first because I couldn't achieve the same FE numbers immediately. Next time, I will take your suggestion about not starting with any target FE or speed or time, more seriously. That is golden advice for everyone. I hope to meet you some day and learn from you.

Originally Posted by shancz

Also since I barely pay attention to the FE in the MID even if the car has one your thread made me realise that I can have a lot of fun with it
Also a very good tool to learn/better smooth driving skills.

Thank you, @shancz! I owe this one to @PrasannaDhana. His threads made me realize the same thing.

Originally Posted by unoczar

What I feel is that good fuel and mature mind while driving is the key.

7 years old and thought of selling it comes to my mind. But trust me, it's really hard to let it go.

I totally agree. You can't be impatient on the road. Most of us do road trips because it is a lot of fun, but the "fun" part of it becomes way more stressful if you get into tiffs with random vehicles and try to overtake unnecessarily. The onward journey was the happiest of my life because of the amazement at the FE numbers. Also, great job with the FE and I know exactly what you're saying about letting the car go. It's almost impossible to find fun, frugal, affordable diesels like the Swift ZDI, so the choice is very tough.

Originally Posted by Strider24

I guess if we follow the cardinal rules ( very well explained by Parag & Crow in above posts) of disciplined driving we can extract the best performance from our cars, at the end of trip we are left with a peaceful happy smile on face. of course the discipline is required for maintenance of our cars too. a poorly maintained car can never achieve this kind of feat.

And thanks for providing the information of good eateries on this route, it is going to be very useful on my next Gujarat trip.

That's right, @Strider24. Parag is a gold mine of information for road trip advice, and I don't know anyone who's driven this particular stretch more than he has. My trip was 90% inspired by two D-BHPians: @paragsachania and @PrasannaDhana. I wouldn't be posting this today if not for them.

You made a great point about maintaining cars well. Changing tyres at the right time and ensuring that the car is clean + mechanically sound goes a long way towards achieving good fuel efficiency. I'll be trying the same trip with a co-passenger soon, and I'll be back here to report the numbers. No specific target in mind, but I want to see how much of a difference you see in FE with a second passenger + added luggage.

Originally Posted by vinya_jag

Adding my experiences to the post

Coasting - I noticed this while driving down Tirupati hills, where I was driving a sedate speed, mostly in gear breaking, and when we reached the hotel at the bottom of the hills, I was surprised to see a 32+ Kmpl reading on our Polo TDI

Avoiding roads that have a lot of humps and towns - Again, Bangalore Mysore road as an example. I never get more than 22 on it, blame it on the umpteen speed breakers and towns that we have to wade through.

Perfectly summed up, @vinya_jag. I too agree about coasting. I am working on improving my coasting skills too. It's hard to do it safely on highways, so I am working out the right balance.

And I cannot agree more about avoiding roads with speed breakers. The Mumbai-Indore highway is full of these and I can't see how you can reasonably get 20+kmpl on that road with that much acceleration and deceleration happening repeatedly.

Originally Posted by K12B

Please have a look at the below images. I had achieved 29.9KMPL during one of my drives on Yamuna Expressway. I once achieved 36.8KMPL by maintaining 50kmph on the same stretch.

This is crazy! So I guess there is more FE to be extracted from my car too. Thanks for sharing, and nice username too, @K12B.

Originally Posted by unoczar

That has to be one of the most boring drives. You don't have cruise control, do you? When I go in that region, I avoid the expressway on purpose. Driving on the old NH is cheaper and more fun.

Some would say even my drive was boring, but just like @K12B, I enjoyed extracting never-before-seen FE numbers. The lack of cruise control is a bummer for sure though!

Originally Posted by vishy76

It was an absolute pleasure meeting you and learning that we share a lot in common too I enjoyed conversing with you and also meeting your friend. As already stated, I was smitten by his Vento TDI . Thanks a lot once again for this awesome travelogue.

Same here man. Thanks for helping me realize that you can make friends with people of all ages too. It's an important reminder for me.

Originally Posted by Maverick Avi

And you might not believe that I got 24.6kmpl(with A/c on during summers) overall on my meter yesterday. I haven't had a single highway trip with my Wagon R and whenever I do the figures are just going to get "insaner".

Enthusiasts of all kinds are available on this forum. I'm in awe of people who travel to places in record times, but I know it's not something I can achieve with my driving skills. Hypermiling on the other hand, is far safer (as you said) and fun to try. As I've said before, @PrasannaDhana's hypermiling inspired me to try this. Also the only "unbelievable" part of your experience is that you haven't done a highway trip. I think you'll get 30kmpl easily! Great job man!

Originally Posted by PassionateDrive

Very nicely written thread man. Congratulations !

I have couple of common things with your trip here:
a. Even i have got my best FE figures of 22 km/ltr on my i20 CRDI (in the entire 11 years of ownership till date) on this very road: Mumbai to Ahmedabad
b. I had done my first long distance (500+) solo drive on a section of this road (Mumbai - Rajpipla - Mumbai)

Thanks for sharing.

Thank you, @PassionateDrive. Those are solid numbers too on the FE front. The solo drive part motivated me to keep a light foot and the good condition of the road just keeps your mind at peace while aiming for something fun like max FE. Glad that I'm not the only one who found it fun to do on this stretch. Cheers!

Originally Posted by PrasannaDhana

That said, driving sedate has to become an habit. Else you will find your car returning quite inconsistent figures. Classic example is my storme and my inability to stay sedate after one economical tankfull.

@Crow
Everything being said, congrats on getting 23.6 kmpl on the petrol swift. One must have some self control to do that.

Thank you so much for sharing your advice via DM, when I'd approached you. If not for that, this thread would not exist. And I am more in awe of your Safari Storme FE figures than anything else. I get 18kmpl on highways on my Swift most of the time, don't think I can get it from a big SUV like Safari at this point in time. Very impressed!

Secondly, I agree that it requires a lot of self control to extract 23kmpl+ over 800+km from the petrol Swift. The engine is such that it sometimes begs you to floor the pedal and chase sunsets, but if you resist, it rewards you with crazy FE numbers. Win-win either way!

Originally Posted by RijuC

Attaching the MID reading of 20.3 kmpl figure. Refueled after few days of office commute, 781 km, 38.24 Litre of petrol after reserve indication came on instrument console.

By the way, I started driving properly from June, 2020 (Lockdown learner).

I think I remember coming across your posts about this particular drive during one of my searches for tips on getting FE. If it was indeed your post, then thank you. Because it gave me the confidence I needed to try for 20+kmpl on my car too.

Originally Posted by viXit

Congrats crow. Man, how did you stay awake on this drive!!

We need you to take a diesel car on a trip like this. With none of that SCR, DPF BS. I'm sure you'll be in the mid thirties. Waiting to hear about your encounter with the Vento. Pls do link that post here when you write about it

Haha, well if I am being honest, every time the FE went up by 0.5kmpl, I would scream the FE number and congratulate myself to keep myself awake. If you want, you can imagine a random solo driver screaming, "23KMPL, YES, GREAT JOB!!!" and similar things during the drive. I am not joking. That's what I did to stay awake.

Now to find a friend with a nice diesel car for hypermiling volume 2!

Originally Posted by car_guy1998

We own a 2014 Honda City iDTEC and has run 1,23,000 Kms till date.

And, this is the figure I got after driving the car for more than 50 Kms within the city limits and didn't cross beyond 50 Kmph.

The best part here is the age of the car, in terms of km. Good job maintaining the car well enough for it to return these great FE numbers!

Originally Posted by Ranabegins

We got a mileage of 20.5Kmpl. Our mileage was around 22 when we started our journey back from Delhi but we needed to reach home early so we drove spiritedly on Lucknow expressway & Purvanchal expressway and that brought the mileage down.

Solid numbers @Ranabegins! And I can relate with the spirited driving part. After 23kmpl, my Swift's FE became very sensitive to throttle input. Even a slight increase in acceleration would sometimes cause the FE to drop by 0.1kmpl. It is hard to maintain a cool head and be patient. But the rewards are motivating enough for sure.

Originally Posted by divyadeeptsi

We were 2 people on board with some luggage.
I cruised from Amritsar to Jalandhar @80-90kmph and was astonished to see the fuel efficiency reached 27kmpl +. Pic attached.

Couldn’t keep it that slow since I was feeling sleepy & the empty Tarmac was too tempting, so started to put all those 110 horses on work, managed to get 95kmph + avg speed and reached delhi around 3.30 am. Even at those speed avg fuel efficiency for Amritsar- Delhi stood at a highly impressive 21.3kmpl.

Great FE numbers there! It was very hard for me to stay awake too, but I managed somehow. Next time I'll be hypermiling with a co-passenger. A little bit of conversation goes a long way in keeping the mind active, even with good rest before the trip.

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

On some of the earlier trips, its been 22kmpl+ and like posted earlier, through a bit of hypermiling /coasting, the indicated efficiency goes beyond 25kmpl easily. And I cant talk enough about the creamy smoothness of the engine itself, coupled with an equally cooperative transmission. Sometimes you wonder if you are indeed driving a diesel car.

Like you, I feel better attuned to the car when I am driving with a light foot. Really impressed with your FE achievements too. Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by haisaikat

A delightful read and some remarkable numbers achieved there on Fuel Efficiency, also the photo of the Milk Bun with Butter made my taste buds drip from this distance. Average Speed of 60+ is remarkable in itself, the max I have achieved on long highway trips is a little over 50 kmph and mostly with my driving style it 37 - 39 kmph.

I have one question around the below tips of yours, can you please elaborate on this?

If you liked the food photos, you should go to Modernist some day. They're closed on Mondays, so do keep that in mind.

Yeah so this stretch of the highway has no speed breakers and not too many U-turns with heavy traffic. Leaving at 4.30am or so helped me get away from the densely populated areas well before most people woke up, and I was able to maintain higher average speeds throughout. There was a fully loaded Innova going at 100kmph+ alongside me. It couldn't shake me off even though I never exceeded 90 and usually was around 80kmph (and I was not trying to overtake it either). I kept seeing that car for a good 30-45 minutes till it stopped at a restaurant. If your judgement isn't that good, you'll keep braking because heavy vehicles often block all three lanes.

So when you are traveling in any vehicle (including walking or running), you are always fighting the wind. If the wind is in the same direction, you will notice better fuel efficiency and speed. If the wind is against you, it's like trying to run uphill. It requires more energy and reduces fuel efficiency. I have recently been following an anime cycling show (Yowamushi Pedal on Netflix) where the concept of wind resistance reducing your speed and increasing your energy output is explained very well. So I though of trying the same thing while driving too, since that is a factor in FE numbers. I don't know if it had any impact, but it was fun to try nonetheless. It's hard to find sedately driven cars with good road manners on the highway.

Originally Posted by dpat17

MID milage figure for my 2nd Gen Jazz with 70K on Odo.
90% highway 10% city with cruising speed of 80 kmph on highways.
Actual milage on T2T basis ranges somewhere between 25.5 - 26 kmpl.

Great job, thank you for sharing!

Originally Posted by jphukan

Swift's K-series engines are fun as well as frugal when you need them to be. The best I have achieved in my 2016 Swift ZXI with 2 people and luggage for a weekend trip was 22.5 kmpl (tankful to tankful) over a 300km journey from Bangalore to Wayanad. I was almost always below 80kmph the entire trip. The worst on highway with spirited driving was 16.xx kmpl over a 250 km stretch.

Added advantage of such cruising was a complete "no speed ticket" drive as well

Thanks for sharing that. The Swift indeed is a great FE vehicle. I wish it would help you avoid speed tickets forever, but the reality is that we have some very unscientific speed limits that go from 100 to 30 within 100 meters sometimes. So it's mostly down to your luck if you avoid speeding tickets.

Originally Posted by carzone

Extracted 24.7 highway to highway on a hot afternoon day last month in Maharashtra on my Aura AMT. This was over a distance of 150 odd kms, but a petrol automatic providing this kind of FE is pure surprising, more so for me, after coming from driving a City Automatic which has barely managed 15-16 kmpl on a 800+ km highway journey.

You're one among many people who've been telling me that AMTs can do great FE as well. I should try it out one of these days. Thanks for sharing though, amazing FE numbers indeed!

[unoczar]

You hit the nail on the head there. Impossible is the word. My only choice now is an EV a couple of years down the road when they become more affordable with proper infrastructure. As of now, the dzire is a keeper, crossed 70k this month and ready to do 100k soon.

Also, she's hasn't been to ladakh yet and i can feel that she's urging to

[voldemort]

Since it's uncommon for people with big German cars to talk fuel efficiency (with good reasons ), here I am doing it.

What do you get when you put a sedate driver in a Benz? A fuel-efficient Benz!

The car in question is my Mercedes-Benz E-Class (W212 E250 CDI). It has a 2.1 liter diesel engine with a peak power of 204 horses, and a peak torque of 500 Nm (@1600 rpm). The maximum economy we ever recorded (as per MID) is 17.9 km/l which I think is impressive in considering the car and the engine, although it's nowhere near what others on this thread gets.

I'll let the pictures do the talking when it comes to efficiency (as indicated on MID). The pictures were taken on different days over the course of years.












Some thoughts:

• Here in Kerala the roads really do not support sustained high-speed driving. None of my cars have been to north of 100 km/h in over 2 years probably.
• As you can see, the average speeds mentioned in the MID are all around 40 km/h, thanks to the roads over here.
• I never particularly try to get high efficiency. All of this was achieved when i drove in my usual (sedate) manner. I got this efficiency when I happen to have maintained a constant speed, which is not always possible.
• On those stretches where I can maintain 80 km/h, the gear would (automatically) be in 6th, and the engine would be at around 1500 rpm, which is the peak torque zone.
• At this speed if I manually upshift to 7th gear via the paddle shifter, the revs would go down even further and now I'll be doing 80 km/h in like 1100 rpm, which is only a little past idle rpm.
• I avoid sudden acceleration or deceleration and sudden lane changes to maximize passenger comfort while enjoying the plush ride quality.
• Our Benz doesn't actually see the highways that often. 90% of its time is spent idling away in bumper-to-bumper city traffic.
• These efficiency numbers are actually the outliers. For our typical usage, we only get around 9 km/l in the city and about 13 km/l on the highways, according to MID.
• The one time I bothered to check the efficiency via tankful-to-tankful method (in mostly city-traffic) I got 11.5 km/l, which was consistent with the MID.

The lowest we ever got, when idling around in peak city traffic.

Originally Posted by viXit

Where are The honda i-Dtec guys!!??

I also happen to have a Honda City idtec. So, here you go: 27 km/l according to MID.