Month: April 2013

It has been over 15 years since Hyundai made its entry into India. That also means it’s close to a decade since the Santro Xing has been out here in the market. Called the Hyundai Atos in many parts of the world, the Santro Xing was launched in India in 2003 and is being produced at the Hyundai factory down south in Chennai. Let us first look into the specifications of this car.

The Santro Xing is a hatchback powered by a 1086cc 4 cylinder engine. This is a little smaller than the engines offered on cars like Maruti Swift, Ritz and Brio. Consequently, the max power delivered here is also lower than the average 87PS delivered on those cars. The Santro Xing can give a max power of around 63PS at 5500 RPM. This translates to a max torque of 9.8 Nm at 3000 RPM. The car runs on petrol or LPG and has a fuel tank capacity of 35 liters. Speaking of dimensions, the Santro Xing measures 3565 x 1525 x 1590 with an overall wheelbase of 2380mm. The Santro Xing is available at a starting price of Rs. 3.03 lakhs (Ex-showroom, Delhi).

Manufacturer Claim On Fuel

Given that the Santro Xing is not as powerful as the other cars we have reviewed previously, the mileage offered on the Xing should technically be higher than those above. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. According to ARAI certified test results released by Hyundai, the Santro Xing is expected to give 17.92 kmpl under standard conditions. Again, these are much better driving conditions compared to your regular city roads and so what you actually see on road could be lower than this. Let’s see if it is indeed the case from the test drive reports and user reviews below.

Test Drive and Customer Feedback

Gaadi.com in their review report say the mileage delivered is higher than what is claimed on the ARAI certified tests. The petrol version of the car was seen to be giving close to 23.7 kmpl on highways and on city roads, the delivered mileage is reported to be around 17kmpl. The overall reported mileage is thus close to 18.7 kmpl which is pretty healthy. The numbers reported are for the non-AC variant though which means with AC on, the mileage delivered could be lesser.

In a forum thread comparing the Xing with cars from other segments like Wagon R and Suzuki Swift, CarWale notes that the mileage on Santro Xing may be very comparable with the more powerful cars when AC is on. The poster claims the mileage on Hyundai Santro Xing to be in the range of 11-13 kmpl on city roads which is not exceptional by any means for a 1100cc car.

If you live in a city which has bumper-to-bumper traffic in peak hours (well, who doesn’t?), Santro Xing doesn’t look very promising. A team-BHP user who has reviewed the car after 500 kilometers of travel reports seeing just 10 kmpl – under heavy traffic conditions in Mumbai. However, let this not deter you. There are other members there who report a mileage as high as 18-19 kmpl as well. Depending on your variant (AC/non-AC) and the driving traffic conditions, the mileage could vary, but I am not sure if there is any car that can offer great mileage when there is bumper to bumper traffic.

ZigWheels has a number of positive reviews on the Santro Xing. However, not everyone has reported their mileage. One user who has done is extremely happy with the outcome reporting around 18 kmpl on city roads and 23 kmpl on highways. According to Drive Inside, the 164mm ground clearance on the Santro Xing makes it an ideal car for Indian road conditions. The FE is not bad either. They report an overall figure of 15 kmpl which is not bad at all.

CarDekho has a number of useful mileage review reports. Most users who have reported their mileage there claim to be seeing pretty decent numbers. For city road conditions, the reported figure (with AC on) is anywhere between 14-16 kmpl. For highways, the reported number is higher at between 18-20 kmpl. These are very good numbers.

Finally, let’s take a look at what MouthShut users have got to say. There are 329 reviews for the Xing with the customers giving the car an overall rating of 4/5 for fuel consumption. Looking into the reviews made over the past couple of years, the city road fuel economy is around 12 kmpl on city roads and 15-19 kmpl on highways. Not great but not too bad either.

So there you go. Would I recommend the Santro Xing for mileage? I am not very sure – the reported numbers are all over the place. If budget is a constraint, then I would pick this over the more powerful cars. But if I do not want to spend more on the likes of Swift, then Santro Xing could be my choice. What about you?

The Eon is one of the better looking cars in the entry level segment; a segment dominated by the likes of Maruti 800 and Alto. Hyundai launched the petrol variant of the car in October 2011 and later introduced an LPG variant in early 2012. Although the Eon features among the best selling entry level cars in the country, it still has not produced the kind of impact one may have imagined – primarily because the buyers in this segment are relatively more concerned about the resale value of a car and Eon being a new launch still hasn’t got the kind of resale value that an Alto has. Things seem to be gradually improving though.

This is a car with an 814cc 3-cylinder engine that can crank up a power of up to 56 PS at 5500RPM. The resulting torque is as high as 74.5 Nm at 4000 RPM. For a comparison, Alto only delivers around 48 PS of power and 69 Nm of torque. The Eon measures 3495 x 1550 x 1500 with a wheelbase of around 2380mm. The Eon has a kerb weight of around 725kg which is slightly higher than the Alto (690kg). The Eon comes at a starting price of Rs. 2,79,883 (ex-showroom, Delhi) for the D-Lite model.

Manufacturer Mileage Claim

Like all entry level cars, the fuel efficiency is one of the strong talking points of the Eon. According to Hyundai, the Eon should be able to deliver 21.1 kmpl FE. This is the number extracted from the ARAI tests which are under standard driving conditions. The actual mileage on ground will be different in the presence of traffic and bad roads.

Test Drive & Customer Feedback

On CarTrade, there are a few user reviews of the car. The overall mileage as noted by the website is around 17.3 kmpl on city roads and 21.1 kmpl on highways. The independent reviews seems to agree with this too. Most users have reported the FE on their car to be between 12-19 kmpl on city roads and 21-22 kmpl on highways.

On CarDekho, the reviewer points out that the Eon engine is basically that of the Santro reduced by 1 cylinder. The Alternator Management System present in the top variant tends to reduce the fuel consumption a bit and thus improves your mileage. Eon customers chipping in with their feedback on the review note the mileage they have been noticing to be around 15-16 kmpl within city limits and 20-21 kmpl on highways.

While this looks rosy, a number of customers reporting in on CarWale have a different story to tell. The customers report a mileage of around 11-13 kmpl on city roads which is extremely low by any standards. However, there are also other customers who claim to be noticing 15.7-17 kmpl on city road and 25+ kmpl on highways. I honestly do not know what to make of it – it could be that a few customers have some fuel related issues with their Eon which may or may not be fixed.

There are a handful of user reviews on AutoJunction for the D-Lite variant of Eon. Aggregating the numbers provided by the various reviewers, the mileage delivered by Eon seems to be between 12-14 kmpl on city roads and around 20 kmpl on highways (or smaller towns where you can drive at a comfortable 50-60 kmpl at all times).

Finally, let’s look at what users on MouthShut have got to say. There are 18 reviews for the Eon and these reviewers have together given the car a 4/5 rating for fuel consumption. There are quite a few 2 sentence reviews complaining about the car being very cramped and small. On the mileage front, 16-18 kmpl is what users seem to noticing on city roads. On highways, the reported number is closer to the advertised figure of 20-21 kmpl.

So there you have it. The Eon is not without its bunch of unhappy customers. I do not know what to make of some reviews complainign about the really low mileage. So I do not want to advise one way or the other. Do test drive a car and take a decision independently.