bajaj pulsar – Mileage Reviews

Bajaj Pulsar 180 vs. TVS Apache RTR 180 / ABS

There are not too many 180cc bike models in the Indian bike industry at the moment. The two most extremely popular models are the Bajaj Pulsar 180cc and the TVS Apache RTR 180 (and its ABS variant). We have already reviewed all three bikes separately here, here and here. We have indepth study of the mileage as well as specs for each of these bikes in the links above. Anyway, I will try to be as comprehensive as possible while comparing all these three bikes together in this article.

Tech Specs Comparison

First up, let’s compare the technical specifications of the Pulsar and put it against the two RTR 180 models.The Pulsar is built with an engine that is just slightly bigger than the RTR 180. This again gives the bike a very slight advantage over the Apache bikes in terms of power. The max power on the Pulsar 180 is 17.02 PS whereas the corresponding figure for the Apache is 17 PS. The RTR scores in terms of torque though. You can expect a max torque of close to 15.5Nm @ 6500 RPM whereas the Pulsar only delivers close to 14.22 Nm at the same rev.

The TVS model has other advantages too like better navigation under rough terrain considering a ground clearance of nearly 15mm over what’s offered on Pulsar. But then, Pulsar is a little more easier on the wallet being available around 3000 bucks lower than RTR 180 and nearly 14,000 lower than the RTR 180 ABS. I’ve tabulated all the major specs and price (ex-showroom, Delhi) here below.

Spec	Pulsar 180	Apache RTR 180	Apache RTR 180 ABS
Displacement	178.6cc	177.4cc	177.4cc
Max Power	17.02PS @8500	17PS @8500	17PS @8500
Max Torque	14.22Nm @6500	15.5Nm @6500	15.5Nm @6500
Wheelbase	1345mm	1300mm	1326mm
Kerb weight	147kg	139kg	139kg
Ground clearance	150mm	165mm	165mm
Price (ex-Delhi)	Rs. 70321	Rs. 73365	Rs. 84180

Mileage Comparison

Frankly I think you should not be paying much heed to this section of the article. Bikes in the 180cc or above are purchased for their power and style and not for the economy. In any case, if you are having trouble deciding among the three based on the specs, features and price alone, maybe a fuel economy comparison could do the tie-breaker.

Let us first look into what the manufacturer claim is. According to Bajaj Auto, the Pulsar 180 should deliver 58.1 kmpl under standard testing conditions. As I have often observed in the past, these tests are conducted under extremely favourable road conditions and so if anything, the actual economy that you notice on city roads would be lower than this. But for a perspective, the corresponding figure quoted by TVS Motors for both the Apache RTR 180 and RTR 180 ABS is around 56 kmpl.

MaxAbout has comprehensively reviewed all three of these bikes. In their review of the Pulsar 180, MaxAbout calls the bike “well-built with a lot of bulk”. Their test reported an FE of around 38 kmpl on city roads that can go as high as 45-50 kmpl on highways. For the Apache RTR 180, MaxAbout says it’s basically a ‘carbon copy’ of the RTR 160 with a terrific pickup from 0-60 kmph. The mileage reported by their review for both the RTR 180 and the ABS variant is 38-40 kmpl on city roads but on the highways, while the ABS variant delivered 39 kmpl, the non-ABS model reported 42-46 kmpl.

BikeAdvice has been one of our other favourite sources. In their review, they note that the Pulsar delivers a much better economy on their 180cc compared to the Apache alternative. For city roads, the reported mileage for the Pulsar 180 and Apache RTR 180 are 41-46 kmpl and 39-44 kmpl respectively. However given the wide range, I still think there is no one winner to pick from the review. On highways though, the Pulsar wins with a reported 46-51 kmpl figure as compared to 43-48 kmpl on the RTR 180.

Let us now look at the reviews from BikeDekho. On this website, the reviewer calls the latest variant of the Pulsar 180 a ‘perfect blend’ of the vibrant contours of the older variant and the muscular build of the 2009 model. If you compare the reported mileage of all the bikes, you find the Pulsar to be a clear winner. The reported number for this bike is 43.4 kmpl while the corresponding number for RTR 180 is 35-40 kmpl.

On MouthShut again, there is much more love for the Pulsar compared to the Apache. While both bikes have got a 4/5 rating for fuel consumption overall, with respected to the reported fuel economy, the figure for Pulsar is between 43-50 kmpl while the same for Apache RTR 180 is around 40-45 kmpl.

So there you go. I have tabulated all the reported mileage on city roads for the three bikes (actually two, since both the RTR 180 and RTR 180 ABS have the same reported numbers) for you to pick. What’s your choice between the two bikes? Tell us in the comments.

Source	Bajaj Pulsar 180	Apache RTR 180 (ABS)
Official	58.1	56
MaxAbout	38	38-40
BikeDekho	43.4	35-40
BikeAdvice	41-46	39-44
MouthShut	43-50	40-45

Bajaj Pulsar 180

The Bajaj Pulsar is available in 5 different engine variants. We have already seen the lower end 135cc and 150cc bikes. Today, we will see how good the mileage delivered by the 180cc DTS-i variant of Bajaj Pulsar is. Pulsar 180 is one of the original models being first introduced way back in 2001 along with the 150cc variant.

Let’s talk specifications. The Bajaj Pulsar 180 comes equipped with a 178.6cc 4-stroke single cylinder engine that can crank up 17.02 PS power and 14.22 Nm of torque (at 6500 rpm). The bike has a 15 liter capacity fuel tank that also has a 3.2 liters reserve capacity of which 2 liters is usable. Other important specs of the bike include a 150mm ground clearance, 147 kg kerb weight and a 260mm frontal disc/130mm rear drum brake. The Bajaj Pulsar 180 is available at a price of Rs. 70,321 ex-showroom in Delhi.

Official Fuel Efficiency Claim

As oft-quoted on this blog, with great power comes lower mileage. In our previous reviews, we have noted that the official mileage as quoted by the company for the 135cc and 150cc variants of the bike are 68.1kmpl and 64kmpl respectively. Now, the fuel consumption for the 180cc variant is expected to be lower than this, and it is. According to Bajaj, the Pulsar 180 delivers 58.1kmpl under standard conditions.

Customer Feedback

AutomobileUpdates has reviewed the revamped version of the Pulsar that includes equipment more modern than the ones they originally came with a decade back. They report a city consumption of 43 kmpl and on highways this appears to notch up as much as 51 kmpl.

MaxAbout calls the redesigned 2009 variant a ‘well-built vehicle with a lot of bulk’. In their test ride, the websites reports having seen between 45-50 kmpl on highways that falls down to 38kmpl on city roads. As they rightfully note, under these running cost conditions, the bike no longer remains an option to consider for those on a budget.

The reported numbers seem to hover around the 40+ mark across reviews. On BikeDekho, the reviewers call the new bike a ‘perfect blend of the vibrant contours of the older 180 and the muscular build of the 2009 model’. The fuel economy tests derive 43.4 kmpl under city traffic conditions that goes up to 46 kmpl on highways.

BikeAdvice in their comparison of the Pulsar against Apache RTR 180 note the better performance of the Pulsar in the fuel department reporting 41-46 kmpl on city roads and 46-51 kmpl on highways.

Let us next check out what the reviewers on MouthShut.com have got to say. There are over 150 reviews for the 180cc Pulsar and as rated by these users, the bike gets a 4/5 as far as fuel consumption is concerned. Most reviewers seem to get a mileage of around 45 kmpl which is definitely a good return from a 180cc bike. If you are looking for a range, then be rest assured, you should expect something between 43-50 kmpl. Only one user claims to be seeing around 40 kmpl on Mumbai roads.

Things are not very different on Olx, the classifieds website. A whole chunk of customers who have put their Pulsar 180 up for sale claim to see a fuel economy of between 40-45 kmpl on their bike.

So there you have it. The 180cc variant of the Pulsar is a pretty good bargain on the fuel front considering that except for a couple of sources, most of them report a 45kmpl economy which is a pretty decent expectation from this high power bike. Here is a snapshot of numbers as reported by various sources. From our side, we give this bike a thumbs-up!

Source	City kmpl	Highways kmpl
Official	–	58.1
AutomobileUpdates	43	51
MaxAbout	38	45-50
BikeDekho	43.4	46
BikeAdvice	41-46	46-51
MouthShut	43-50	—
Olx	45	—

Bajaj Pulsar 135 LS

There are currently five different variants of the Pulsar in the market. Although the Pulsar brand itself has existed for more than a decade, the Pulsar 135cc model has only been around for around 3 years. Bajaj introduced this light weight sports bike in 2009 and is the first bike in India to contain a 4-valve DTS-i technology instead of the 2-valve technology that has been the norm.

So in terms of specifications, this bike does not disappoint. The Pulsar 135LS has a 134.66cc single cylinder 4 stroke engine delivering 13.5PS maximum power and 11.4Nm maximum torque. The bike weighs 122 kg when dry and can hold up to 8 liters of fuel (1.6 liters usable reserve). The bike is being targeted at the adventure lovers and so has an above average ground clearance of 165mm. The Pulsar 135 is priced at Rs. 58,963 ex-showroom Delhi.

Official Mileage

As a category, the Pulsar 135 lies somewhere between the bunch of bikes available in the 125cc and 150cc segments. Consequently, we do not have a benchmark of what the ideal mileage for this bike is. Regardless of this, Bajaj claims the bike can offer a good mileage of around 68.1 kmpl under standard conditions. Considering this is a sports bike that would hardly be rode on standard test condition roads, it would be interesting to see how this bike performs on city roads.

Customer Reviews

MaxAbout has a raving review of the Pulsar 135 calling it a bike that “oozes style”. However it is unclear whether the city mileage that they report is from their own internal tests or something claimed by the company. In any case, according to them, the Pulsar 135 should offer 52 kmpl on city roads.

BikeDekho tells us about the signficance of the 4-valve technology on the Pulsar 135. They note that thanks to the 4-valves, the Pulsar 135 can deliver the same power as is offered by the regular 2-valve 150cc bikes. The mileage doesn’t seem to be affected by that though. Their tests report an average fuel consumption of between 58-65 kmpl.

The review on the blog AutomobileUpdates is less glorifying at least from the fuel economy perspective. Although the blog commends the bike for its “aggressive styling”, they report a city mileage of just around 50 kmpl with the highway performance going up to 65 kmpl.

On IndiaGarage, the reports are all over the place. While one user claims to see a mileage of between 40-45 kmpl with the Pulsar 135, another customer claims to see a much better 54 kmpl.

Sriraj, a small blog reviewing bikes and gadgets does a great job test-riding the Pulsar 135. For their review, the writer rode the bike for close to 150 kilometers in peak Delhi traffic between 5PM and 9PM. They report having seen a mileage of close to 61 kmpl under these conditions.

BikeAdvice has a similar verdict on their owner-review post. While the writer has not posted the mileage of this bike on highway roads, according to him, it would deliver a good 60 kmpl on city roads which is absolutely impressive stuff.

Finally, let’s check out what reviewers on the user-review site, MouthShut have got to say. There are close to 85 reviews of the bike with the customers rating the bike 4/5 on fuel economy. A striking feature of the reviews is the consistency at which a majority of the people have rated the fuel consumption of the bike. Barring a couple of outliers who report a mileage of either 45kmpl or 65kmpl, almost every other reviewer has reported seeing a mileage of around 55 kmpl on city roads.

So here’s the bottomline – the Pulsar 135 is as good as a 150cc in terms of power. In terms of mileage, it can consistently deliver a mileage as good as the bikes in the 125cc range. As I see it, this bike seems to deliver the best of both the worlds and is a definite buy. Here’s a snapshot of the mileage as reported by various sources.

Source	City Mileage (kmpl)	Highways (kmpl)
Official	–	68.1
MaxAbout	52	68
BikeDekho	58-65	—
AutomobileUpdates	50	65
IndiaGarage	40-54	—
Sriraj	61	—
BikeAdvice	60	—
MouthShut	55+	—

Bajaj Pulsar 150 Vs. Honda CB Unicorn Dazzler

Here we are to compare the Honda Unicorn Dazzler with one another impressive bike in the 150cc segment. If you are looking for more comparisons, please check our earlier review of the Dazzler against Hero Hunk.

Right, so this is one comparison that is so often made by potential customers becausae both these bikes are priced at a pretty similar range. The Pulsar 150 is available at an ex-showroom price of Rs. 67,110 while the CB Unicorn Dazzler is available at Rs. 66,738. Here is a comparison of the important specifications in tabular format.

Specification	Bajaj Pulsar 150	Honda Unicorn Dazzler
Displacement	149.01cc	149.1cc
Max. Power	15.06PS	14.19PS
Max. Torque	12.5 Nm	12.74 Nm
Kerb weight	143 kg	138 kg
Fuel tank	15 liters	12 liters

The above table gives you loads of information on some inherent advantages of the Unicorn Dazzler over Pulsar 150 with respect to mileage. Not only does the Dazzler come lighter by around 5 kgs, it also has a smaller fuel tank which means the weight pulled by the engine is higher on the Pulsar compared to the Dazzler for any given rider and hence the mileage “may” possibly be lower on the Pulsar. We will however test the same. The Pulsar however has a marginally smaller displacement which means the fuel consumed at any particular time is lower than the Dazzler and so the mileage delivered could be theoretically higher than, not considering the other parameters of course.

Mileage Comparison

The official fuel economy as reported by the company officials is under standard test conditions. These are primarily highway-type roads with favourable wind conditions and minimum load. Consequently, the economy reported here are always on the higher side. According to Bajaj, the Pulsar 150 can draw 64 kilometers for every liter of petrol under standard conditions whereas Honda claims their Unicorn Dazzler can only reach up to 60 kmpl. Fret not however, since real-world conditions are much different and there is always a possibility of a different winner here.

We will first look at what MaxAbout has to say. In their review of the Pulsar 150, they note that the bike was not great during their city road test. Pulsar 150 could only offer 45 kmpl whereas in a similar test on the Unicorn Dazzler, they were able to see 50 kmpl. On highways though, the Pulsar returned 62 kmpl while the Dazzler was stuck around 60 kmpl.

BikeAdvice in their review though give a thumbs-up to the Pulsar 150. They report a fuel consumption of between 50-52 kmpl on the Pulsar whereas a similar road test on the Dazzler returned just 48 kmpl.

MouthShut is a website that I often refer to considering the plethora of real-customer reviews available there. We had close to 46 reviews for the Bajaj Pulsar 150 DTS-i and the customers have rated the product 4/5 in terms of fuel efficiency. The reported mileage from these customers though varied quite a bit between 40-53 kmpl. So you have happy as well as not-so-happy customers here. In comparison, there were close to 76 reviews for the Unicorn Dazzler on MouthShut. Although the ratings was still a 4/5, the reported mileage figures are more consistet between 48-52 kmpl.

So there you have it. Pulsar seems to be a good bike on the highways. But when it comes to a road test on inner city conditions, the Dazzler appears to win the race in a photo-finish. Although BikeAdvice gives the Pulsar a higher rating, in terms of the sheer number of reported figures, the Dazzler seems to have a more consistent mileage that seems to better the Pulsar 150.

Source	Bajaj Pulsar 150	Honda CB Unicorn Dazzler
Official	64	60
MaxAbout (city)	45	50
MaxAbout (Highways)	62	60
BikeAdvice	50-52	48
MouthShut	40-53	48-52

Bajaj Pulsar 150

It has been more than a decade since the Bajaj Pulsar was first launched. The motorbike is today available in multiple variants of engine capacity but it when it first started, it was with the 150cc. The Bajaj Pulsar 150CC bike available today comes with a 4 stroke DTS-i engine offering a very good 15.06 BHP power and 12.5 torque. As a comparison, the Yamaha FZ16 that comes with a 153cc engine only offers around 13.8 BHP. Bajaj Pulsar 150 is available in Delhi at an ex-showroom price of Rs. 67,110.

Bajaj Pulsar 150 Mileage

Until the Pulsar 150 was launched in 2001, one of the most important metrics to look at while purchasing a bike was the mileage. Bajaj Pulsar was one of the first bikes to put performance above fuel economy and launch a bike that would offer power albeit at a slight cost of the mileage. But with the ever increasing petrol prices, more and more customers are now starting to look back at good mileage as one of the most important parameter while purchasing a bike. And the latest Bajaj Pulsar 150 does not disappoint. The bike clocks 64 kmpl under standard test conditions.

Customer Reviews of Mileage

Standard test conditions rarely ever match the real life riding conditions. That is exactly why city conditions always bring out a much lower mileage than what companies claim. MaxAbout reports that city conditions could bring down the mileage from around 62 kmpl (that they observed on highways) to around 45 kmpl.

BikeDekho’s own test returned slightly different results. On highways, their test drive reported a mileage of 65 kmpl while on city roads, this was down to 56.5 kmpl. User reviews on BikeAdvice see users reporting anywhere between 40 kmpl and 60 kmpl. However the common refrain for those riding it on city roads is a mileage of around 50-52 kmpl.

In a comparative review of Bajaj Pulsar 150 against TVS Apache, Top Gear notes that the Pulsar returns a pretty good mileage of 52.6 kmpl in the city compared to the 48.7 kmpl fuel economy offered by Apache. IndianDrives has a pretty similar review of fuel economy. In their review, the website reports a mileage of 48 kmpl on city road conditions.

There are quite a few Pulsar 150 bikes on sale on Quikr. Overall, the mileage indicated by the customers appears to hover between 40-50 kmpl. The situation as reported by customers on Olx is slightly better. From a number of Pulsar 150 bikes on sale on the site, it looks like the average mileage as reported by the customers there is between 45-55 kmpl.

Lastly, let’s look at what customers on MouthShut have to say. There are around 46 reviews for the Bajaj Pulsar 150 DTS-i and the overall verdict is a pretty good 4/5 for fuel consumption. The mileage reported by the various reviewers hover between 40 – 53 kmpl. Only one user reports a mileage of less than that. So for average you can assume a mileage of 45 kmpl under city conditions.

I’ve summed up the mileage reported by various reviewers in the table below.

Source	City Mileage (kmpl)	Highways (kmpl)
Official	64	—
MaxAbout	45	62
BikeDekho	56.5	65
BikeAdvice	50-52	—
Top Gear	52.6	—
IndianDrives	48	—
Quikr	40-50	—
Olx	45-55	—
MouthShut	40-53	—

Bottomline, should you go for it? I would say that if you are considering a Pulsar 150, you should be looking at more parameters than just mileage. But as far as the fuel consumption is concerned, the Pulsar 150 gets a thumbs up from here. A 45-50 kmpl for a 150cc sounds like a pretty good deal to me. What are your views?