Renault Pulse (Petrol)

Renault India launched the Pulse entry-level hatchback car just a year back during the 11th Auto Expo. This is based on the Nissan Micra – same engine and chassis with just minor differences in the front and rear exteriors. The Pulse is available in six colours and is available in both petrol and diesel variants. We will be looking only at the Petrol variant in this review though.

Let’s take a look at the specifications. Like a lot of entry level cars, the Pulse too comes with a 1198cc engine that comes with 3 cylinders and 12 valves. This engine is capable of extracting close to 76PS max power at 6000 RPM that translates to 104 Nm max torque at 4000 RPM. This is not much if you compare the performance of this car with other models at the entry-level – Maruti Suzuki Swift as well as Ritz deliver 87PS power while the Honda Brio delivers 88PS. Of course the Pulse beats Nano’s 38PS power but I don’t it makes sense comparing Pulse with the Nano.

Speaking of the dimensions, the Pulse measures 3.805m X 1.665m X 1.530m with a wheelbase of 2450mm. The boot space is decent at 251 liters. You can fill close to 41 liters fuel at full tank. The Renault Pulse RxE is priced at Rs 4,32,300 ex-Delhi.

Manufacturer Claim On Fuel Efficiency

Renault has been advertising its 23.1 kmpl mileage quite aggressively. However do note that this figure is for the Diesel variant only. If you are looking at the Petrol version, the officially claimed FE is 18.1 kmpl. Again, this is under standard test conditions which are basically favourable road conditions that you do not get in city traffic. So your real world mileage could be quite lower. Again, to compare this figure with the official figure from the other cars from the 1200cc segment we have reviewed already, the Pulse seems to be on par with the Swift and Ritz while Brio still wins with an FE of around 19.4 kmpl.

Test Drive & Customer Reviews

CarKhabri in their review note that the Pulse can reach a speed of 100kmph from nought in just over 14.2 seconds. The car also seems to offer 14.2 kmpl fuel economy on city road conditions with the corresponding figure for highways hovering around 18.2 kmpl.

On AutoInfoz.com, there is no detailed review of the car which makes me curious about the source of their claimed city mileage for the Pulse. Anyway, according to them, you can expect around 18kmpl on the highway roads which comes down to around 14 kmpl in the city.

CarandMe.com has a similar story – there is no detailed review of the car. However, they do note the city mileage to be around 14 kmpl with highways tending to offer around 16 kmpl. I absolutely cannot vouch for whether this info has been provided from an in-house review or sourced from elsewhere.

Carzy again does not have a review of the petrol variant of the car. However in their listings page, they note that the petrol variant of Renault Pulse should be able to deliver around 14.3 kmpl of fuel economy on city road conditions while the same on highways could go up as much as 18 kmpl. Again, it is not clear if these numbers were derived from test drives or from third party sources. MouthShut, my favourite for user reviews has no reviews from customers owning a petrol Pulse.

Overall, I guess this review should not have helped you much. Most sources reviewing the car have done it for the 1500cc diesel variant and not the petrol variant. Also, those who have done have not made it clear if the city mileage numbers provided are from any manufacturer affiliated source of if it was derived from independent testing. In any case, the numbers I have been able to gather are detailed below. If you own a Pulse Petrol, do let us know the mileage you have been able to get in the comments below. It should help our other readers a lot.