Honda L13A i-DSI engine

A friend was asking me the economy of the Honda Fit/Jazz. I remembered that I read about Fit being more economical than the March/Micra and Vitz despite having a bigger 1.3 engine. I decided to confirm it from their respective websites.

Toyota’s Japan website said up to 21 km/L for the Vitz 1.0L while Honda said up to 24 for Fit. Note that Toyota quotes better fuel economy for its CVT version over 5-speed manual (like I say in my other post). Nissan March manages 19 km/L officially for the 4-speed (old) automatic and 21 km/L for 5-MT. All these figures are for Japan’s 10-15 mode. In practise I have seen that if you add reduce it by 15% you get a good estimate of how much you’ll use here in Mauritius depending on your driving style.

One model to look out for is the upcoming March in Q4 of this year. It is being rumoured to have a new 1.0 litre turbocharged engine that should provide economy and power when you need it. It’ll definitely come with a CVT, finally.

Links:

http://www.toyota.co.jp/

http://www.honda.co.jp/auto/

http://www.nissan.co.jp/MARCH/

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Here are 5 Reasons why Mauritians should buy diesel cars instead of petrol:

1. For the same capacity, modern common-rail diesel engines (as sold in Europe) are about 20% more economical than petrol engines. Gone are the myths about expensive maintenance of diesels.
2. Diesel engines are almost always sold with a turbo charger. That means that they’re usually as powerful or more powerful than petrol engines.
3. Diesel engines give more torque at low range, meaning you don’t have to press hard on your pedal to say, overtake a vehicle. You can change gears earlier as well.
4. Europeans buy 50% of cars as diesels, not just because of economy, but also because of lower CO2 emissions. Meaning Maurice Ile Durable…
5. German luxury manufacturers prefer to promote diesels instead of hybrid-petrols. Just check out the number of benchmarks e.g. BMW 118d Efficient Dynamics winning over Prius, VW Jettat TDI making as much economy as the Prius (except in traffic jams).

There is one big problem however, Japanese don’t buy diesel cars. So you won’t find a second-hand car from Japan with a diesel engine! Not since mid 2000. Last one I know is the 2001 Corolla CE120 (many people use the misnomer NZE to refer to this model, when it should be E120: NZ is the engine). Taxes might be the reason? Like in Dubai diesel is taxed making it twice the price as petrol.

We do see diesel BMW 320d, 520d, Peugeot 307 HDi on our roads… and many 1990′s Toyota Corolla and Corona. Once duty becomes based on CO2 emission, I hope, we’ll start seeing more turbo diesel cars sold here.

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