Tata Manza has clocked a mileage of 46.33 km per litre!!!

There is a news that TATA manza (Quadrajet Aura ABS) has clocked a mileage of over 46.3 KMPL. Here is the link.

I have some serious doubts over this.
It is said that on a strech of 72.3 Kms, Coimbatore-Avinashi by-pass, it consumed only 1.58 litres of fuel. I am assuming here that the gentleman here used tank-full to tank-full method. In my exprience of this method, it works best only when there is some minimum distance travelled, say more than 100 KM. For my SX4, in the first 50 odd KMs after a tankful the needle showing fuel level, does not move at all it remains well above the "full tank" mark. I feel this if i fill my car in this period the cut off can any time. It may be after 3 or 4 litres or may be just after 1 litre. So this is too small a distance and should not be considered.
Second doubt is the terrain. I am not aware of this strech, but if this really is primarily a downhill slope, it is very easy to achieve a high mileage through P&G etc.

I would like the members who are aware of this strech, and also the Manza, to please express their opinion on this article.

I have driven Manza & also have 1 Manza in our family. I would like to know how much does this gentle man achive on daily basis. This is only possible if  was Downhill road with some additional effort like switching off engine etc etc .

We usually get 13 to 14 in city & 17 to 20 on Highway in QJD ABS.

Will await comment & if any one has some more detail on the terrain & method used to check fuel efficiency.

Without going through the link, I would discard this information. There is some serious calculation error. Otherwise, we would have got this news from TATA on the first page of TOI with this person claiming the mileage which he has got.

Here is the link for the TATA press release

The same news is there on Rediff as well. They also claim that it has put Manza in the limca book of records and source this to Tata motors itself.

That's incredible. They should have shared details of the conditions under which this was achieved.

I would purely say that this is a marketing gimmick. Think that it was a decline and that fellow switched off the engine and left it to roll freely, which is very dangerous during a hill descent. If it was a hill-climb, then this is just impossible. One way this could be done is that in the decline, he has used 5th gear and left the car idling, which keeps it moving if load on the car is very less. That would result in only idling fuel in being consumed. Never, I say never in daily life can we expect such things. Anything above 20 is considered excellent and is quite achievable.

I agree with Himanshu. This is not possible. Best mileage ever achieved was around 33kmpl in Logan 1.5 ltrs DCI  Diesel.  

There is no such "Coimbatore-Avinashi by-pass" for 72.3 Kms. Coimbatore-Avinashi stretch is around 40 Kms, which has lot of traffic. Around 15-20 kms have been made four lane with median from Coimbatore and for the rest, work is going on.

From the image I guess it is the L&T Road which bypasses Coimbatore on NH-47 between Palakkad and Avinashi. The entire stretch is around 26Kms. It's a two lane median free toll road with a couple of fly-overs. Each flyover nearly run to one KM as the climb is gradual.  The road itself has few ups and downs (hillocks) at some places.

So taking into terrain of this stretch, I really wonder how the mileage was achieved.

Thanks Arun,

I was actually waiting for someone to describe this stretch.

Now from your description it evident that there is no such strech, let alone any hill. So now I am pretty certain that it is a case of miscalculation. As I wrote in the first post itself, I just cannot imagine how the person calculated that he consumed only 1.58 litres. It has to be tank-full to tank-full method. For small distances, it is just not the right way. The only accurate way is to empty the tank completely. put some measured amount of fuel in (say 10 litres), run a 100 odd kms. empty the tank again completely and measure the fuel left. I am sure this is not what he did there. So I would completely discard this.

The Ford Fiesta mileage test that resulted in 33 KMPL, was done on a test track, with professional drivers. they made it a point to run the car exactly between 60-70 kmph and have minimal use of clutch or the brakes. And then too they completely exhausted the fuel, after filling it to the brim. That test was recorded, and was witnessed by a number of people. So we just can not compare the two.

http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-auto-tata-manza-incredible-mileage/20110609.htm

Here we go. There is an article in rediff, which says "How he managed to get the incredible mileage". But once you read through the article, you dont see any information of how he acheived it, except saying maintaining low rpm on top gear/slow speed.

Total waste article, which is irrelevant to the title of the article. I expected more information, when i saw the title.