Hi All,
I am posting this review after retrofitting my Honda Brio with a Tomasetto sequential CNG kit and driving 17000 kms after this conversion.
I had purchased my honda brio which of Dec. 2013 model in April 2017 . I am a third owner for this car., however when I purchased this one it had run only 25000 ms earlier as most of the time it was used as s second car in the house.
I wanted to use this car to my daily commute to office which is around 25 kms one way and hence petrol was not the efficient option for me to go with. So I went ahead taking a risk with fitting CNG kit in my car. Car is fitted with 14 kg tank capacity which in real life gets full with 9-9.5 kg CNG at 200 bars pressure at pump. Only a few times I got 10 kg filled when pressure was near to 225bars.
Following are the Pro’s and CONS of CNG in Honda Brio:
Pro’s:
Excellent Fuel efficiency: getting 19km/kg in heavy traffick with AC on all the time which is round 2.5 Rs/km 50% of that of petrol,
Increased usage of Car: My car has run round 17K kms within a year as I try to use it to maximum due to affordability factor. Its same as using my bike.
Faster Car Cost recovery: As I am able to drive it more and more my car cost is recovered really quickly and now I am standing at 15rs./km.My targe is to reduce this to 9rs./km before I sell this car.
Cons:
Reduced pick up: this is expected due to fuel conversion. A power drop by around 35% is easily felt at the time of pick up when the AC is on. If the AC is off the power difference is around 10%.
I always need to drive the car at one gear lower compared to petrol. I usually turn on petrol even for smaller slopes. With 5 people sitting, in Cities Car needs extra push on accelerator to gain speed.
This difference is noticeable in first and second gear only in later gears its really not noticeable.
AC cooling: Cooling of AC is reduced by near to 15% . I can feel the difference in power when is is on Max cold levels.
No Space for Extra Tyre. I keep it at home fingers crossed.(the cng dealer had told this earlier and I agreed because I mostly drive in City where I can always find a pucture shop within a range of 1 km.)
The damage to shock absorbers: Both my rear shock absorbers were identified as damaged at 40 K servicing. I am not sure if it is due to CNG cylinder or because the life of shock absorbers was already achieved.
I had to get two extra steel plate added on floor below the cylinder as the dealer said that the Steel is not good quality enough to carry the weight of the cylinder.
Overall I am happy with my decision to fit CNG in Honda brio as I had made my mindset for increased fuel efficiency at the cost of reduced power.
I have already recovered the cost of CNG fitment at 10K running and now I am gaining by saving on petrol expenses.
However I still recommend to buy a company fitted CNG vehicle as there can be multiple problems like balancing etc when we fit from outside.