We a group of 5 families consisting of 13 members have just finished a trip to Similipal forest & Chandipore in Orissa from Kolkata by our ow cars. Three cars used were as under:
Alto Lxi- Oct’2007, 2500 km owned by Mr X
Wagon-r lxi-Aug’2005-22000 Km owned by myself.
Zen lxi-July’2005-12000 km owned by Mr. Y
Route was Kolkata-Kharagpur-Baripada-Similipal-Balasore-Chandipur-Kharagpur-Kolkata. Total distance covered was 945 km. Condition of the road was excellent except brief bad patches.We had also to cover approx 100 km of country side narrow roads.
Myself & Mr. Y are driving cars for last 10 yrs. Mr.X was quite new to driving. This was his first long drive. He had rather instructed us not to exceed a speed of 80 kmph during the tour. But once we were out of Kolkata City & on the excellent 4 lane road to Kharagpur, Mr. X felt confident with his Alto & raised the speed. In fact he never came below the 80 kmph mark, set by him self only. In fact we all were travelling at 100-110 kmph most of the times, some times for a short period touched 130 kmph. Alto in spite of the smallest engine & in- experiened driver was comfortably keeping pace with other two cars.
My car was utilised as a luggage carrier as there was no space in other two after the baggages. We had to carry 5 cartoons(90 lit) of mineral water, all sorts of grocery items, vegetables, fish etc. in to the forest.
None of the cars develop any problem during the entire trip. The trip & the drive was extremely enjoyable. Most important information- mileage on full tank to full tank basis of the cars on premium petrol was:
Alto - 17kmpl -60% AC
Wagon-r- 16 kmpl-90% AC
Zen- 15.5 kmpl- 70% AC
I feel Alto could have returned more with a better driver.
Cheers