Greetings from Indonesia
 

Hi all,

My name is Michael and I'm from Jakarta, Indonesia. I recently purchased Honda Brio automatic and I would like to squeeze every liter of fuel using this car. I've been stalking ecomodder for a few years, but since I drove a hulking MPV before, it's only now I have the tool to be a real eco driver... As far as automatic cars goes anyway...

Would like to opt for a manual Brio but frankly, with an average driving speed of 20 KpH and about 50-60% idling (traffic jam), manual is out of the question.

So here I am, looking for some expert advice, soft modification, hard modification, or maybe just information why this is that to be more eco friendly with my daily ride.

As always, coming from a third world country, please pardon my jumbled grammar :)

do not sit in traffic with engine on.

I'd check to see what gear oil Honda Indonesia is using in the Brio.

We get the 1.3, which uses the same five speed auto as the Fit... not a great transmission for economy. I don't know what auto you get with your engine choices.

Very short car. Very tiny wheels. Could benefit from a small upgrade in tire size to something with less rolling resistance.

I like the Brio, would have got it in manual... very frisky little car... but I understand what you mean about traffic in this region... absolutely horrible.

You could eventually try to improve the mileage in your MPV, either modding it or just changing some of your driving techniques. Anyway, in heavy city traffic, eventually a slight increase in fuel consumption pays off due to the longer lasting of a torque converter compared to a handful of clutch packs.

BTW I like the way your country deals with drug smugglers :D

i've only seen it in shows. can you take some video?

Hi Niky, we have the same 5 speed auto, Honda just slowly reintroducing the CVT back to its lineup after the whole mess (90% failure rate) of first gen Jazz CVT. I prefer the CVT myself but since I'm one of the victim of failed CVT pack of the first gen Jazz, kind of scary driving a CVT again.

I hope you're being sarcastic, as it's a very debated topic here. I for one opposed it. When a foreigner got executed but a local drug boss got caught, got preferential treatment, can still control drug making operation behind bars, got caught again and still live is beyond me. If the system isn't so corrupt I might agreed with death sentence, but when money is still above law (and God for the religious), justice is the one who got murdered.

You want to see a 16 Kilometer 2 hours crawl? Traffic isn't bad, for my part of the world it's more of stunted infrastructure growth than crazy driving antics. Sure there are bikers careening left and right and disregarding stop lights, but main culprit is overburdened roads and corrupt policemen... Almost zero citation since you can skip traffic violations with as little as US$0.4 for bikers and US$2 for car drivers.

I remember the 1st-gen Honda Fit (as we know it in Brazil) had the CVT, and its lack of responsiveness was often criticized. The 2nd-gen had a 5-speed automatic, and Honda's excuse for that move was the CVT wouldn't be suitable for the flexfuel engines used here, but the 3rd-gen reintroduced the CVT.


I wasn't being sarcastic, drug-related issues became so critical in Brazil that I've seen the death penalty as the only effective measure to deal with that. Too bad it wasn't applied during the military regime...


Anyway, the Brio is still not available back here, but is scheduled to be introduced locally. Is yours a hatchback or a sedan?

Our CVT had 90% failure rate due to wrong gear fluid used when the car was sold... So much for Asian competence... The new Honda CVT has torque converter and proper maintenance service bulletin.

My Brio is the hatchback version since sedan carries a hefty premium tax in my country. It's a very fun car... Not so much fun to fit into my garage (car is too darn low, need to maneuver the car carefully), but driving above 20-30 KpH it's a blast... At slow speed the gearbox ratio is as the same as the 1.3L, so you can feel the gearbox wants to shift up but not enough torque. Oh, I fail to mention we have the 1.2L 5AT/5MT Brio hatch. The Brio MPV or lovingly called Mobilio has the 1.5L CVT/5MT option. Really wished the Brio got CVT but kind of scared...

Also, for some stupid reason (another Asian competence?) My top of the line Brio fails to have underbody panel like its cheaper variants... How can a top of the line car is missing a feature?

Underbody aero panels may not matter if your typical driving is stop & crawl!

Did you happen to try out the manual? I ask only because its competitor the Mirage has literally the lightest, easiest to use clutch I have ever driven. I tell people that even hardcore city driving is hardly a reason to pass it up. But we don't get the Brio here, so I don't know about its clutch.

Does the car come with a fuel economy computer? Tracking the numbers in your daily commute and per tank is the first step. Up the tire pressure, and as deejaaa says, minimize idling as much as possible (though that may be a challenge... I imagine it's a little warmer in Jakarta than I'm used to, and A/C doesn't operate with the engine off).

Welcome to the forum! Make a garage entry and start a fuel log.

Darin

Same issue. Same solution... TSB to correct the dealer practice of using ATF instead of CVTF... though our failure rates aren't quite as high, it was a big black eye to the brand here.

The new one seems more durable... and the CVT+TC combo is definitely better than the five-speed AT the Brio inherited from the previous generation Jazz/Fit.

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Perhaps if you go for a flexible front air dam, the lack of the underbody panel won't be so bad.

Typically, with small cars in our traffic, every little bit of driveline drag counts... auto transmission... air-conditioner... I usually experiment to see how high (temperature-wise) I can set the thermostat while still not sweating like a pig. Has a big effect in traffic, though it can be distracting fiddling with it so much.

The Brio has an air dam... So darn low that I really need to watch out for curbs. I already tried hypermiling, I turned off the A/C compressor and only use fan when driving, only turning on the A/C when stopping.

I'm interested with the mirageforum topics such as frontal area of the car, coeficient of drag, and the explanation of that huge spoiler since most elements of the car is available on the Brio (sans the underbody panel on my model).

Thanks for tips Darin. Idling is a requirement... For your information, my travel to my regular meeting area is around 16 Kilometers... But on rush hours, it took me about one hour driving to and one half hour to two hours driving back. Lucky I'm one of the few who got selected as "country rep" so I work from my house only when I have to meet people that I have to go driving.

The Brio has no real time fuel consumption meter, but has average fuel consumption in relation to total travel. It does have a funky (a bit useless) eco driving indicator that lights up when you drive efficiently... I prefer instant readout though since I can modulate the throttle better.

About the underbody panel... It irks me that the cheaper variant has it and mine doesn't. I praise the underbody panel as Honda own way of making cars efficient instead of relying on 3 cylinder engines like the Mirage and Toyota/Daihatsu twins on my personal blog. So the omission kind of distracting... I do however note ABS tubing running through the back wheels, perhaps the panel isn't made for it? The cheaper variants doesn't have ABS.

So far, my mixed highway and crawl mileage is 10.5 Km/l... How much is that in MPG, 100km/L? It's better than my Honda Freed which only gets 8.8 Km/L, but I wanted to squeeze more out of the car. Tire pressure is still factory recommended, so I might bump that up tomorrow, but most of all I want to know what makes the Brio ticks. I see a lot of aero readouts on the aerodynamic section, I'd love to understand my car better.

I love getting high mileage, sadly I can't afford a hybrid... Prius, CT200h, CR-Z and Civic Hybrid here cost around US$50K. That's just too rich for my blood... Stupid government imposing premium tax for cars with "two engines"... What... The... Fairy...

It still doesn't seem to make sense ditching the underbody panel in the top version. BTW when you quoted an underbody panel my first thought was about a crankcase protector instead of something purely oriented to aerodynamics.


I'm not a real enthusiast of hybrids, but I believe the so-called BAS-Hybrid setup would be an interesting attempt to circumvent this premium tax.

Ah mild hybrid... Mazda does that on its Mazda 6, but still, a premium over what I can afford and the price delta I can use to buy fuel for 10 years :D

Here's a pic from my blog.

http://michaeladhi.com/wp-content/up...6/DSC_0342.jpg

It's a showroom car back from 2013.

And here's mine...

http://www.plikimage.com/images/2015...057c434.md.jpg
Photos taken from behind the car. There's an extra ABS tubing (to the left of the catalytic converter), so I don't know if that cause the underbody panel to not be fitted on my model. The cheaper variants all doesn't have ABS.

yeah, why not. I'm sure there are things you would want to see from here that isn't an everyday occurrence in your parts.

Maybe those underbody panelling is more targetted to protect the undercarriage, like it was done in a country-oriented version of the VW Beetle known in Brazil as "pé de boi" (ox-foot) which had some reinforced underbody plates, which made it easier to cope with harsher rural and suburban road conditions. Anyway, there are still some folks who claim ABS brakes aren't so effective while driving on dirt.


At least the BAS-Hybrid layout still provides some electric traction, in spite of not offering a full-EV mode, and in theory it wouldn't increase the manufacturing cost so much as a "traditional" hybrid setup does.