Update: 7,500 km after...

It's been some time since I last posted here and I figured that I ought to keep things updated.
I've clocked in more than 7,500 kilometers in the last couple of months and I am just as thrilled to drive this car now as when I first got it. The initial appeal hasn't faded away and the car make a lot of sense now as when I bought it. The spiraling uncertainty in the Middle East has sent oil prices at the pumps moving up, affecting every road user.

Thankfully I've been getting an average fuel consumption of between a dreadful 16.5km per litre to a frugal 21km per litre. The big disparity comes from the load of carrying a road bike on the back with my bike carrier and a heavy accelerator foot to a concerted effort to plan my trip to avoid road congestion and driving frugally with no sudden throttle blips and heavy revving. All in I'd say I'm still averaging about 18.5 km per litre. It took me awhile to get used to not having the brisk acceleration compared to the Subaru Forester that we have but it has definitely done wonders in improving the fuel consumption.

I've been using Esso 95 RON fuel for the most part and recently decided to use lower grade 92 RON fuel. The fuel consumption hasn't changed much for me to draw any definite conclusions but I can definitely say it hasn't made much difference in terms of pickup and smoothness. So lower grade 92 RON is definitely an option especially since we all want to save money.

Hitting 34,000 km on the odometer

Was driving at night when I glanced at the dials... 34,000 on the odometer. It is so easy to chalk up the mileage when you're driving a cute little fun car.

Fuel Economy

I've been driving my R1 for a few thousand miles now in a combination of urban and short expressway driving. In all that time, I've been monitoring the car's fuel consumption over the many weeks of ownership.

With a fuel capacity of 30 litres, the one thing to note is how often I make a fuel stop at the nearest petrol station to fill up. The frugal 4 cylinder 660 cc engine delivers a more than decent fuel consumption of 18.5km per litre of 95 RON petrol. That works out to about 5.5 litres of fuel per 100km. At present fuel prices of about S$2 per litre of fuel, that works out to about 10 cents per km travelled.

At Jalan Besar

By coincidence, another weekend plate R1 parked behind my car in one of the small streets along Jalan Besar. Not to miss a photo opportunity, decided to take a quick snap with my Panasonic Lumix LX-3 that I have handy. It's rare enough to drive an R1 on Singapore roads, what more finding two parked together. Unfortunately the overcast weather made it hard to distinguish the black body color of the car at the back with the gunmetal color of my R1 in this photo.



The other owner changed his wheels and tyres but I don't think they do much to the car's looks. I still like the original factory fitted stock six spoke rims. One interesting fact about the R1 is that the stock rim size (15 inch) is bigger compared to the 4-door R2. The R1 uses a hard to find 155/60 R15 tyre which is almost impossible to find locally, so many R1s here get shod with rubber of different width and aspect combinations. I think the only other car that uses the same stock tyres is the SMART car.

For those unfamiliar with tyre sizes, using the R1's 155/60 R15 as an example, the 155 refers to the tyre width in mm, the 60 is the aspect ratio of height in relation to width, R means radial construction and 15 is the tyre's inner diameter in inches. There is also a speed and load rating (eg. 82S) but given how light the car is and the fact that the R1 isn't gonna be breaking any speed records, we can safely ignore this rating.