Honda Freed Real Life Fuel Consumption

Here it is folks, real life consumption of Honda Freed ASEAN edition. One local Indonesian automotive magazine has extensively tested the car fuel consumption on highway and inner city driving. The result is mind boggling, but… Well, here it is…

The magazine test result nets 1 liter for 10-12 Km of inner city driving and 1 liter for 15 Km of highway driving. The fuel used is not mentioned, but safe to assume they use RON 91 92 (thanks Frozen_Heart) grade fuel, as previous road tests are done using RON 91 92. So the million dollar question is… Is it good enough? And the answer is a simple yes.

Mind you that the car is as aerodynamic as brick with slanted front window. No matter how hard Honda engineers try to make the car efficient with the standard 5 gear autobox, the car physiques is it drawback in term of fuel consumption. 1 liter for 10-12 Km of inner city driving is very very very respectable number… Hell, my automatic SX4 hatch barely manages 1:10 on perfect day. But the 1:15 for highway driving? Meh… This is where Freed users pays for its awesome interior space.

The Freed is taller and heavier than the Fit/City while still using the same engine (and detuned). Honda never stated its coefficient drag number for Freed, but let’s say that it’s not very good… And this goes to tall haulers like Elysion, Alphard and Elgrand for which Freed emulates. Wind resistance doesn’t take its toll on slow moving cars, it is when the car goes up to speed that you will feel the resistance. As such, Freed highway mileage suffers by a bit… Just a bit because most 1.5L haulers manages 1:16 at the minimum. To take into retrospect, my SX4 hatch manages 1:16 of highway cruise. This shows that the inclusion of 5 gear autobox on the Freed is a must, if not for the 5th overdrive, the car might be sluggish on slower speed (*cough*like my SX4*cough*).

All in all, the Freed is truly a must have. Tall cabin = very good shoulder and head room, something that few of its competitors manage to give but with a compromise. Although for its roominess Freed users must pay with slightly off highway cruise fuel consumption of its peers, the car still scores very well. Sure there’s that no rear aircon thing, but just turn the AC fan to 2 and put good quality window film.

6 thoughts on “Honda Freed Real Life Fuel Consumption

  1. Nice infor, I put my name on the waiting list before reading your blog. Frankly, I’m not a Honda fan but this car is an exception.

    The magazine info is from A****** right?

    • Hi abtim, sorry to censored your comment. Yes, I got the info from that magazine, but I do felt the info is skewed. Such high efficiency on inner city roads should mean it’s an empty stretch of road… Especially in Jakarta. Even with RON 91 fuel, the number is fairly high… Too good to be true. I’ll limit my expectation to 1:10 high average with average drive netting 1:9.

  2. I think you mistaken Indonesian new fuel grade Michael. Pertamax is now 92 and the plus is 95. I just filled up my car with pertamax today and it clearly shows “Pertamax 92” on the refilling station.

    • Thank you very much for the correction… Yes, the Pertamax is RON 92, I just checked it at Pertamina website. Wow… What a blunder that is, I could swear Pertamax was RON 91 though. Maybe they upgrade it when Shell came.

    • @ Anggoroz, my estimate is the lowest denomination for a 1.5L car engine with variable valve timing. I compare it with my automatic SX4 which is more or less the same given the weight and power to weight ratio. The SX4 pushes 100ps for roughly a 1.25 Ton car and the Freed pushes 118ps for roughly a 1.4 Ton car. Although the Freed has better power to weight ratio, it is tall and not so aerodynamic.

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