We’ve all heard people say this before – Proton cars are not fuel efficient. But is that really a fact, or just a misplaced myth? The national carmaker is seeking to challenge that perception with the ongoing Proton 1-Tank Adventure, and our man Hafriz Shah took part in the Central Region competition to see what’s what.
The event stretched over two days, with the route starting from Proton’s Centre of Excellence in Shah Alam and going all the way up through Kuala Selangor and Teluk Intan to the Bukit Gantang rest stop before coming back down to Ipoh – a distance of 365 km. Driving back the next day brought the total distance up to 640 km. The challenge? To do all that in one tank of fuel.
And before you accuse Proton of carefully constructing a hypermiling route that would show off its cars in the best light (i.e. full highway driving, steady-state throttle and no air-conditioning for the best possible fuel consumption figure), it should be noted that a mix of roads and driving conditions were at play here, with the first day consisting almost completely of back roads, and the second being mostly on highways.
It’s a more realistic drive, then, and over the course of the two days Hafriz managed to use just 33.79 litres of petrol using a Proton Saga 1.3 Premium CVT, resulting in an overall fuel consumption of 18.3 km per litre – not a bad figure, whichever way you slice it. And that wasn’t even the best result of the competition.
In fact, the highest figure for the Saga category was 28.0 km per litre, with the contestants in the category as a whole averaging 22.2 km per litre. Also participating were Persona 1.6 CVT and Iriz 1.3 CVT models, which managed a best result of 25.0 km per litre (19.6 km per litre on average) and 21.1 km per litre (18.0 km per litre on average) respectively.
Watch the whole event unfold, with Hafriz also sharing tips on how to save fuel, in the video above.
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The new Saga has begun? How about the new Wira (low gravity center car)?
There is a secret to all Proton cars. Brand new time, consumption is super good. In this case, test shows good.
But wait few years and see. Every Proton owner can confirm this. 2 or 3 years time, the car will guzzle petrol as if it is a 5.0 V12 Jaguar engine
The car used by Hafriz in the test isn’t exactly a brand new car. BTW, is it from your own experience or just hearing from other people that Proton cars fuel economy would worsen after a time? Timely maintenance using original parts are important to keep a car’s performance and fuel economy as good as possible. Most people would go for cheaper off-brand parts after warranty is over.
No air-conditioning for 640 km.. Not really the proper way to lose weight.. *sheepish grin
Drive highway all below 1.6L can reach 600km lor, jangan tipu oooiii
What ? Even a 2007 Hilux can go more than 700km on highway
Proton has waterfall sales. From 220,000 10 years ago, now it is only 50,000 per year.
Rakyat knows the answer. If it was so good, sales would be increasing not dropping this bad
Dont talk about petrol. Talk about running cost.
My Wira is 20 years now. I already spent more in changing parts than the RM53k price of my car.
Also, my Wira drink petrol like crazy!!!!
Sapoterz harping on Proton qualitiez..
But dream to buy Jepuniz & Contiz. Lolz.
When you buy a Proton:
1.You pay higher loan interest
2.You pay more on fuel
3.You pay MUCH MORE on changing parts + repair
4.You get NOTHING when you trade in
5.You can only dream “one day” you will drive this and that
The power of… Day Dreaming
Hilux 76 litre per full tank lol
Lol, same with my axia car… But I suspect due to different type of tyre I used.. from Ecopia to Conti. And there are so many factors to consider not just tyre
Tyre can do very little only. The key is the engine and gearbox. On same journey, our Toyota can do 28km/l with air come at 24°C.
No la, all p2/toyota cars can do 35km/l according to p2 and toyota salesmen
that’s is amazing, sounds like a hybrid model!
Axia 1.0L, Saga 1.3L. How come can same same? P1 engine better FC?
Good one!!! How can a 1.3L engine be better than in FC than a 1.0 engine?
Ha ha ha
In other words, that 1.0L engine fuel saving was just a MYTH! P1 has been vindicated!
Axia can go up till 22km/l
My Waja is 10 years old. I send to Proton Glenmarie for regular service plus only use original parts.
I drive about 30KM per day. I fill up everyday RM10
So RM10 – 30KM which means RM100 for 300KM
ive got experience with the Waja CPS and in town driving it will drink. But on highways, its quite reasonable.
Campro is a bad word in the Motoring world.
Malu to buy it
Our Toyota is RM 60 for 600km.
And it is 100% city drive too.
Haf bro just disproved all those naysayers & bashers with just this sentence: “Are P1 cars not fuel efficient? The answer is NO!”
Loud and clear, Haf my man! Loud and clear!
Cannot, our 2 year old Toyota only can go 400km full tank. Tested highway and city drive, 14.7km per litre.
Proton sales is 50,000 per year. Perodua sales is 200,000 per year. That is 4X Proton sales. Rakyat has spoken. Rakyat know which is a better buy
This belum kira Government orders of Proton pun.
Ask any Vios and City owner. Their maintenance is 1/4 of any Proton owner.
Proton cars are cheap, but try to maintain it in 10 years and see.
What you spend RM20k for the Proton, the City or Vios will be RM4k in 10 years.
That’s total BS
Talk is cheap. UMW should follow Proton and organise road trip to see how fuel efficient Toyota cars are instead of organising entah apa2 Vios Racing. Ada berani UMW?
Silly statement!
Driving a 18 y/o saga, with custom exhaust and stuffs. Have never overhauled the engine. Just good maintenance. I fill up petrol for rm60, weekdays 50km everyday +weekend use. Drives perfect, fc is good & definitely reliable. It just depends on how you tc of your ride. Be good to it and it will be good to you.
Dude, that is money consumption not fuel consumption.
This applies to all makes and models of cars…..not only proton. One of the keys to fuel economy is timely & proper maintenance.
Wira is a very good car. Used to own a 1.3 manual hatchback and it never failed. The old pesona is fun to drive! I like them both….
Once u luv a P1, it will luv u back!
Yea, the garage foreman, spare part dealers, tow truck drivers and second hand dealer will love you more than your P1.
Ok, but only when it still new. Try again after the saga 3 years old or so. It gonna be petrol drunken master.
It should be pointed out that the Saga used by Hafriz in the test is not a brand new car.
The car had around 10,000 km on the clock.
10k is not old
RM 60 for 600km is on a 6 years Toyota with 120000 km mileage.
Its certainly well used, and just passed its 1st servis. It wud have been regularly used on daily drives. Certainly its not like sitting in a parking space.
agree, maybe hafriz changes car every 10,000km..that is old already for him..huhu
Go to all Proton forums, all they complain about is high FC and high maintenance cost. Proton owners never go back to the brand the 2nd time
I got 10 year old Honda City and 10 year old Persona.
The Persona maintenance bill is 4X the Honda City
It’s 10,000 km on a test/demo car, so it’s hard mileage.
This Talha persona is definitely lying as every motorhead wud know that the City gen back then (GD8) had epic chronic CVT gearbox malfunction after warranty ends which will cost Rm27k to replace. My 10 yearold Gen2 accumulative service bill never even reach HALF that figure. Just prove that this is another fake name like the See TH below.
Not all old City will fail, but all old Proton will break down at roadside cause traffic congestion waiting for tow truck.
10,000km for a 1 year old car means the car has a very low mileage, averaging 800km per month. Or less than 30km trip per day average.
If the test car is almost 2 years old, it is even lower.
Sammy loo, the only ones we seen waiting for tow trucks are Vios drivers when their cars terbabas into longkang.
If u threw out Matt from the passenger seat, u probably might achieve 20 km/l. ;-)
BTW my 9+ yearold Gen 1.6CPS can achieve 16km/l on average now, and i dun have to diligently watch how i drive or hypermile, just normal driving 70%hiway, 30%city. Going to Ipoh, jalan jalan, and back on 1 tank? I done that many times b4.
Your later comment here you say you always floor your car. Now you say something else. Which is it?
ha ha ha. CPS already so bad. Apa lagi 9 year old CPS. Don’t lie john. I also got 10 year old CPS
Total opposite what u say
10k is like my 3 months++ mileage only..lol..
Hafriz, mind sharing types of petrol(grade, brand) used for this challenge?
Wait and see your Campro engine. From 2nd year onwards, it will suck petrol so much.
Proton engines, the older it gets, the more it sucks petrol
My 2010 Preve sucks DOUBLE the petrol than my 2010 Toyota Altis and 2011 Civic
Dey, without proof, I also can say my persona last time use HALF the petrol of my Honda C70, without regular service and bkacked out air filter some more…
For the 2010 Preve, you need to:
Pay more fuel money
Pay much more to repair
Get much less from second hand value
Good luck!
Since when got Preve year 2010????
Any car with Campro engine or the old Mitsubishi engines drink petrol like Hummer
I did not know Preve exists on 2010. Topkek lawl
Don’t lie. Preve 1st Mass Pro on 2012.
Why still keep the Preve if really as bad as you said? You clearly can afford to get another car seeing that you have an Altis and Civic. Suspicious story!
Campro is considered one of the world’s worst engines. Lucky we have Geely to give us good engines from now on
Hahaha! Ur dupe got kantoied for trying to change history! Mana ada Preve in 2010! Lolz!
Dei. Where got Preve in 2010? It was launched in 2012. If want to lie also, please lie intelligently.
Like someone previously put it nicely;
“I love listen to lies, especially when I know the truth”.
Most cars, if driven very frugally would show good FC coupled with proper maintenance. The issue here is most of us are always putting our foot down pedal to the metal and braking like no tomorrow and that would take a toll on most vehicles’ FC – some better, some worse.
You can floor the pedal all the time, 100% city drive and our Toyota still give you 16km/l.
My Gen2 1.6CPS can do 16km/l easy and I often floor the pedal to let my CPS ‘breathe’.
ha ha ha. People floor the pedal and then try to goreng getting good FC. Try your goreng elsewhere please. PT readers know better.
Often ≠ alwiz
Hahahaha!
Albert Yong when you don’t have the fact, don’t bullshit around. 16km/l is the worst fuel economy for Prius C so hard to see, our Prius C is doing average 22km/l for 10000km, not a single pathetic highway trip.
The Saga used by Hafriz is a pre-launch model back in 2016, just for your info
Actually, you can get reasonably good fuel efficiency for almost every Proton model. The catch is that you have to really focus and concentrate 24/7.
Meanwhile, for other models, say, the Perodua Bezza, you don’t really have to try as hard. The car does a lot of the ‘hard work’ for you.
Personally, I drive an old 2007 Saga LMST, but I can still get about 15 km/l. I try to keep the RPMs as low as possible, drive at around 80 kmh, and use the aircond sparingly. My daily commute is 70km, about 80% highway driving.
If you check out the Fuelly website, you can see the average km/l for the Saga FLX family is around the 11 km/l range, slightly lower than the previous gen Myvi ( ~ 13 km/l). The Bezza and Axia have noticeably better FC, at around 16 km/l. Meanwhile, the Toyota Prius does around 21 km/l.
Really focus and concentrate 24/7? Please don’t endanger the public safety. Whatever you save with your foot, will eventually goes to your soulmate foreman account. Just ask the ex proton owner. Better live near a garage.
Ha ha ha ha. This is the reason I like to read here. If you have an article like FC, you will attract comments like no others.
Just out of curiosity, how many here drive a Saga B4 & still driving one?? I have not own one B4 so I have no comment. At least Aero are not ashamed to tell he own & still driving it.
Cheers…to anyone who own a Saga & is not ashamed to tell he has one. After all, its better than not having a car right!!
I own an almost 6 years old preve 1.6 exec with 80,000 plus mileage. And it still performs how it was 6 years ago, fc wise. I drive from sibu to kuching often, filled up the tank beforehand, and by the time i reached serian, it only got to half the tank (sarawakian will know how far is that). Can still drive for 300km++ more. Average speed is 90-120km. For me, that is good enough. Nothing to complain.
You sure its “Saga 1.3 CVT” and not “Saga 1.3 CVT ++” like how they do damage control after getting only 1 star on Asean ncap?
Stop insulting urself by trying to insult Hafrizs credibility.
So sad that Hafriz just dismantled ur sales & marketing bollocks, is it?
MK3 Vios get how many star on AseanNCAP?
john is the same guy who condemns Toyota sales but last month Toyota sales jumped from 2000 cars to 11,500 cars this month. Now john terus diam.
ha ha ha ha, yes yes I remember, last time got 1 star, then they putar belit the story and kena kantoi send different test car
So shy, Proton got caught cheating ncap
This test is open for all who have the car that meets the requirement. They have multiple different years of vehicles models. So it was impossible for P1 to do throttling or damage control. Hafriz result isn’t the best compares to other. It depends on how your driving attitude.
fyi, 2014 gen 6 honda city 1.5 cvt can achieve 600km (more if econ mode activated) in single tank with 110-130km/h driving. i thought only new car can do, but my car already 90,000 km mileage still can get 600 km in single tank. so if from kl to kelantan about 500km, and kelantan to kl 500km, i just fuel up 2 times only.
why don’t you put it in km/L or L/100km?
It’s a better way to judge the fuel economy than having others to look up how big is your car petrol tank is. Also, not all cars fuel tank is the same size you know.
Quick check on Google say Honda City 2014 fuel tank size is 40L…so, your 600km equals to 15km/L which is average for that kind of car and nothing to shout about considering most of the trip is highway.
what im trying to say is.. even though it is 1.5 cc, but still manage to achieve as same as 1.3 cc. quick google check also say proton saga tank size is 40L. one more thing, kerb weight city is 1049 kg and saga is 1035 kg. how can a car with more cc and weight can manage to get the same fuel efficiency with lower cc and weight? im not shouting, just telling some facts.
Hahaha highway driving is nothing to shout about, try traffc jam saga 1.3 kicks your beloved City FC ass left right up down
wrong. I think the winner here is 1.3 saga with less hp. bcuz, that 1.3 campro engine will much more struggle than the 1.5 city which should make saga are less efficient. but, even saga have less hp but have almost same weight as city, that saga still can compete with that 1.5 city. so, yeah saga is the winner here
Cool jacket man haha! I think you should make the eccentric jackets a staple of all your videos.
My experience with Saga BLM manual. Used to get slightly more than 500km full tank. Abit new refined engine should be better
Highway no problem, try la drive in traffic jam.
I personally dont think any car will survive a standstill traffic jam FC anyways, you got your point tho.
In certain models of proton the fuel consumption is considered good but there are some models act like fuel drinking beast such as Exora CFE, Preve, Suprima S mainly the turbo version. Take the same route mix of city and highway running, I wonder if it can achieve 1L/10-12km.
Thats quite gud when compared to 2.0L engine! U do know it make the equivalent power of a 2.0L engine, right?
Yes, the Saga 1.3 CVT might be good in fuel but there are many parts stop people buying it. The exterior design is seriously ugly, at best I feel it is slightly better than the most ugly Almera (without bodykit). The interior is crap in EVERY PARTS. The plastic material used in door panel, dashboard, all kind of button or knob are SO CHEAPPPP. Sit on the seat, the material is damn low quality and not comfortable.
About the drivetrain, the engine noise is loud and less fining if revving. The CVT response is damn lame and slow which seriously drag the power. Compare the CVT and manual, the manual feel much power than the CVT in term of power and response.
The only thing I praise is the handling, even though Saga rear suspension is using torsion beam but it perform better than most Japanese and Korea cars using same platform. The stability is definitely good in its segment.
Wat a bs…I balik Muar and back to Klang with my niece Iriz and i dont find the car has very jimat fc.
Better driving in HPFed car than tin those milos
Sorry lah rakyat still trust and prefer Perodua dulu kini selamanya.
Silly statement!
Wait for a few more months, I believe Proton will increase in selling.
My Vento gives me more than 800km for a full tank.
Vento has 55 litre tank. Correct? European cars have larger tanks and mostly turbo charged which saves fuel if used intelligently.
Headline Saga 1.3 CVT but article written PREMIUM CVT.
U guys achieved 600 km, 18.3 km per litre in a Saga 1.3 PREMIUM CVT because 10,000 mileage car, full highway driving, steady-state throttle and no air-conditioning.
So Proton want all their customer to be suffer?
Plus PREMIUM CVT compare with old CVT doesnt save much-
-Saga 1.3 PREMIUM CVT (18.3 km per litre)
-Persona 1.6 CVT 25.0 km per litre (19.6 km per litre on average)
-Iriz 1.3 CVT 21.1 km per litre (18.0 km per litre on average)
We customer buy others brand instead!
The car we drove was the Saga 1.3 Premium CVT, but the Standard or Executive versions would have achieved similar results.
Air-con was on throughout the journey, most of the time set at 2 or 3 (Malaysia is very hot!). And as mentioned in the video and article, more than half of the route was through small back roads, not highway.
Dun mind the bashers, the negatives and the envious competitor brand salesmen. They just cant accept that a locally made Saga3 is comparable to their celup jepunis godcars. I only laff at their vain attempts to create fake news and spread rumours. Dr Li & Geely knows how to turn perception around as what they did with VolvoCar, so all these rumour mongers and scare tactics is not new to them. Have faith in P1 and in Geely!
Sendiri Cakap Sendiri Syok to the max. No wonder he can equal Volvo with Proton. I don’t have faith in Proton sales but definiely have faith in Proton salesman bluffing skill.
Clearly, you didn’t read the whole article. What to do, when a mind want to bash no matter how many facts and statistics shown in front of you, you will still bash blindly. Please, stop showing the world how small-minded you are!
Tyres looks like inflated beyond the normal recommended pressure to obtain less rolling resistance for maximum range per tankful.
The car in the gallery photos isn’t the one we took on the fuel adventure. The tyres were set at the recommended pressures.
My new nissan x-trail 2017, can go 600km in one tank also, but it will cost me around RM120-130, I belive ur proton only cost 1/2 of that amount.. BTW I’m also a proton user for almost 10 years, I don’t see any claim that “proton kuat makan minyak” is true. Normally my old persona can go KL to Kuantan around RM30+-, but with my x-trail it easily go RM45+-. Pls comments based on ur experience, don’t by emotion
The emotion is jelly by them Toyota & P2 salesmen
my 2008 BLM can go 360km before the warning light comes on. FC is around 12km/l. mixed driving. half of the 30km total daily drive is on highway (jalan pekeliling klia), the other half a further mix of jalan kampung and traffic light jams.
rm70 easily every week since i usually wait until 400km before refuelling. and i never miss the routine maintenance, minor or major.
man, if 22km/l is already a 80% savings in my fuel costs!
Warranty of iriz knocking sound from engine for model 2016 still problem last Mach 2018 until now but proton servis center kluang and toll free care center proton HQ not taken action on this matter . Proton look more of sale target but not care of proton coustmer value .tq
My cervelo road bike can go 1,000km with 0 litres.
Sure bro. My Suprima can go 400+ km from Tanjung Malim to JB with less 0.5 liter petrol. That is more than 800km/liter bro. I can go 40,000 km per full tank tau
My 16 year old waja use 35liter for 550km
I have owned and used 6 protons so far and none of them were fuel guzzler…..to be honest, the preve 1.6 cvt exceutive that i am driving now can do 500km in 1 tank (urban + highway) before the fuel guage indicator blinks!
I am rich
I dont care about fuel consumption
Hafriz speaks with almost no fillers , uhh , ahhh, erms
Regret buying Bezza 1.3 MT. One tank only 380-390Km. For a super light car, sure is high fuel consumption. My other cars including my 10yr old Persona 1.6 MT gives better milage.
I am the owner of the older version saga blm… Yes, in a highway it might be ok but if u drive it in a city with constant jam and traffic light, a bar of fuel can only last 30km, and i am driving a manual
How did u do it? Full tank of my saga blm will just last 350km
Dun drive like a maniac. Take the advices in the video and coast as much possible. Aircon not full blast and radio full blast as well.