2020 Mahindra Thar Diesel Fuel Economy Test

There has been a lot of buzz and activity around the upcoming Mahindra Thar. This has to be the most awaited launch of 2020 and the initial impression is rather positive. While most of us have spoken about how the car looks, feels and drives, we thought of doing something out of the box. See, the new 2020 Mahindra Thar will be an apt tool to explore India on four wheels which means a lot of owners will be munching up miles on open roads. And hence, we came up with the Mahindra Thar diesel fuel economy run idea last week and the result was rather impressive. You may hit the play button below or scroll down to read the article...

Mahindra hasn't revealed the official ARAI certified economy for the Thar yet and going by what it delivered on the run, I am presuming it to be around the 15-17 kmpl mark. For the uninitiated, the 2020 Mahindra Thar comes in four different engine-gearbox combinations. Owners can pick the manual as well as an automatic transmission option with both diesel and petrol engines. For our run, we had the diesel-MT set up. This oil burner puts out 130 bhp of power and comes mated to a 6-speed manual gearbox.

All our fuel economy runs are done on a tankful to tankful basis to keep the amount of error as low as possible. For this Mahindra Thar diesel fuel economy run, we drove the SUV for a total of 191.1km. We were three on board, the air-con was running and I kept the big Mahindra around the 90 km/h mark. The displayed economy kept hovering above 19 kmpl and in the end, before the fill-up, it showed as high as 19.6 kmpl! However, as is the case with most driver info display units, this one too was optimistic. The Thar took in 11.28 litres of diesel which translated into a genuine economy of 16.9 kmpl.

It should be noted that this was a brand new engine and as is the case with diesel motors, expect better economy once the engine has done over 15-20000 km. We also expect the car to deliver an easy 12-13 kmpl in city runs as the low end torque is ample for effortless driving, keeping up with fast moving cars as well. Mahindra will reveal the pricing for the entire range on the 2nd of October.