Introduction

Renault brought in the Kiger in India undercutting all its rivals in the sub-compact SUV segment. It's built on the CMFA+ platform and, of course, a stable-mate to the Nissan Magnite from the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance. Much has already been said about these siblings in terms of overall packages. Now, let's get straight to the question that most buyers ask - 'kitna deti hai?' And it's quite reasonable to ask about fuel economy as prices are soaring, to say the least. Plus, there's no diesel model, which in general, is looked at to be more frugal than the petrol versions.

Still, let's see how these turbo-petrol versions stack up against each other and how fuel-efficient these two are out there in the real world. Yes, we'll soon sample the CVT version and hopefully the naturally-aspirated version as well. But, for now, the test figures here, are for the 1.0-litre turbocharged units mated to a five-speed manual gearbox.

City Fuel Efficiency

As you'd know, both of these derive power from a 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine churning out 99bhp and 160Nm of torque. Essentially, all the same with even the kerb weight being similar. But thankfully, there is a difference in styling and features, and a slight difference in performance too. You can read our performance analysis of these two in detail here. Still, when it comes to the fuel economy in the city, the Magnite managed a slightly better figure by returning 14.17km to a litre. Meanwhile, the Kiger came close by putting up a figure of 13.27kmpl in the same tests with similar conditions.

Highway Fuel efficiency

Again, for this assessment, we set the same parameters and followed the path on the same circuit that we usually do for all our vehicles on test. Here the tables turned, with the Kiger delivering almost 2kmpl more than the Magnite. This Renault travelled 18.96km to each litre of fuel it sipped, while the Nissan returned a fuel efficiency of 17.07kmpl. Not astonishingly high figures, but not disappointing, to say the least.

Conclusion

So, there you go, both these compact SUVs have gone through our rigorous fuel economy tests. As compared to the ARAI-rated figures of 20kmpl, an average of 16.12kmpl for the Kiger and 15.62kmpl for the Magnite is no way something that owners of these SUVs will have to worry about. That said, it also depends on the driving parameters, traffic conditions, and various other factors that the cars will be subjected to. Yet, all in all, they've quite nicely managed to prove to be among some of the frugal compact SUVs available in our country.

Pictures by Kapil Angane and Kaustubh Gandhi