Alza Disappointing Fuel Consumption and First Service
Kew 
3 Weeks in, and I have travelled 2000km. My Alza fuel consumption average to 12km/l. An under expectation performance considering my previous Honda City average at 14.7km/l and Toyota Passo Sette fuel consumption claim of 15.6km/l. Coupling with my recent drive experience, I am beginning to second guess my purchase decision.
Immediately just before the first 1000km service, I pump 28.5l and the dashboard computer display 400km range. After service, the display changes from 400km to 300km, a 100km drop, while I only travel < 10km from the petrol pump to the service station. The car end up giving me 295km before the Range goes blank. The service center did not do much, just perform oil change and that’s it. I suspect they left the engine run for a while, so much so that it drops the range from 400km to 300km.
After that, on the weekend, I had a long road trip and for the first time, pump Ron 95 instead of Ron 97 Vpower that I have been pumping since I got the car. The Fuel Consumption increases to 13.4km/l. I was driving 95% of the time on the highway with a total of 6 adults in the car. The fuel consumption improves, but still fall far below expectation.
After driving for 2000km, I can say that I have fully tested the car and I find that the car fall below expectation in 3 aspect. The drivability, fuel consumption and built quality. First with drivability, the car performs fine with 2 adults in the car, but when the load increases to 5, it fails miserably. I was driving a group of friends to the Raya Open house at Balik Pulau, when I was going over the hilly pass through Paya Terubong, the car was struggling to climb the hill. Not only that, it was out of breath and the acceleration/power was not consistent and often slow or way long after I needed it. At one moment, the car fall to 30kmph climbing the hill and I floor the peddle to get it to speed up, it did nothing for a long while and then suddenly, the engine roars and the car zoom up. I had a problem with the delay, if I was trying to overtake or something, I would be in so much trouble. Now, knowing the car, I will never overtake while climbing the hill, cause the power or acceleration that I need are not predictable nor consistent.
The fuel consumption was disappointing as shown above, so I will not dwell much on it. The built quality is typical of Malaysian cars. There were a few rattling sound here and there, the Perodua Logo at the back of the car was broken (thinking of changing it to Toyota instead), the break was a little soft, not sure if this is Toyota design issue, the door slam sounds like empty tin can (seriously considering soundproofing the car), mouse squeaking sound, and when the car climb hill, there are rubber burning smell from the air condition. All this was not address in the first service because the service center was overloaded on that day and I did not have the time to stick around for them to troubleshoot. The mechanic told me that the soft break was normal and it was due to ABS, he said all ABS cars are like this and the smell during climb was due to Anti-Rust at the ekzos pipe under the car. Both I could not figure out how it could contribute to the symptoms that I am seeing. Since it was not fix, I will have to bring it in for another checkup. This is what I dislike most owning a car, a Malaysian car, keep having to go to the service center to resolve issues with the car.
Detailing my Alza sucks my life out
The Alza is such a huge car, well, larger in area compare to my previous Honda City, it takes the life out of me to shine the car. I started with the Jusco Selection Wash and Shine with the micro fibre sponge to get the dirt out. After washing, comes the drying. Getting the car dry is truly difficult, especially at the door handle, side mirror and the back bonnet, which seams to have endless stream of water droplets coming out of hiding every few minutes. Then I apply a coat of wax and by the time I am done with the entire car, the first section that I applied already dry and I started to buff it off. 40 minutes later, I am totally beat, both my arms are sore and I had not an ounce of energy in me to continue. The following morning, I dust off the car with a feather duster and applied the FormaHero Deep Gloss Silicone Sealant. I sprayed the liquid silicone and wipe it evenly. I allow the silicone to cure in the sun for 20-30 minutes, turning the car as this was early morning sun. Then I buff the silicone off to a nice shine.
The result, excellent Classy Purple Metallic shine. On the way to Ipoh, the car turn heads, I am not sure if it was the shine or its purple Alza, and I am glad someone appreciate it. The FormaHero Deep Gloss Silicone Sealant claim that the shine would last for months, lets see how long it last. My expectation on this product is an easy clean off after rain or after wash off, the shine still remains. Its now raining season, so best to test out this product.
Fuel Consumption after 1 week
1 week in, I have driven my Alza over 600km and have filled the tank 3 times. When I got my Alza, the tank was empty and I have been filling it with Shell Vpower (Ron 97) RM50 for the last three times. The first tank manage to bring me up to 260km and the second tank improves significantly to 301km. The chart above shows the km/l of which the second tank improves from 10.9km/l to 12.6km/l. My first 1000km service is due and I am expecting a performance improvement after the service. According to Toyota, the Passo Sette has a fuel consumption performance of 15.6km/l, which is far from what my Alza is performing now.
The more I drive the car, the more I like the drivability of the car. Its now a little over a week and my impression on the car drivability and performance have changed significantly. My previous car was Honda City 2006 and comparing MPV to a compact, the compact usually outperforms the MPV all the time. In this case, the Alza looks like a MPV, but performs rather close to a compact. The torque at traffic light sometimes scares me till I have to lift off the gas paddle to avoid the car hitting the front BMW. It seams to be performing much better in this aspect than my 2006 Honda City. But the lacking part is the transmission, my 2006 Honda City has CVT which makes the gear change a silk smooth transition, but the Alza was a little Jerky.
My Alza is improving on the fuel consumption the more I drive and I am growing to enjoy this small MPV. I going on a road trip this weekend, and I can’t wait to zoom along the north south highway.
Garmin Mobile XT on Lokatoo B1000
Lokatoo B1000 that comes with the Alza Advance was my first GPS device. Before this, I have only used a few GPS device before but never own any. I do not know the detail of the built up more over how to install different GPS applications. This device changes that. The Lokatoo B1000 runs on Win CE 6.0, which is the base operating system. Installing Garmin is simple, but tedious. Here are the breakdown of the entire flow.
- First you have to backup all the files in your SD card, especially the Guider folder.
- Secondly you have to install a menu(launchpad) to allow you to choose between your Lokatoo and Garmin, and maybe other GPS apps like Papago, Tom Tom, etc.
- Then, you Install Garmin Mobile XT (Just copy the files to the device memory card)
- Activate the installed Garmin
- Install the local Map, in our case, the Malaysian/Singapore Map.
- Activate the installed Map
- Take your GPS out for a test drive.
It sounds simple, but it took me many hours to get it work. This is because I have not been referring to the right resources in the web. Finally, when I found this blog Lokatoo A903 Hack, I manage to finally put 2 and 2 together and made it 4.
Before you start to install Garmin, you have to first get a menu or launchpad done so that you can pull up or enable Garmin when ever you want or have an option to get back to Lokatoo. To do this, you can refer to here. Get the Shell.ini and launchpad files from the link provided there.
Once done, you can proceed to install Garmin. You can the the necessary files and detail installation guideline here. For Lokatoo B1000, the device ID that you see will be 17826272 and using this will not work. Instead, you use ‘0’ to get your Garmin unlock code. Once activated, you will be able to use the device, however, you will need the detail Malaysian map with all the local POI.
You can get the maps and detail map installation instruction here. After Activation, you can take your GPS out for a test drive.
I took it for the round island trip today and it works smoothly without any problem. All the destinations that I wanted to go could be found on the POI list, which was much better than the default Lokatoo Map.
Round Penang Island
Living in an island, once we get a new car, there is always the first thing to do, round island. I am not sure if this is a ritual for all Penang folks, but it is a ritual for me. Partly also I want to rack up the 1k mileage so that I can get the car 1st kilometer service and also partly, the round island terrain covers from freeway to windy mountain road and currently, some construction roads. This allow me to test the car fully and identify issues with the car before the 1st K service to get it fix then.
Starting from the coastal highway, the drive was smooth in the morning, there wasn’t that many cars and the car just cruise at max speed limit. The car was a little bouncy from the sinking road, my old Honda City was also behaving this way and it had a much more harder suspension. Coming into Georgetown, the traffic starts to built up and I had to slow down, especially at Jetty area, the road are patch here and there and I could feel the detail bumps on the road. This is the part that I don’t like, new car going through bumpy roads. I guess this is where all other new car owners would feel “sakit hati” subjecting their car through these bumps.
Next, when we come to the north part of the island, this is where the road start to gets very windy. Something similar to the Initial Drift, the hill side winding road provides opportunity to test out the car handling at this condition. I wasn’t that familiar with the car and had many times oversteer coming out of a corner. Later I realize that I had not been turning the steering enough, and once compensated, the drive was much more enjoyable. The car did not roll that much, however, going though these bending roads did get us dizzy a little. The old Honda City handles much better here, mostly because it was tuned with a harder suspension and was able to take the bend at a much better speed.
Finally, at the south west part of the island, the highway construction at Balik Pulau – Gertak Sanggul has still not been completed yet and was perfect for testing the car out. The dirt road was not that forgiving and the car came back with a thick layer of dust on the body. The drive was unpleasant and I am reminded not to take that road again, especially with a new car.
I manage to complete the new car ritual of going a full circle of the island within a week getting the car. Me and my wife enjoyed the trip today and the drive was pleasant. I am starting to enjoy driving the Alza, though it is different from the Honda City, it has it’s own characteristic and charm.