CRZ on Sport

I’ve driven more than 5,000km in my CRZ. After the service, I decided to start driving more aggressively as I had gotten accustomed to the drive and handling of the car. That’s when I noticed a few things about the modes on the car.

The CRZ comes with three pre-programmed modes – Econ, Normal, and Sport. I’ve been driving around using the Normal mode most of the time. It’s a decent enough drive, nothing particularly exciting about it. In Normal mode, it drives like almost any other car with a little more HP under the hood.

However, when in the Sport mode, it drives like the wind. Acceleration is awesome and I had to actually change driving styles just to accommodate it. As an example, when shifting gears, I cannot touch the accelerator at all unlike in the Normal mode. A slight touch would cause the engine to rev.

At first, I had thought that the Sport mode would be petrol guzzling. This is also reflected in the dash, which changes to red in Sport mode while it fluctuates between blue-green in Normal mode to indicate fuel efficiency.

However, by using the on-board measuring system, it turns out that the Sport mode is actually more fuel efficient than the Normal mode, if I am driving it aggressively i.e. if I want to drive aggressively, I’d actually save more fuel in Sport mode.

I can get the same <15km/L fuel efficiency in Normal mode if I'm driving it like a normal car, but not aggressively like the little sport coupe that it is. When I push the car in Normal mode, I get <13km/L on it.

Also, the handling changes a bit in Sport mode. The steering becomes noticeably heavier in Sport mode. In Normal mode, I can easily turn by a light push of the steering but in Sport mode, the steering pushes back and tries to straighten itself.

I guess that this is a safety feature, particularly if you were going at high speeds, you wouldn't want your steering to be too light and to easily turn at the slightest touch. So, that's also a good thing.

Anyway, just some observations.