14 ultra-frugal family SUVs to help you save at the pumps

Denis Droppa Group motoring editor

28 October 2021 - 10:03

Rising oil prices and a weak rand may lift the petrol price to more than R20 a litre by year-end, warns the AA.

This grim scenario comes after the hiking of petrol and diesel prices to record highs in recent months. It may prompt cash-strapped consumers to consider more economical cars at replacement time.

An economical hatchback is the obvious way to scale down and save on fuel costs, but small-engined compact cars don’t serve everyone’s needs. Yet those seeking a larger family SUV with reasonable power need not have their fuel budgets completely bullied.

SUVs and crossovers are where much of the sales action is due to their all-round practicality. We have assembled a list of the most fuel-efficient compact-to-midsize examples in SA. They are all at least 4.2m long to offer good space. They also have decent power, that all-important pavement-clambering ride height and miserly fuel thirst rated at less than 6.0l / 100km on a combined urban-freeway cycle.

Many of SA’s most fuel-efficient cars are premium petrol-electric hybrids that cost well north of R1.5m, but they defeat the money-saving object of this exercise so we have listed only vehicles that retail for less than R700,000.

There are 14 vehicles that meet all these parameters: eight diesels, four petrols and two petrol-electric hybrids.

With that, and the proviso that the fuel consumption figures are manufacturer claims and might not be achievable in real-world driving, here is a list of SA’s most fuel-efficient, reasonably priced family SUVs: