Petrol Cost Cutting System Article Discussion Area

Steve_Chappell

The article on fuel saving indicates that switching the engine off immediately on arrival at your destination will save fuel. Whilst this is true it is not to be recommended for drivers of diesel turbo (or any turbo engined car for that matter). Turbos tend to continue spinning for some time when winding down and could be seriously damaged by switching the engine off immediately. This is because the bearings still need to be lubricated by a running engine. If the turbo is left to run "dry" the bearings will wear out quickly leading to a very expensive repair. When the turbo went on my BMW (due to a completely different problem) the repair cost was £1500 - more than the odd few pence saved by switching off immediately. You have been warned.
Martin may wish to ammend the article to reflect this issue.

krugman

Another tip,
Fill up slowly. petrol/diesel pumps have a habit of mixing in a small ammount of air when running fast (I think that's how it goes), and they are over calibrated for this, so if you fill up slowly, then you get slightly more fuel for your money. Then again, on every car I've ever owned, filling up quickly wasn't an option as the nozzles always seem oversensitive and keep tripping.

And Slow Down. It makes no sense to whinge about the cost of fuel and then drive everywhere at 80. I have slowed down to 60 on motorways and it's easy, you just sit there, relaxed and chilled and I am not constantly on the lookout for speed cameras.

60 Saves - fuel, wear and tear, tyres and MONEY !

krugman

martynsf

I'm new to this chat business but a long time driving. My first petrol purchases were at 4/- (20p) a gallon, now they put it up by that much in a day a nobody seems to notice.
Has anyone out there tried Magnetic fuel conditioners?
The reason I ask is because I have been selling the Ecoflow Motoflow devices for nearly 3 years now and have never had any come back to me under the 90 day satisfaction guarantee

tomstickland

And Slow Down. It makes no sense to whinge about the cost of fuel and then drive everywhere at 80. I have slowed down to 60 on motorways and it's easy, you just sit there, relaxed and chilled and I am not constantly on the lookout for speed cameras.

I've got an instantaneous fuel consumption gauge (standard on the car) and you can be doing 85 indicated and it'll show 50mpg. As soon as you touch the throttle though it'll drop down. Personally I get bored sitting on a mway at 60, a steady 75 is just about tolerable, 80-85 indicated is a good compromise between boredom and not speeding (80 indicated is normally 72ish real speed). I find the extra concentration needed keeps me stimulated.

Anyway, smooth driving where you anticipate so you don't stand on the brakes and then speed up etc will make a lot of difference, more difference than the difference between 60 and 70 on the mway.

Jonwil

A while ago someone posted a link for the purchase of high st vouchers that gave 5% off for every £100 spent. I enquired ay my local Sainsburys petrol station and they will accept vouchers against petrol. Any idea what this link is?

charlieheard

I run a small TurboDeisel hatchback, and commuted to work in it - 60 miles each way, mostly dual carriageway/motorway. Keeping up with the rush hour traffic and averaging 60mph gave me 45-50 mpg.

One day the traffic appeared much slower, so I was much more relaxed about how I accelerated and braked. I averaged 56mph (i.e. 7% slower) and 79.9mpg :rolleyes: (i.e. 60% better). This was off the read-out within the car, but even if it is slightly inaccurate, the savings are obvious. I still haven't broken 80mpg average for a whole journey yet, though :mad:

The savings from changing driving style are much more significant than saving a few pennies on your fuel station. But then you get into running costs per mile for various cars, and you can save thousands a year by buying and running the right car in the first place - and deisel is not always the cheapest option overall, as the higher initial cost often offsets the lower running costs. And then you get depreciation, which cost private buyers thousands a year.

IMHO you should concentrate much more on the total cost of ownership of a car first, driving style second, and fuel prices last if you want to save the most money. But who wants to drive a small anonymous hatchback slowly instead of driving a BMW like a twit?

tomstickland

Like all moneysaving decisions though, it depends what you want.
I've driven a variety of cars in the past and my current 1990 BMW is more efficient than my previous one, plus a much more pleasant place to be going slowly than any of the equivalent or more modern hatches. Personally I'm prepared to pay for something that I enjoy. Rather conveniently though, this car is saving me around £150 per month compared with my previous one (35mpg vs 23mpg), plus no buying costs, and minimal servicing (DIY).

Simmydog9

Taking a forum tip some time ago I joined the list of potential members of the fuel discount scheme that had been discussed. Following a new message I received yesterday it seems that https://www.PipelineCard.org has grown enormously since I last read the progress details and now seems, to me, to be a highly likely source of cut-price fuel for any member, and within the next few weeks if my interpretation is correct. As the forum points out, it is completely free to join and can only possibly help stem the ever increasing tide of price increases. I suggest that anyone who wishes to consider reducing their fuel bills fairly dramatically should add their details to the site, and make it happen that much sooner. N.B. - https://www.PipelineCard.org

HappyShopper3

I just came across the pipeline organisation as I was looking for something else. I thought I'd come back here to let you all know about it, but it does seem as if you beat me to it! I've signed up and received the following e-mail:

Firstly, thank you for signing up to Pipeline Card (https://www.PipelineCard.org) and
pledging your support to the Pipeline Card cause. Despite recent cuts, we still
pay more for fuel than just about anyone else in Europe so anything we can do to
reduce prices is worth doing.

Pipeline Card has only been going for two months but we have already secured
agreement in principle from a major retailer to offer fuel discounts of between
5p and 10p a litre. We have also had great support from the media, particularly
from the car forums, Times Online, and from Martin Lewis, the money saving
expert. If you haven't already done so, please check out the Media Page on the
website (https://www.PipelineCard.org/media.html).

Membership has been growing at an astonishing 10,000 members per week so we are
well on our way to launching the Pipeline Card in April or May. However, we do
need a lot of registrations to make this work on a national level so please give
some thought to ways of telling other drivers about what we are doing.

Some of you have posted links on Forums - about 1600 of them actually - some
have passed emails to their work colleagues, some have posted messages on Club
Noticeboards and Newsletters or passed on details to journalists that they know.
It all helps.

Please don't spam your whole address book, don't set up chain emails and, above
all, don't register anyone on the site without their knowledge and permission.
But if you know other drivers who would like to save money on petrol - friends,
family, colleagues - do tell them about the website and give them the
opportunity of joining Pipeline Card. Use this link
(https://www.PipelineCard.org/recommend.html) on the website to make it easier if you
like.

If all of you told just two people about Pipeline Card this week, and they
signed up, that would triple our size. It's up to all of us to make this work
and, judging by the response so far, it has every chance of success.

Please continue to write in with your queries, suggestions, and offers of help.
There are only two of us to answer you - and both of us have other jobs - so
bear with us if it takes a little while for us to respond. We do read every
email and have already added more material to our Questions & Answers
(http://www.PipelineCard.org/qna.html) recently as a direct result of your
feedback.

Best wishes

Ben Scammell - Pipeline Card Founder

tomstickland

I've been monitoring my fuel consumption gauge for the last few weeks and also experimented a bit to find more fuel efficient driving techniques.

I've discovered that the easiest way to save fuel on journeys is in the deceleration when approaching a slow area. For example, if you were 1/2 mile from a roundabout and turned the engine off then you'd coast up to it and past it. You've travelled that distance using the momentum of the vehicle.
Edit: that's for example only, in practice backing off the throttle will be almost as good and in accordance with proper driving methods. Turning the engine off would cause problems with brake servo and any other powered items, as well as a risk of locking the steering!

Therefore if you back off the throttle a long way ahead of an obstacle then the fuel consumption will be almost zero for the distance up to the obstacle.
An engine on overrun (no throttle, but the car turning the engine at high rpm) uses no fuel - the ECU cuts off the fuel on overrun. My economy gauge shows infinite mpg on the overrun.

The important thing is that the earlier you anticipate and adjust the power input then the more you save.

My thoughts on the three phases are:

acceleration: very gentle acceleration is not the most efficient method. You need the engine to be at 30-70% load for best efficiency and the rev range somewhere between 1500 and 3500 rpm. 50% throttle actually provides quite brisk acceleration. But the engine doesn't spend as long in the acceleration state compared with taking 10 minutes to reach speed.

constant speed driving: fuel consumption scales with speed squared, roughly. The gauge in my car can be showing 45mpg at 85mph, but as soon as more than a few mm of throttle pedal are needed then the mpg drops right down. Doing a smooth, steady 70-80mph indicated with plenty of anticipation to avoid sudden acceleration will provide good fuel economy on mways.

general driving: anticipation to avoid the need for sudden acceleration, combined with a momentum conserving approach will save fuel. Jerky driving is wasteful. Leaving a bigger gap so you don't have to stop when another car pulls off will save fuel.

deceleration: as explained above, the earlier the power is taken off then the more that will be saved. The most efficient method would be to arrive at the obstacle with no speed after coasting the whole way with the engine off, but the normal method would be to arrive with some speed and the engine engaged and then brake.

I've managed a 5-10 increase in mpg (from 30ish to 40ish max), but the funniest thing is that I don't drive any slower! If it's a long section then I do travel quite quickly and I don't dawdle. I also pull off from lights "smartly" ie: I'm doing 30mph and have cleared the lights whilst the car behind is still just 1/2 a car length off them. The biggest change is in slowing for obstacles.