Fuel economy calculation

OxJak

Hi all

I'm a bit geeky at times but as I'm working late shifts at the moment the roads for my drive home are quiet enough to do a bit of an experiment. My drive home is on mostly rural roads, and I wondered how much extra in fuel costs I pay for "putting my foot down", and the result surprised me!

On a 20 mile drive, my normal average economy is around 48mpg (medium-sized diesel car). Driving economically, I got this up to 55mpg, driving without a care put it down to 43.5mpg. The difference between the two extremes works out at 50p per journey, or over £250 over the course of a year!!!

I'd never realised it was quite so much, and that's obviously not including the extra wear on engine, tyres, brakes etc. Maybe I'll drive around a bit less like a maniac from now on

tomstickland

That ties in with my own experiences.
If I absolutely hammer my 1.9 TDi Golf then I can get down to 42mpg (long periods at high speeds on mway). Normally I get around 50mpg. If I'm really careful then it goes up to 55mpg.

I'm quite happy to pay 50p extra to enjoy my drive more if that's the case.

Wee_Willy_Harris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTOyiKLARk

sabretoothtigger

+1 for geekiness

50p over a 20 mile journey doesnt seem much to me, 43mpg is still great. Being a diesel explains it I guess

angeltreats

Amazing the difference a few mph makes. I'm doing mostly motorway/big wide NSL A road driving at the moment. If I do mostly about 75 mph, I get 42 mpg. Mostly 90 lowers it to 39 mpg. When I was working in Oxford in stop/start traffic and roads with a 50 mph speed limit, it was around 47-48. I reckon if it was 50 mph all the way and none of the stop/start nonsense it'd have been over 50 mpg.

I'm actually quite obsessive about keeping an eye on my fuel economy, I have no idea why I bother. It's not like I can actually cut down on the mileage, and while I'm doing 80 motorway miles a day I'm not likely to drive any more economically - if I can shave ten minutes a day off the time I spend in the car, happy days. But I do the sums every single time I fill up.

LandyAndy

OxJak wrote: »

Hi all

I'm a bit geeky at times but as I'm working late shifts at the moment the roads for my drive home are quiet enough to do a bit of an experiment. My drive home is on mostly rural roads, and I wondered how much extra in fuel costs I pay for "putting my foot down", and the result surprised me!

On a 20 mile drive, my normal average economy is around 48mpg (medium-sized diesel car). Driving economically, I got this up to 55mpg, driving without a care put it down to 43.5mpg. The difference between the two extremes works out at 50p per journey, or over £250 over the course of a year!!!

I'd never realised it was quite so much, and that's obviously not including the extra wear on engine, tyres, brakes etc. Maybe I'll drive around a bit less like a maniac from now on

5 free tanks of fuel for spending, possibly, a couple of minutes extra at the wheel each day. Sounds like a good deal to me.

robredz

LandyAndy wrote: »

5 free tanks of fuel for spending, possibly, a couple of minutes extra at the wheel each day. Sounds like a good deal to me.

With a 3.5 tonne van I can squeeze 37- 40 mpg by cruising at around 56 with the trucks, rather than tanking along. foot down 3rd lane motorway driving brings it down to 30.

rev_henry

http://www.fuelly.com may be of interest to all of you. Its kinda like a social networking site for fuel economies. You put your mileage and how much petrol you buy each time you fill up onto the site with your mobile internet, and it does all the calculations for you. Then you can compare them with other owners of the same car, your manufacturers official figures etc...

cyclonebri1

Some folks drive the !!!! off a car and some gets zillions of mpg.

Get the right car and you have the choice, ie, when on open roads and zero traffic you can grunge it, the other 90% of the time get the economy. And diesel does rule under these conditions :money:


Flak jacket nicely warmed up,