Is 100 miles from £10 of petrol reasonable?

LizEstelle

Any car blokes out there?

My OH seems to be getting an average of 110 - 115 miles out of each £10 of unleaded he puts in his beat-up, old M-reg Renault 19 (1.4ltr) whereas I, in my pride and joy X-reg Corsa (1.1ltr) only seem to be able to get 100 if I'm lucky.

It's not a question of driving styles, as we drive each others' cars quite a bit. We also have a similar mix of town and motorway driving.

I'm confused!

tomstickland

If you'd gone to a proper school you'd know the answer!

Small engines can be worse on mpg because you have to thrash them.
Renault 19 is probably lighter than a new Corsa and more aerodynamic.

chainguy

Tom's right. Years ago I could get my Mrk1 Golf GTi 1.6 to get better MPG than my mates Mrk 1 Golf 1.1.

Damn, how much do I still wish I had that car!

rdwarr

Well, if I drive my XJS around London I get 8mpg (so I don't). It's a 5.3 so there goes your theory
Only kidding - it IS possible to have cars with "too small" engines. Remember the Cortina 1.3?

LizEstelle

tomstickland wrote:

If you'd gone to a proper school you'd know the answer!

Small engines can be worse on mpg because you have to thrash them.
Renault 19 is probably lighter than a new Corsa and more aerodynamic.

How could I have been SO foolish? There I was thinking that, since the Renault LOOKS twice the size, SEEMS to have a bigger engine, APPEARS definitely less sleek and the reg. doc. CLAIMS it's 6 years older, it might just be less fuel efficient than the Corsa rather than vice versa.

Silly moi. It takes a 'public' school education, naturally, to learn never to trust your senses... all those amphetamines after lights out in the dorm, I suppose...

Hunnymonster

tomstickland wrote:

If you'd gone to a proper school you'd know the answer!

Small engines can be worse on mpg because you have to thrash them.
Renault 19 is probably lighter than a new Corsa and more aerodynamic.

Nah it's the 500 megawatt speakers in the back of the Corsa draining all the power from the engine

fossman

I had a Citroen C1 as a courtesy car a few weeks back and it did 60mpg while I was driving it and it was only a 959cc.

movingforward2010

ive got a 1.2 16v clio and i get 45.5 mpg, costs £32 to fill tank up and i get about 380 -400 miles. i really thinkits how u drive, - loads of gear changes, stop starts, short journeys

Hunnymonster

Anyway - back to the plot.... (this is all done without a calculator)

£10 of petrol is something like 12-13 litres - for simplicity I'll assume 12.5 litres.

12.5 litres is about 2¾ gallons.

So you're getting about 36mpg (I'd die if I got that little and my feather-footed father would chin me for having a lead foot) and your hubby is getting about 42mpg (my father would only have mild palpitations at that).

I'm getting about 52-54mpg in mine on average but not much urban driving here - there's not much urban to drive in

LizEstelle

Ok so does something need adjusting? Neither of us are technically minded... but neither of us have a heavy touch on the gas pedal, either!

Help!!

Hunnymonster

Check your tyre pressures are correct (you ought to do this regularly - weekly I think but that's taking the water).

Remove all the crap out from the car that's accumulated there, you know the golf clubs, the mother-in-law all the excess weight you don't need to carry.

Then the only things really are to drive steadily (anticipate everything so you never need to take any harsh evasive action) and avoid harsh acceleration and braking as far as possible. Saves on your brakes and tyres too - which is nice.

You might not think you're heavy on the gas - if you see a true frugal motoring pro in action you'll see just how harsh you are. (It's scares me how frugal my old man is lol, 50000 mile radial tyres were a big thing in the mid-70s - my old man was getting 60000 out of his last set of pre-50k radials lol)