Downshifting the motor Car Tax/Fuel Cost Advice please

forgotmyname

The cost of the LPG kit will buy you 120+ gallons of petrol.

Unless you do a high mileage it wont be worth the cost and losing bootspace for the storage tank in a smallish
car maybe an issue. You can get a tank to fit in the spare wheel well but where will you put the spare?

Thought about a bigger car? Cheap to buy, You could buy a mondeo diesel for £1000 less than yours similar/better
mpg if driven carefully. Cheaper tax? £165 at the last price rise, Lower powered 115bhp euro IV models maybe even
cheaper to tax. People assume they are expensive to run but insurance can be cheaper than small hatchbacks.

As with most things insurance doesnt make sense sometimes.

bigjl

Have you actually read the thread?

It will cost more to trade the Fabia in and buy something that will probably only save a few pound a month in fuel etc.

The new car will be an unknown quantity, small diesels tend to get run on a shoestring due to the fact people buy them to save money, so the new car may be a hand grenade, the OP, knows the Fabia, it is low miles and only a few years old.

The Fabia has lots of life left in it, if by spending money to improve it and reduce the budget for fuel etc then there is nothing worng with it.

To argue that you could buy lots of petrol for the cost of the conversion is pointless, the OP wants to reduce weekly or monthly outgoings, is willing to pay a trader two profit margins to do this, the only solution is to keep what they already have and make it more economical.

Thousands of people convert to LPG for the same reason, why risk a diesel hand grenade and have to fill up at the smelly pump.

She can keep her current reliable car, which will be worth a little more so offestting her expense a little.

But as the OP will almost certainly keep the car for several years then your point isn't relevant.

MikeyMacbeth

bigjl wrote: »

Have you actually read the thread?

...the OP, knows her Fabia...

Ahem, it's the overuse of smilies I expect (I must be turning "metrosexual" or something...)

I think the LPG conversion will be out the window at that cost for me anyway - if I had the cash I'd consider it for both monetary and environmental reasons, but then if I had the cash....

I think the plan for me is now to just try and reduce motoring costs as much as I can, so :-

• calculate my cost/mile to see if it's worthwhile bussing it to work instead.
• further try and improve my fuel-savvy driving i.e. stick a brick under the gas pedal! (I read somewhere on this site to imagine there's a full glass of water on the dash)
• flog a load of old stuff off on ebay to raise funds for the MOT/tax in August

funkycoldribena

Ive got exactly the same car as you and car wise it costs peanuts to run.
Its a cracking car,cruise control,heated seats etc one of the hidden gems of cheap motoring,why you'd want to get rid I dont know...

bigjl

Oops, sorry, I have edited it....................

MikeyMacbeth

funkycoldribena wrote: »

Ive got exactly the same car as you and car wise it costs peanuts to run.
Its a cracking car,cruise control,heated seats etc one of the hidden gems of cheap motoring,why you'd want to get rid I dont know...

It's just the looming tax/MOT/service bill that I'm struggling to see how I can meet it that prompted the idea that maybe if I downshifted the car I could save on the tax & running costs. More my current financial circumstances that are forcing me to consider more radical alternatives than I might otherwise.

As for the car itself I have to say I've been well happy with - nary a niggle since I got it, and as you say quite well featured (although lacking the roof mounted rocket launcher for some of the idiots I came across on my way in to work this morning - but thats a whole seperate issue )

MikeyMacbeth

bigjl wrote: »

Oops, sorry, I have edited it....................

No worries - serves me right for playing some female roles in amdram a few years back - brought out my feminine side! :beer:

MikeyMacbeth

I've done my spreadsheet - for this year I've worked out I get a cost/mile of around 31p (annual fixed costs/mile plus this year's average fuel cost/mile)

Summary figures are below if anyone's interested:-

Skoda Fabia Elegance 1.4 75bhp 5 door manual 56/2006 reg

2011 figures
Tot. fuel spend to date: £481.94
Tot. Miles travelled: 2,536
Tot. Litres: 372.47
Avg price/Litre: 129.46
Avg price/gallon: £5.88
Avg miles/gallon: 33.30
Avg miles/litre: 7.33
Avg fuel cost/mile: £0.196
Min price/L: 124.90
Max price/L: 132.91
Fixed + Fuel cost /mile: £0.31

And over all time:-

4th Sept 2006 to 11th June 2011:-
Tot. fuel spend to date: £4,790.00
Tot. Miles travelled: 30,306
Tot. Litres: 4,619.81
Avg price/Litre: 103.93
Avg price/gallon: £4.72
Avg miles/gallon: 31.45
Avg miles/litre: 6.92
Avg fuel cost/mile: £0.17
Min price/L: 82.62
Max price/L: 132.91

I was a little worried that my average mpg had gone down this year despite my best efforts to economise but realised I started an new job in a diff location that meant more commuting during rush hour, and have also cut down on longer journeys

MikeyMacbeth

A very sad graph of the cost of my petrol over the last 5 years

jeferey

MikeyMacbeth wrote: »

I think the plan for me is now to just try and reduce motoring costs as much as I can, so :- calculate my cost/mile to see if it's worthwhile bussing it to work instead.

• further try and improve my fuel-savvy driving i.e. stick a brick under the gas pedal! (I read somewhere on this site to imagine there's a full glass of water on the dash)
• flog a load of old stuff off on ebay to raise funds for the MOT/tax in August

Not such a daft idea
I think if you are going to keep the car but want to reduce your costs, one easy way of doing this is to increase your mpg. I have been hypermiling for 3 years and regularly get over 20% MORE than the manufacturer's figures for my car.
Have a look at this website for more ideas, there's some really simple stuff you can do and you probably won't need the brick

7.33 miles/litre is only 33.3mpg - you should be able to improve on this even on the journeys you are doing now.
I regularly get over 50mpg out of my 2.2 diesel Honda.
According to Parkers, the official stats for your car are 42mpg (mine's 44!) and looking on Fuelly.com (a website where sad people like me can track their fuel usage and compare them to other people with the same car) and spiritmonitor.de (a German website used by car owners in many countries), you should be able to break 40mpg easy