Fuel Economy Reporting Thread

Wig

Fast acceleration is going to be very bad for a cold engine.

anewman

I found the thing that has the most bearing on petrol consumption is how well maintained the car is. After a good service my petrol consumption is much reduced, and that's using shell petrol prior, and ASDA petrol after. I am certain I will more than make back the money for the new spark plugs, leads etc in petrol savings.

harveybobbles

I went from Cheshire to the top end of Glasgae and back again in a Laguna 2.0 16v. The info display said I'd managed 37.5 mpg and erm, a rather high average speed :whistle:

mrbadexample

harveybobbles wrote: »

....and erm, a rather high average speed :whistle:

Congratulations. :rolleyes: :T

harveybobbles

It started with a 7... lol

steady__eddie

Whatever you drive and which ever manner of driving that you employ, it may be adviseable to stop off at a petrol station and fill up before Monday as Mr. Darling will be creaming off another 2p/litre from then. :mad:

jamesOMGthatsbig

my way of increasing/saving diesel is run 50-50 mix of diesel and veggie oil (56p per litre) and slipstreaming HGVs. I know it's naughty and potentially hazardous .

heapug

If full throttle provides the most efficiency, then this will probably be more significant with a petrol engine, which only achieves its designed compression ratio at full throttle. However, full throttle accelleration is only going to benefit your overall fuel economy if you change up as early as your engine's comfort will allow. Full revs in each gear whenever possible will almost certainly significantly increase your average fuel consumption.

With regard to the 'Coasting v. Overrun' debate, consider the following scenario: You are travelling at 70mph (3500rpm) at the top of a long hill which previous experience has shown to be steep enough to allow you to coast to the bottom without losing speed. Clearly, coasting is more economical than staying in gear, because the amount of fuel required to keep your engine at 3500rpm with no load is much greater than that required to keep it ticking over at 700rpm while you coast down in neutral. (If you're seriously crazy you can turn the engine off and risk losing power steering/brakes before you reach the bottom).
Conversely, if you are slowing down for distant traffic lights, coasting to a stop will use more fuel than staying in gear, (and perhaps even changing down) because on the overrun a moden engine uses virtually no fuel -- and you'll save on brake pad wear as well. (I once had an old Rover with a wonderful built-in freewheel, bet nobody here remembers them...)

Since I started driving in the early 1950s I have watched with interest a great number of 'miracle' fuel economy additives and gadgets come and go; and to my knowledge, none of them have worked, and certainly none have stood the test of time. So it's very unlikely that the stuff being so persistently peddled in this forum has any value at all. But let's just pity the poor chap that keeps on pestering us here, because it almost looks as if he really believes in it...

RevsterI

We are hitting 95p a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £1 a litre!!!! (This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy petrol on a certain day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.)
BUT, whoever thought of this idea has come up with a plan that can really work.
Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies,ESSO and BP.

If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!
The goal is to do this until it comes down to 69 pence per litre pass on the message - Do not buy at Esso or BP!!

PasturesNew

RevsterI wrote: »

We are hitting 95p a litre in some areas now

Only some? You must live in a cheap area!

I just double checked on petrolprices.com and where I live the figures are:

Cheapest Unleaded: 92.9p
Average Unleaded: 97.3p
Highest Unleaded: 101.9p

Diesel is: 94.9p, 99p, 102.9p