MPG half of that advertised! How to get out of car agreement?

Strider590

Hanspence wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.

I did quickly research it and the good mpg seemed to be rather consistent.
It's actually a petrol, 0.9. So it should be incredibly efficient.
I called Alfa and there is no recalls or software updates that the car is missing, and it has been fully serviced from new.

Did a bit of research, real MPG for the 0.9 is around 35-40mpg.... But because your taking a town car onto the motorway at speeds where a small engine is going to be struggling against wind resistance, i'd say what your getting is close to what i'd expect (30mpg).

laidbackgjr

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/alfa-romeo/mito-2008

Looking here the real world MPG for the 0.9 TwinAir is equally shocking - looks like a car which has really good theoretical MPG but real world driving delivers a much worse result.

Herzlos

According to the honest john real mpg you should still be getting about 40mpg in the real world - http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/alfa-romeo/mito-2008/09-twinair.

Thought it probably will struggle at motorway speeds. You might get closed to the real figure at about 50-55mph.

27mpg is terrible though, I get that in a 2.5l. I'd get an Alfa specialist to have a look as it sounds like something is wrong.

Marktheshark

Does it have a temperature gauge ?
If so is it getting up to temperature quickly and staying up ?

ballyblack

It's actually a petrol, 0.9. So it should be incredibly efficient.

very small engines are not always efficient

Strider590

Curious as to what RPM it's doing at motorway speeds.......

As mentioned, small engines are not always more efficient and I imagine it has to work quite hard at 70+ mph just to maintain that speed.

Where my Vectra mpg actually goes up by 10 on a long motorway run.
Around town the Vectra is having to haul 1.5 tonne of metal around in stop/start traffic and the mpg can drop to 25-30, but on the motorway that weight carries momentum and it needs less fuel to stay up to speed, so I get 40-45mpg.

davetrousers

Strider590 wrote: »

but on the motorway that weight carries momentum and it needs less fuel to stay up to speed, so I get 40-45mpg.

I am intrigued by this statement.

Strider590

davetrousers wrote: »

I am intrigued by this statement.

Well it's quite simple really, a town runabout has the aerodynamics of a house brick and a small engine. If you put that next to a big heavy motorway mile muncher and then add a headwind, the small car is going to have to work much harder to keep up.

bartelbe

Your problem is how the MPG figures are worked out. It has always been possible to get good MPG from a small engine, but that gives you rubbish performance.

On your car they have fixed that problem by fitting a nice big turbo. So you get the best of both worlds? Nope.

When they test MPG the turbo is barely used, hence the hyper-mile figures. When the manufacturers work out the performance figures, they floor it, the turbo kicks in and the car performs well. It also drinks fuel.

So if you drive it like a little old lady, taking 20 plus seconds to get to 60 and pootle slowly along the motorway you will get close to the stated MPG. Drive it like a normal person, it will drink fuel.

=rizla=

davetrousers wrote: »

I am intrigued by this statement.

I think he's trying to say once its at m'way speeds you don't have to use fuel to accelerate a heavy car from 0mph to 70mph, obviously a car designed for a roads/m'ways gearing etc is designed for higher speeds, so at or beyond the limit a bigger car can actually give better mpg than a small city car.