Is it possible for me to work out how much petrol i would use driving for 2 hours on

kb36

www.viamichelin.co.uk

this site will give you a rough estimate of fuel costs if you type in your departure and destination address:-) Just another way of doing it and easy too!

movilogo

Appx. fuel consumption value for engine size between 0.8L and 3.0L can be found from following empirical formula

Petrol consumption (km/Litre) = -4.25 * EngineSizeInLitre + 21

1 mile = 1.6093 km

However, without going through calculations, if you are driving daily for 2+2 hours, simply the exhaustion alone will dictate you spend nights on hotel

AdrianHi

BillScarab wrote: »

Depreciation will be more if he drives every day as the car will have far more miles on it and be worth far less. Also Servicing costs will be higher as it will need to be serviced more frequently. They will also spend more on consumables such as tyres, exhausts, wiper blades etc. So basically it isn't just the fuel cost.

Yes that is the point I was making.
I've done sums on my wife's car. With her current job the car costs £550 a month all in over the next 12 months, if she gives up the job and reduces her miles to social domestic pleasure only it's a £350 a month car. Quite a big difference which equates to halving her annual mileage.
The faster depreciation is very significant because you will wear the car out and need to replace it, if you are not setting aside the cost of deprecation per month + a bit more you will not be able to replace when the time comes.

movilogo wrote:

However, without going through calculations, if you are driving daily for 2+2 hours, simply the exhaustion alone will dictate you spend nights on hotel

Probably one of the most important point made on this thread so far. Forget the costs involved there is no way you could keep up this driving pattern for more than a few months before it drives you mad and exhausted.

Conor_3

AdrianHi wrote: »

Probably one of the most important point made on this thread so far. Forget the costs involved there is no way you could keep up this driving pattern for more than a few months before it drives you mad and exhausted.

Why? If you're doing an 8hr day at the office and travelling 2 hours at either end, you're only doing the same hours as hundreds of thousands of HGV drivers do.

You could OTOH do what my brother does who does that amount of travelling per day and use the train. He drives to York then pops on the train to Durham. Mind you, you need to be getting paid enough to make it worthwhile or use an umbrella company so you can claim the travel expenses.

AdrianHi

Conor wrote: »

Why? If you're doing an 8hr day at the office and travelling 2 hours at either end, you're only doing the same hours as hundreds of thousands of HGV drivers do.

You could OTOH do what my brother does who does that amount of travelling per day and use the train. He drives to York then pops on the train to Durham. Mind you, you need to be getting paid enough to make it worthwhile or use an umbrella company so you can claim the travel expenses.

I find up to a 2 hour mostly on the train to be about the limit and by car up to 1 hour, perhaps 1 hour 15 minutes to be the limit of the commute I can sustain for more than a few weeks before the travelling becomes too time consuming and exhausting, on top of an 8 hour day.
I guess that we will be doing it in the busy parts of the day when you have congestion to content with, where the lorry drivers will often get periods of easy driving.
Then add children and the associated sleep deprivation and it gets even worse....

Conor_3

AdrianHi wrote: »

I guess that we will be doing it in the busy parts of the day when you have congestion to content with, where the lorry drivers will often get periods of easy driving.
Then add children and the associated sleep deprivation and it gets even worse....

No such thing as easy driving anymore unless you are on nights.

It's not so bad...you just have less leisure time on an evening from Sunday to Thursday. Its a case of get home around 7, have tea, watch TV or whatever for a few hours, bed for 11, up at 6, set off at 7.

Difference is though that I'm working for that 11 hours whereas you'd only be working 8 so you really need the money it pays to make those extra few hours commuting over a normal commute worthwhile.

AdrianHi

Conor wrote: »

No such thing as easy driving anymore unless you are on nights.

It's not so bad...you just have less leisure time on an evening from Sunday to Thursday. Its a case of get home around 7, have tea, watch TV or whatever for a few hours, bed for 11, up at 6, set off at 7.

Difference is though that I'm working for that 11 hours whereas you'd only be working 8 so you really need the money it pays to make those extra few hours commuting over a normal commute worthwhile.

I'm an IT consultant (programmer) so I change work location on average twice a year.
Most of the last 3 years I've been working 30-40 minutes from home for something like 12% less money than I would get going to London. If I consider the extra travelling time as part of the working day it really is not worth my while going into London unless it's a really "juicy" project that adds a lot of value to the CV for the future.
I'm happy with a little less money, shorter commute, better quality of life and I get home in time to bath and put my two boys (3 and 1) to bed - can't put a price on that :cool:

Perhaps as an HGV driver spending your whole day on the road you get used to it, like an athlete trains and gets better at running marathons. Much more than a 1 hour each way drive and I'm too tired to maintain enough concentration for the job I'm doing.

foreversomeday

movilogo wrote: »

Appx. fuel consumption value for engine size between 0.8L and 3.0L can be found from following empirical formula

Petrol consumption (km/Litre) = -4.25 * EngineSizeInLitre + 21

1 mile = 1.6093 km

However, without going through calculations, if you are driving daily for 2+2 hours, simply the exhaustion alone will dictate you spend nights on hotel

Please could you explain the formula a bit more?

For a 2 litre engine, I got 12.5. What does this refer to? Km per litre? cost per Km?

Bobsworlduk

kb36 wrote: »

www.viamichelin.co.uk

this site will give you a rough estimate of fuel costs if you type in your departure and destination address:-) Just another way of doing it and easy too!

Not very accurate though. A 600 mile round trip I do regularly in my 1.4 Fabia is showing a cost of approx £66 when it's more like £100.

AdrianHi

Bobsworlduk wrote: »

Not very accurate though. A 600 mile round trip I do regularly in my 1.4 Fabia is showing a cost of approx £66 when it's more like £100.

There is nothing in that formula which can account for the typical MPG "slope" you get for speed vs. engine power.
More powerful engine = higher fuel consumption at slower speeds but fuel consumption increases more slowly as speed increases compared to a less powerful engine. In some cases this effect is sufficiently pronounced for the more powerful engine to be more economical than the less powerful engine at motorway speeds.
I don't know what the slope would look like for the Fabia but engines of that power output see their fuel consumption increasing pretty rapidly past 60mph.
I posted a graph with some actual research results demonstrating this yesterday. Given the amount of concern for MPG right now, I'm surprised at how few people have viewed it.