What MPG do you get?

The new VAg diesels are common rail - the PD engine is more efficient and produces more grunt but isn't as refined as a common rail.

As for black smoke - my 1 series kicks a little out when you hammer it but the Audi I drove was clean as a whistle...

Nissan Almera 1.5, solo about town about 30, motorway work about 45 combined about 37. Towing the caravan about 32 whick isnt too bad as I am towing about 950kg with a lot more kit in the car about 45kg plus a passenger

Just for the curiosity value, I once measured the mpg of my Ducati 750ss on a track day at Cadwell, and was astonished to find that over 90miles covered on the track it was still doing 36mpg. Admittedly, the engine was blueprinted, with polished ports, optimised squish, forged pistons etc, and just run in, but still, I was impressed with that.

You need to make it lighter.... ;)

2001 Renault Laguna 1.9 diesel. On the A1 this morning I was getting 62mpg. Usual consumption over a few thousand miles is about 51mpg (including about 25% town driving) . Not bad for a car that's done 115k miles!

Having only just changed cars from a petrol Seat Ibiza Cupra to a Skoda Fabia vRS SE the difference in MPG is a lot. Used to average between 25-30 for travelling to work - now it's 45-50. And driving back from North Wales on Friday I averaged over 60MPG. Yes I know diesel is more expensive but with the cheaper car tax, don't know why I didn't do it earlier.

You seriously got 60mpg out of a Fabia Vrs? My other half has moved on to an Octy Vrs but even I could never get more than 55mpg out his old Fabia VRs.

My Fiesta ST still beats the Octy on MPG though. :D

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Originally Posted by Kneeslider

..... optimised squish, .

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Pardon my lack of knowledge Kneeslider, but what is 'optimised squish'?

Cheers.Gobber

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Originally Posted by GridGirl

You seriously got 60mpg out of a Fabia Vrs? My other half has moved on to an Octy Vrs but even I could never get more than 55mpg out his old Fabia VRs.

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That's no problem from a vRS. :) I've got the same engine in my Ibiza FR and I've seen some very good figures from it, especially on long motorway journeys. Even on the local roads round here, I can go about in 6th gear and get a good MPG from it. All down to driving style I guess. I've learned how to drive it economically when I want to, but of course the power's still there to give it a bit of stick if need be. :D

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Originally Posted by Gobber

Pardon my lack of knowledge Kneeslider, but what is 'optimised squish'?

Cheers.Gobber

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Squish clearance is the technical term for the minimum clearance you can get away with between the piston and the cylinder head. Obviously you don't want the piston to come into contact with the cylinder head or valves, but at the same time, if you have a big clearance, then the compression ratio will suffer. The clearance between the valves and the piston can be adjusted by dialing in the cams.

You can measure the squish by using plastiguages attached to the piston, then you turn the engine over and measure the thickness of the plastiguage. Then if it is too big, you can either skim the head or fit a thinner base gasket.

[quote="Kneeslider"]Just for the curiosity value, I once measured the mpg of my Ducati 750ss on a track day at Cadwell, and was astonished to find that over 90miles covered on the track it was still doing 36mpg.

you cant have been going very fast then heh heh

He's just skinny :p :

6 days until I get my new motor :D

Since the beginning of the month I have had between 31 and 44 mpg :mark: The latter was obviously largely motorway miles but I'm not quite sure went wrong for the 31 :D

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Originally Posted by AndyRAC

Having only just changed cars from a petrol Seat Ibiza Cupra to a Skoda Fabia vRS SE the difference in MPG is a lot. Used to average between 25-30 for travelling to work - now it's 45-50. And driving back from North Wales on Friday I averaged over 60MPG. Yes I know diesel is more expensive but with the cheaper car tax, don't know why I didn't do it earlier.

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My diesel Fiesta was supposed to be ready to pick up in 2 weeks time. I just rang the dealer today to ask how it is going they are now saying it'll be another 6 weeks from now :(

PS My car is still returning 37MPG, at least it's consistent :p

Its all about big right feet !My Merc C220 D ,normally aspirated will return 55MPG .My Kia sorento XT will return 50MPG .,if kept below 60MPH,and 24MPG towing a large German caravan at 65MPH.And my 01 fiesta 1.8TD will return nearly 60 MPG on driving tuition.All by steady 5th gear driving.The tuition with the fiesta is a variety of fast intertown driving and also town work

Mark, do you ever get yours cars when you either want them or are told you'll get them?

I took my car in for service on Saturday and when I went to pick it up the guy was telling me about the things that needed doing.
Ford man - 'Did you know your front numberplate was broken?'
Me - 'Yeah, it was pretty obvious after I'd hit the car infront'
Ford man just sighed, I could tell he was there thinking women drivers. I didnt mind because they managed to fix my air-con. :D Now it works again I'll have to prove I've learnt my lesson and actually use it. That'll worsen my fuel economy, oh well.

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Originally Posted by GridGirl

Mark, do you ever get yours cars when you either want them or are told you'll get them?

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Of course not. My last car I was supposed to get in 2 weeks, ended up being 4. You'd think I'd learn my lesson by now and multiply everything by 2!

Obviously the dealer was talking about "end of October" for delivery and didn't really have a single clue. I wouldn't mind so much if I wasn't doing so many miles at the moment, I've already put off getting a diesel for several months waiting for the new fiesta models coming out, it's costing me a fortune in petrol!

Shoulda gone to Morley Ford ;)

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Originally Posted by GridGirl

Shoulda gone to Morley Ford ;)

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That's the frustrating thing, that it wouldn't have made any different which dealer I go to as they all get the cars from the same place!

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Originally Posted by Kneeslider

Its quite surprising how much you can get out of a gallon if you really try, and it doesn't necessarily involve driving like a granny either.

I run a 2.5 Boxster, and when I bought it, I looked at the official euro fuel consumption figures as that was one of the considerations when buying that car over something like an Audi TT. It's pretty easy to beat the 'official' numbers, so I looked into how the official numbers are arrived at.

It turns out, that there is a standardised procedure for doing an MPG test on each car, and all tests are done on a rolling road, by 'drivers' who are representatives of the manufacturer, and so they have a vested interest in trying to get the best numbers possible. So, you would have thought that the MPG figs produced by the manufacturer would be pretty hard to beat?

Not so!

After having had a think about it, a rolling road really isn't the best way to determine these things, as it can't take account of two major factors.

1, The weight of the vehicle
2, The drag (0r more simply how aerodynamic the vehicle is)

So, a car which is heavy, and with brick like aerodynamics will do comparitively well in the test, but give rubbish figs in the real world, and a car which is fairly light, and aerodynamic will do poorly on the test, but will give better figures on the road.

Now, I couldn't find much out about this rolling road test, but surely it can't be that simple, can it? The way I see it, the testing procedure must be flawed. Does anyone know anything about how the official mpg figs are arrived at?

It wouldn't normally matter much, but these days the car tax is calculated according to the CO2/km (a stupider measure would be hard to think of, what is wrong with plain old MPG which anyone can work out?) so there are financial consequences for car owners if the testing isn't properly accurate, especially if it means paying hundreds of pounds a year more or less.

Anyway, I never get less than 30mpg out of my Porsche, and on one motorway run, at a more or less steady 70-75mpg managed 36mpg. If I were to buy a post 51 reg model, then the road tax would go up from £210/yr, to £380-£400/yr, this would plainly not be fair, as I get better mpg than many, but would be taxed more highly!

Anyway, no point complaining about tax, 'they' will have your money off you whatever you do... Just don't expect me to be voting labour in the next election.

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You know I read your post a few months ago and thought "Is he for real? Is that how they measure fuel consumption?"

Well...... yes it it, at least in the US but I'm sure it's the same here

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/28004-...explained1.htm

What a crock of poop.

Funny thing is I took the Caroline's Subaru out for 90 something mile roundtrip with her in the passenger seat and got 37mpg out of it. 40mpg would be doable with one person in the car and driving like a saint.

Now I'd publicly like to call BS on Fizzi's argument that you can't 200bhp and 45-50 mpg out of a petrol car. Caroline's car is 4wd, 15 years old, it's got 200bhp, it's got an engine that's got it's roots firmly in the 80's and it's got 200k miles on the clock and it can do this in real life conditions and not just on a rolling road.

I too now share Kneesliders dismay that CO2 figures and economy figures are worked out on a rolling road rather than at least on a test track with lots of runs being done and things being averaged out. Sure these figures are alright for comparing from car to car but they bear little or no resemblance to what you will actually get in real life and they don't take into account whether you're driving something which is overweight and lardy or not very aerodynamic.

I reckon that driving 50 runs on a timed circuit on different configurations for combined, extra urban and urban consumption with factory supplied drivers would be far better for working these sort of figures out.

Using cruise control and traveling at around 100 kph, I get a figure around 7 litres per 100 km, which translates to around 33.531638MPG for my Cross Country. Of course, this is only an approximate estimation.

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Originally Posted by Valve Bounce

Using cruise control and traveling at around 100 kph, I get a figure around 7 litres per 100 km, which translates to around 33.531638MPG for my Cross Country. Of course, this is only an approximate estimation.

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Actually works out at 40mpg VB :) Perhaps you were using US gallons?

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Actually works out at 40mpg VB :) Perhaps you were using US gallons?

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I don't know - my eyes were getting kinda blurry, and I couldn't read the slide rule so good. :(

I just got the conversion figures from google.

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Originally Posted by Valve Bounce

I don't know - my eyes were getting kinda blurry, and I couldn't read the slide rule so good. :(

I just got the conversion figures from google.

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Showing your age there with the use of a slide rule ;) My dad has a slide rule!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Showing your age there with the use of a slide rule ;) My dad has a slide rule!!!!!!

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And if you said use a calculator you'd be showing your age there too. You just need your mobile phone these days :p

I'm waiting for the day when all mobiles have laser measurement tools in them too :p

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Originally Posted by Mr Jan Yeo

When I had the induction kit on it I usually managed about 33-37 mpg (doing basic rough maths) with combined from my 1.6 Civic. Trouble is that the noise was quite nice so had a tendency to drive everywhere in a gear too low and rev it to about 6700 all the time (yup, basically I drive like a t***).

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Oh for the days of a heady 33 mpg :( Used a tank of fuel in around 220 miles in the MR2 which I worked out to about 23 mpg :eek: Mind you that is while the car is still new and my foot was a bit heavy. Got a new job which will be about a 15-20 mile commute now so will definately be a bit more careful, especially as I'm using Optimax, or whatever they call it now.

Oh and to get my MPG I do indeed use a mobile phone and take 4.54 litres to the gallon :)

about 39

My rather pedestrian 200hp Chevy Lumina LTZ with a 3.8l v6 sucks it back at 33 mpg on the highway but about 20 and change around town. That said, I have full room for four and a big trunk that will swallow 4 sets of golf clubs. It will cruise at 60 mph effortlessly and if I chose to break the law (nudge nudge wink wink ) it will run right past 100mph without much effort.

Those of you in Europe can say what you like about North American cars, and a lot of it is true, but I can say for the money, our bigger cars over here do pretty well and are well suited to our road conditions.

AS for my work ride, it has a Detroit Diesel 60 series 12.7 liter with a turbo putting out 515 hp. It will tow 20000 lbs of freight without giving up much on hills and I can average 6.8 to 8 mpg depending on the terrain and air temperature. It's maximum payload in the trailer of 45000 lbs. plus will knock the mileage down to the 5's and 6's but when you consider the efficiency in carrying capacity, it is quite the miracle how one gallon of Diesel is capable of that much power. I think for any application where power, and not speed is a factor, whether it be a big car or in a truck, the diesel is the wave of the near future.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

My rather pedestrian 200hp Chevy Lumina LTZ with a 3.8l v6 sucks it back at 33 mpg on the highway but about 20 and change around town. That said, I have full room for four and a big trunk that will swallow 4 sets of golf clubs. It will cruise at 60 mph effortlessly and if I chose to break the law (nudge nudge wink wink ) it will run right past 100mph without much effort.

Those of you in Europe can say what you like about North American cars, and a lot of it is true, but I can say for the money, our bigger cars over here do pretty well and are well suited to our road conditions.

AS for my work ride, it has a Detroit Diesel 60 series 12.7 liter with a turbo putting out 515 hp. It will tow 20000 lbs of freight without giving up much on hills and I can average 6.8 to 8 mpg depending on the terrain and air temperature. It's maximum payload in the trailer of 45000 lbs. plus will knock the mileage down to the 5's and 6's but when you consider the efficiency in carrying capacity, it is quite the miracle how one gallon of Diesel is capable of that much power. I think for any application where power, and not speed is a factor, whether it be a big car or in a truck, the diesel is the wave of the near future.

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33 US MPG is just under 40mpg :) Not bad :)

pretty bad for me...it's like 12 km per litre on the highway and 9 on the city roads..

well the roads are too overcrowded :bigcry:

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Originally Posted by Daniel

33 US MPG is just under 40mpg :) Not bad :)

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No Daniel, that is 33 MPG in Imperial gallons, in US Gallons I would be getting around 27. The US Gallon and Imperial one are not that far apart. Canadian gallons when we had em were the same as those in the UK.

My mileage aint that great compared to what you guys see, but I am only paying right now 80 cents a litre for gas ( so about $3.30 or so a gallon )

Still paying more than the Americans though. They were selling gas in NY State yesterday for less than 2 dollars a gallon and NY has some of the highest prices in the US outside of California and Hawaii. That would be about $2.40 Canadian. If fuel costs here what it does in the UK, I would have a 4 cylinder no question.

It is a little puzzling that when oil was around $1.40 a barrel we were paying about $1.38 to $1.34 per litre and now with oil at about $35 a barrel we are paying .80 to .85 a litre. (local stations) And .5 difference a litre is about .22 a gallon from station to station.
Something is a little out of whack here.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

No Daniel, that is 33 MPG in Imperial gallons, in US Gallons I would be getting around 27. The US Gallon and Imperial one are not that far apart. Canadian gallons when we had em were the same as those in the UK.

My mileage aint that great compared to what you guys see, but I am only paying right now 80 cents a litre for gas ( so about $3.30 or so a gallon )

Still paying more than the Americans though. They were selling gas in NY State yesterday for less than 2 dollars a gallon and NY has some of the highest prices in the US outside of California and Hawaii. That would be about $2.40 Canadian. If fuel costs here what it does in the UK, I would have a 4 cylinder no question.

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Sorry, was assuming you were using merican gallons :)

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Sorry, was assuming you were using merican gallons :)

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Daniel, contrary to popular belief, I am a very proud member of the Commonwealth. When we Canucks say Gallons, we are using the same ones you guys would think of. I only sound American in my posts on occasion....but the minute I am thought of as one, I do get a little touchy. Us Canadians live with an identity crisis...lol...we know we are not Americans but we are not sure what we are after that. Then we go to the pub, watch a hockey game on TV with a beer and forget it all....

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Daniel, contrary to popular belief, I am a very proud member of the Commonwealth. When we Canucks say Gallons, we are using the same ones you guys would think of. I only sound American in my posts on occasion....but the minute I am thought of as one, I do get a little touchy. Us Canadians live with an identity crisis...lol...we know we are not Americans but we are not sure what we are after that. Then we go to the pub, watch a hockey game on TV with a beer and forget it all....

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I just made the assumption that because you were just above the US you'd use their measurements :p I can assure you this won't happen again :p

My truck (V8 4x4, supercab) 12-14 around town, about 20 highway

SUV (Inline 6 with more HP than the truck) 13-15 around town 22-25 highway

Saturn (4 banger econo car) 30-35 town, have reached 45+ highway

All in US gallons MPG.

My Tundra V8 4.7 gets 19 on the highway U.S. I'd prefer not to know what it gets around town! :(
My Aprillia 750 gets a combined 38 U.S. :)

Found something which I thought some of you might find interesting :)

It's basically a site called Fuelly which allows you to record all your fuel ups and keep track of fuel economy :)

My fuel economy on the 500 is a bit inaccurate at the moment as the first couple of times when I filled it up I didn't really fill it up but I'm getting about 50mpg out of the little beastie at the moment with 800 miles on the clock.
http://www.fuelly.com/sig-uk/22808.png