getting 8L/100km out of the 2002.. not bad with the carbs. i reckon will drop a bit more with a five speed gearbox.
getting 8L/100km out of the 2002.. not bad with the carbs. i reckon will drop a bit more with a five speed gearbox.
Andreas Preuninger, Manager of Porsche High Performance Cars: "Grandmas can use paddles. They aren't challenging."
Judge yourselves...
Drivetrain: 1.6 litre four cylinder diesel 110bhp, 6 speed manual gearbox. Front wheel drive.
Driving conditions:
- 170km Motorway. Cruising speed 160-180km/h.
- 70km Dual Carriageway (coast). Cruising speed (using cruise control most of the time) 100km/h.
- 76km Dual Carriageway + A-Road (interior). Average speed 110-120km/h. Freuqent rythm changes.
- 23km Mountain Road (Els Àngels). Flat out (average speed low, but using all the engine had to give).
- 80km Mountain Roads (coast and interior). Fast but not pushing it, trying to use taller gears.
- 45km B-Road. Steady rythm. Average speed about 90km/h.
- 25km Ring Road (Barcelona). Cruising speed 80km/h (using the cruise control as much as possible).
- The rest city driving (20km).
Lack of charisma can be fatal.
Visca Catalunya!
Toyota Echo.
38,13mpg (6,17/l 100km)
An it harm none, do as ye will
Approximately 79% of statistics are made up.
Citroën DS4 e-HDi 110.
Bearing in mind I had to test it and I had no regard for fuel consumption whastoever 7,8l/100km (30mpg US / 36mpg UK) isn't bad. It's also important to consider that this is a tallish car with big 225/45 R18 tyres and that the small engine and narrow power band mean you're almost always flat out.
I reckon that in my normal driving (i.e. not a test route) which is mainly motorway an A-roads with a tiny little bit of city and some mountain roads thrown in for good measure (not in the awful Citroën, though...) fuel consumption could get down to 7l/100km (34mpg US / 40mpg UK) maybe 6,5l/100km if I really concentrated and conditions were exceptionally good (36 mpg US / 43mpg UK). Any lower than that would require a serious drop in average speeds.
Thanks to the 60 litre (15.9 US gal. / 13.2 imp. gal.) tank range is good, though. It must be around 850km (530 miles).
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Ah, the DS4 maybe not so good as I had said. Careful cruising could yet yield 6l or better, but you'd have to try (coasting down hills in N or with engine off, etc.). The fact that you pushed it that hard and still returned that kind of economy speaks well, that's not far off from what the peak economy should be. Especially for a tall-ish vehicle with presumably poor aerodynamics and probably too much weight that the 1,6l gets pushed hard to cope with.
The Echo has the 1-NZ-FE 1,5l DOHC 16v four with VVT. Unfortunately it is hooked up to an automatic, but it seems to do well despite that. I have a Scangauge II hooked up currently which I borrowed from my Dad, I think with that I can push it below 6l. Conditions, started out around 15*c, has warmed to mid-high 20'sC since then. Roads have little vertical relief, but are largely paved in chip seal which has very high rolling resistance. It's about 50% in-town, 50% on state highways, roughly equivalent to an A-road. Max speed is around 100km/h. Driving style is definitely best-described as being granny-like: slow, measured acceleration, a cap on my top speed to 90-110km/h, and moving to neutral when I can to glide down a hill or bleed speed rather than wasting it maintaining speed. "Hypermiling" is what they call it, though I am a mild example, there are far more advanced techniques. There are folks squeezing 80mpg/3l/100km out of Honda Civics and 100mpg/2,3l/100km out of Priuses and Gen I Honda Insights. Heck, one person squeezed 53mpg (~4,4l/100km) out of the same car I have but with a manual transmission.
I do wish the Echo had more than a 45l tank. I think all cars regardless should have a 55l+ tank.
Last edited by jcp123; 10-14-2012 at 06:14 PM.
An it harm none, do as ye will
Approximately 79% of statistics are made up.
This car scares me a bit- it's sort of like the Smart car in the sense that it's very light, but at the very least it has 4 doors.
The thing is, it might be too light. My dad has fixed one before, he said he can remove the engine with his bare hands. And he's not a big guy.
But there's no denying it, it gets great mpg.
An it harm none, do as ye will
Approximately 79% of statistics are made up.
I agree with that. I hate stopping for fuel so the bigger the tank the better for me.
I'm not definitely and hypetmiler though, I prefer to be always in gear, you never know what's going to happen next and if you are in neutral the instants while you get the car back in gear might be crucial.
Having said that I don't like wasting fuel, so I try always going for the tallest gear conditions allow if I don't need acceleration and also try to gather speed downhill and gently lose it uphill to use less fuel and average out speeds.
Sticking to speed limits the best I've managed in my car (Mazda MX-5 1.8i, 5 speed manual) is 6,6l/100km (35,6mpg US / 42,8mpg UK). That means that with my little 50l tank (13.2 US gal. / 11 imp. gal.) The most I have gotten out of a tank is 660km (410 miles).
I doubt I can go much lower than that in the Mazda. Mind you this was extremely slow, quite careful driving. I can't take for too long before dropping a couple of gears and flooring it...!
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Visca Catalunya!
That's pretty good for as short as those cars are geared. I would say whatever you are doing, keep doing it!
My own style of getting more fuel economy shuns the stuff the hardcore guys do such as engine off coasting, "pulse and glide" - getting up to a predetermined speed, then coasting back down to a lower predetermined speed, then accelerating back up again - and favours a cap on my top speeds while staying out of the fast lane, and plenty of neutral time. It also involves watching my throttle position to achieve a slow, but steady and measured rate of acceleration. To be honest, the dedicated hypermilers achieve mileage in such a way that they are perhaps the safest drivers around owing to their acute awareness of their surroundings, but that stuff is far too aggravating for me to do. Simple neutral glides don't seem terribly dangerous and in the few years I have been doing it, I have never run into a situation made worse by it. It is the single most effective, and to my mind, least harmful of the techniques practiced. That's why I choose it over most any other of the other techniques I could add.
An it harm none, do as ye will
Approximately 79% of statistics are made up.
Don't be so amazed... yet... my actual average lays aroun the 9l/100km (26 mpg US / 31 mpg UK) mark.
Also they aren't that short geared. My car has a fifth with 35,2km/h (21.9mph) @1.000rpm when there are similar cars with top gears closer to 30km/h (18.6mph) @ 1.000rpm. There also that have longer top gear though...
Lack of charisma can be fatal.
Visca Catalunya!
Ferrer, have you done a new Ferrer review of the MX-5?!
Don't know, can't remember. If I did it must be somewhere on the car's thread.
Lack of charisma can be fatal.
Visca Catalunya!
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