MPG and your reasons!!!

[Pan Pan]

Mr Potato Head said:

When looking at a new car, I like the thought of good economy. When you see things like a Honda Civic 1.6 diesel does 80mpg or something like that, compared to the 30mpg I currently get.

Then I think, well cars will drive themselves in a few years, so need to enjoy it while we still can, although rare enough these days anyway.

The thing I hate filling up a 25-30mpg car is going to the fuel station, and having to pay £80 odd quid every couple of weeks.

But then I see Mr Range Rover bombing it down the motorway at 100 drinking fuel and that must cost a fortune.

I now just play the ignorance is bliss, and just drive and don't really look at MPG. Just fill up when the light comes on.

If speed was not limited by road conditions, posted limits, road works etc, then there would likely be a difference in journey times, between a same model petrol, and diesel engined car, but with these restrictions, the difference in journey times between the two types, is not likely to be significant. (especially if one factors in the the time taken to queue, and fill up with fuel at fuel stations)
I just love sailing past fuel station, after fuel station on a long run (especially on the continent)
when the fuel stations are rammed with cars queuing to get to the pumps, and being free of the worry of not having enough fuel to get home if some strike, industrial action takes place. As posted before choice should be based on the type of driving a person will do. I do up to 42 thousand miles a year, so diesel makes the most sense for my everyday driver.

[RizzoTheRat]

I used to do 30k miles per year, the majority on company mileage, my old ZX doing 50mpg and, towards the end of that job, running on veg oil, averaged about 7 pence per mile profit over 100k miles.

Working locally at the moment but the two main customers I tend to do contract work for are 90 and 150 mile round trips, and I can often spend 3 or 4 months working on their sites. Company pays me 45p/mile and commuting's fairly boring so a nippy diesel makes perfect sense to me. Averaging 47mpg from my Octavia vRS (the 150 mile site is mainly motorway so I average over 50 when I'm down there) and it's quick enough to overtake on the single carriageways.

If I want to go faster or have more fun I take my motorbike.

[InductionRoar]

I am fortunate enough to live only 1 mile from work so I walk come rain or shine.

Weekend (and only) car is pretty economical all things considered with the average I have achieved over the last few journeys being 26 MPG. Clearly, it is very easy to achieve much lower figures with generous loud pedal activation.

To be fair for the amount of use it gets it wouldn't really matter if it got 10 MPG but I cannot deny it is nice to have to visit the petrol station less frequently than if I owned some more exotic machinery.

If on the other hand I had a long commute to work every day I would run the most boring and economical car I could.

[anonymous-user]

I do 12,000m per year, the car is 11 years old and cost £2500. Mpg isn't my major concern compared to maintenance costs, the fact that it does 25mpg isn't a big issue because it's unlikely to suffer any major problems. By far the most expensive car that I've run was a 48mpg diesel, because it was a piece of st that cost a small fortune to keep running.

[Fastdruid]

RizzoTheRat said:

I used to do 30k miles per year, the majority on company mileage, my old ZX doing 50mpg and, towards the end of that job, running on veg oil, averaged about 7 pence per mile profit over 100k miles.

For my business miles I get ~7.8p profit out of a 2.5T doing ~36mpg (but obviously less if you add in tyres, servicing, VED etc etc)

It also works out better the more miles I do, at the moment my car costs me ~£292 per month for everything except insurance. If I was to do an extra 10k per year it would be £258. As I get a car allowance (which works out after tax to be ~£330 per month) I'm laughing even at my personal (mostly round town) mpg of 24-26.

Edited by Fastdruid on Tuesday 26th August 11:32

[RizzoTheRat]

Fastdruid said:

RizzoTheRat said:

I used to do 30k miles per year, the majority on company mileage, my old ZX doing 50mpg and, towards the end of that job, running on veg oil, averaged about 7 pence per mile profit over 100k miles.

For my business miles I get ~7.8p profit out of a 2.5T doing ~36mpg (but obviously less if you add in tyres, servicing, VED etc etc)

That was everything including depreciation on my combined business and private mileage, although I was paying under £1/litre for fuel at the time, and I think about 50p/litre for veg oil.

[Fastdruid]

RizzoTheRat said:

Fastdruid said:

RizzoTheRat said:

I used to do 30k miles per year, the majority on company mileage, my old ZX doing 50mpg and, towards the end of that job, running on veg oil, averaged about 7 pence per mile profit over 100k miles.

For my business miles I get ~7.8p profit out of a 2.5T doing ~36mpg (but obviously less if you add in tyres, servicing, VED etc etc)

That was everything including depreciation on my combined business and private mileage, although I was paying under £1/litre for fuel at the time, and I think about 50p/litre for veg oil.

Ah, my profit with *everything* is 19.5p per mile. (guessing of course somewhat as to the depreciation).

[RizzoTheRat]

Your profit with everything is more than if you don't include servicing etc?

Depreciation on mine was easy enough to work out, I got £90 from the scrappy when the radius arm bearings failed at 198k miles about 2 months after I stopped doing that commute

[Fastdruid]

RizzoTheRat said:

Your profit with everything is more than if you don't include servicing etc?

Yes. Because then while I'm including servicing, tyres, ved I'm also including the car allowance and the "final value".

Essentially including everything I'm ~£35 in profit every month and at the end of the two year loan period I'll have a car worth at a guess 3.8k.

[RizzoTheRat]

Sounds like a good deal. I was just on basic mileage rate.

[Fastdruid]

RizzoTheRat said:

Sounds like a good deal. I was just on basic mileage rate.

I picked the 2.5T specifically because it actually works out better than a diesel for larger business mileages and small personal ones as the rate is 24p/mile against 14p/mile. Basically looking at the chart at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cars/advisory_fuel_current.... and ensure your car is better than the mean for the type/size.

For mine that's 24mpg which is easy to substantially beat. I figure that averaging 36mpg for business use is the equivalent "profit" to doing ~73mpg in a <2l diesel (ignoring everything apart from fuel).

Oh and it also raises the bar for claiming tax relief from HMRC, for a <2l diesel you hit that limit at ~8k and then you have to self assess, on mine it's 50k.

[PorkRind]

My car is a balance between mpg and fun, 30 mpg on a run and high teens when booting it. Sure, its not the most involving drive but probably one of the better cars I could find that would do 30 mpg and have 270 brake, handle well, look good, nice interior etc..
Running a second car did come up as an idea but the maths didnt really add up for me..

[daemon]

neil1jnr said:

I believe those figures, I thought you had a 2L tdi.

But my point was referring to the claims, like you made too, of your car doing 80-90mpg, or 98mpg you said. Even if you can achieve this figures on a single run, getting anywhere near those figures averaged over an entire tank, driving normally, is impossible.

If you are happy with your car then great. I am just not willing anymore to drive a diesel again for my commute. If in future I can't share a lift, and have to do 80 miles every day instead of every second day I'll consider diesel again IF there is a big improvement in mpg over my last diesel.

yes, totally agree.

[daemon]

Red16 said:

If you got a penny from every driver you hinder and annoy going to/from work driving as slowly as you do to achieve those high MPG figures you could probably commute to work for free.

55mph in traffic doing 55mph. Not hindering anybody.

[Paraicj]

Currently doing 30-32MPG and travelling 300+ miles per week. It's a bit of a drain. Fortunately my new house and job will be much closer together so might look at something with lower MPG

[skinny]

to me, mpg is probably more important than how much i actually spend on fuel. i'd rather take a 5 mile detour than crawl along in a traffic jam for 15 minutes

i care about mpg in that when i'm not putting my foot down, i want the car to be reasonably efficient so that i have lots of lovely petrol left for when i have a play. but i'm bored of anyone telling me that if i care about mpg, i should have bought a more effecient car. i enjoy driving, doesn't mean i enjoy filling it up all the time.

[TurboHatchback]

I care about mpg as I have limited financial means and journeys I need/want to make. I sold my previous car as it turns out I am doing ~20k a year and it did 18mpg which works out at roughly £8k a year in fuel. I bought a sensible economical hatchback (Mk5 GTI) to save money, it does over double the mpg so that is £4k a year saved which is a lot to me.

[mp3manager]

daemon said:

Red16 said:

If you got a penny from every driver you hinder and annoy going to/from work driving as slowly as you do to achieve those high MPG figures you could probably commute to work for free.

55mph in traffic doing 55mph. Not hindering anybody.

Except when moving off from a junction or lights.

I don't expect a 0-60 dash but I do expect reasonable acceleration away from a standstill.
In my Integra DC5, I block change from 1st, 3rd to 6th at 3k rpm, and I'm still being held up by slow-ass, driving-miss-daisy diesel drivers.
Same thing happens when I'm driving the truck with an auto-box and pulling 35tons!

[Studio117]

Don't care for it. I simply wouldn't put up with some of these frankly stupid commutes via car which require +30mpg.

More to life than that.

[Pan Pan]

Studio117 said:

Don't care for it. I simply wouldn't put up with some of these frankly stupid commutes via car which require +30mpg.

More to life than that.

This may come as a surprise, but there are some places that can `only' be reached by a car commute in terms of distance, costs, convenience. availability of a suitable job.
Of course if someone likes driving, then even a car commute is not really a chore, since one never stops learning about the activity, and what can happen, no matter how outlandish or unexpected.