A changed man! Am I turning into an old fart??

[Sifly]

A mate of mine now lives in London and didn't need his little clio DCi anymore. He asked if I could help him get shut of it as it had been parked on his mums driveway near us for a few months. So I went to see it and ended up handing over a few quid to drive it away. It had half a tank of diesel in it, so I thought I would run it for a couple of days.

Two weeks later, I am still running around in it on the same half tank of gas, and the trip computer is saying another 100 miles range in the tank?!! WTF! I have been used to visiting the petrol station in my BMW every two or three days but this was a new experience - life without stopping for fuel every 5 mins!! I can leave for work 5 mins later in a morning for starters.

So this got me thinking! I started driving really efficiently to see how many MPG I could achieve (how sad is that)?! It's quite fun really because you want to cruise at around 60 MPH everywhere. Now this feels a tad slow on the motorway, but becomes quite a challenge on the A and B roads as you try to brake as little as possible (not wasting energy) and try to carry as much speed as possible across roundabouts etc. You read the road ahead alot more, and as soon as you see the traffic lights half a mile ahead change to red, you slip the car into neutral and try to coast up ready to arrive at them still doing 20 MPH in 3rd gear to cruise through without slowing down too much! (at much annoyance of the guy behind no doubt)!

I have got the car averaging 63MPG now, so a full tank (£60) gives the car a range of around 750 miles! Thats 23 round trips to work for me. On top of this, the clio only costs £30 to Road Tax The car is comfy, practical, and costs buttons to run, so I have decided to keep it as an every day run about for me and the missus. One fill up should easily last see us right for a months local driving if not more?!! It will have paid for itself in a few months in fuel savings alone!

Don't despair too much however!! I still have my 911 turbo and BMW M5 for when I need to blow the cob-webs off and go for a hoon!!

[MagicalTrevor]

They are notoriously frugal! Which one do you have and may I ask how much you paid?

Sounds like you've got a nice little runaround

[Steffan]

With the cost of motoring as it is urban travel mitigates towards a very small modern diesel.

So long as you have at least two other cars a drophead and a big saloon.

Long drives mitigate towards a BIG car. Range Rover Sport whatever. Grace Space Pace. As Mr Lyons said of Jaguar (I think).

Drophead's have their own cross country fun.

If I lived in the country I might try only two big car and drophead.

I currently have seven cars but then I am on PH!!

[Sifly]

MagicalTrevor said:

They are notoriously frugal! Which one do you have and may I ask how much you paid?

Sounds like you've got a nice little runaround

It's a 51 plate DCi Dynamique with 97k on the clock. Got it for £650 off my mate.

[al1991]

Sifly said:

MagicalTrevor said:

They are notoriously frugal! Which one do you have and may I ask how much you paid?

Sounds like you've got a nice little runaround

It's a 51 plate DCi Dynamique with 97k on the clock. Got it for £650 off my mate.

Keep it!

[inman999]

Coast up to lights etc in gear, you'll use less fuel.

[CalculatedRisk]

sounds like a keeper! It will give you more pleasure and monies for when you drive your alternative vehicles

[MagicalTrevor]

al1991 said:

Sifly said:

MagicalTrevor said:

They are notoriously frugal! Which one do you have and may I ask how much you paid?

Sounds like you've got a nice little runaround

It's a 51 plate DCi Dynamique with 97k on the clock. Got it for £650 off my mate.

Keep it!

+1 I'd give you more than that for it! Bargain and should be cheap to keep running

[TOPTON]

I'm on my 3rd dci now. The previous one, a 54 plate had just turned over 206k and still going strong. New one doesn't seem quite as economical though, averaging 56 mpg. Maybe on a longer run it will get 65 plus like the older one did.
The 4L tiv in the garage makes up my tax expenditure 20-25mpg

[Lordglenmorangie]

We are all heading that way, bought a tdi Golf for pottering and shopping, goes like stink does 60 to the gallon is over three hundred pounds less to tax than the Pork. I am doing a lot of Chin scratching , the government are turning me into a bloody pensioner

[va1o]

Sounds like an excellent buy, and you'll easily get more than you paid for it when its time to sell on as small modern economical diesels are highly sought after.

[jjones]

mine was doing 75mpg, until i realised it was complementing its diesel with engine oil to the tune of 500ml per 100 miles. turns out the scraper rings were stuck, uneconomical to repair so it got traded in.

[MondeoMan1981]

I ran a 206 1.4HDi for 15 months and it was seriously cheap to run.

Even ragging it returned 55mpg !

I think I'll go diseasel again for my daily runner in future, something with a good spec.

God I am actually getting old.

[Sifly]

inman999 said:

Coast up to lights etc in gear, you'll use less fuel.

So how does that work? Whilst it in gear, the revs are up. As soon as you take it out of gear (or push the clutch in) the revs drop to idle??!

I even thought of making it's economy a bit of a 'tuning' type project to see how economical I could make it. Can anyone add any usefull tips to the following:-

• Fuel additive to clean the fuel system and injectors
• Get rid of extra weight - back seats, etc (might affect its practicality a bit though)!!
• Pump a few extra pounds into the tyres (less resistance.......but less grip)!!
• Tape up body panel gaps to make more aerodynamic (might look a bit stupid)!

Any more?!

Edited by Sifly on Saturday 3rd September 15:50

[james_gt3rs]

Sifly said:

inman999 said:

Coast up to lights etc in gear, you'll use less fuel.

So how does that work? Whilst it in gear, the revs are up. As soon as you take it out of gear (or push the clutch in) the revs drop to idle??!

I don't think he meant coasting, just lifting off instead of taking it out of gear/dipping the clutch.

[EDLT]

Sifly said:

inman999 said:

Coast up to lights etc in gear, you'll use less fuel.

So how does that work? Whilst it in gear, the revs are up. As soon as you take it out of gear (or push the clutch in) the revs drop to idle??!

I even thought of making it's economy a bit of a 'tuning' type project to see how economical I could make it. Can anyone add any usefull tips to the following:-

• Fuel additive to clean the fuel system and injectors
• Get rid of extra weight - back seats, etc (might affect its practicality a bit though)!!
• Pump a few extra pounds into the tyres (less resistance.......but less grip)!!
• Tape up body panel gaps to make more aerodynamic (might look a bit stupid)!

Any more?!

Edited by Sifly on Saturday 3rd September 15:50

When idling a small amount of fuel is injected to keep the engine turning over. When coasting momentum keeps the engine turning so no fuel is injected at all (some cars don't do this, but most modern ones do these days).

Don't start modifying your car for hypermiling, you just end up looking like a nerd.

[Chris71]

Sifly said:

inman999 said:

Coast up to lights etc in gear, you'll use less fuel.

So how does that work? Whilst it in gear, the revs are up. As soon as you take it out of gear (or push the clutch in) the revs drop to idle??!

When you're in gear there is - at the risk of stating the obvious - a connection between the wheels and the engine. Normally this is used to make the engine turn the wheels round, but when you back off the momentum of the car means the wheels end up turning the engine round. In engineering circles it's known as having the engine in a motored state - i.e. something else is turning the engine round.

I've heard it claimed that modern engines sometimes inject no fuel at all on overrun because of this. I suspect, in reality, a certain amount is injected to keep the combustion going, but it will be far less than you'd need to actually produce any useful power.

Coincidentally, all this hypermiling doesn't have to come from diesels. If you can put up with a car the size (or rather weight) of a Clio I reckon you could get 50mpg from the right petrol engine. My 1.1-litre (petrol) Saxo returned high 40s to the gallon without making any particular attempt to be frugal.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Chris71 said:

Coincidentally, all this hypermiling doesn't have to come from diesels. If you can put up with a car the size (or rather weight) of a Clio I reckon you could get 50mpg from the right petrol engine. My 1.1-litre (petrol) Saxo returned high 40s to the gallon without making any particular attempt to be frugal.

Absolutely right. A gallon of diesel only contains about 15% more energy than a gallon of petrol and costs more before you even start. So about 10% max advantage to diesel. then add a bit for "thermal efficiency2 so long as the darned thing is operating in the right rpm range. Then deduct the increased maintenance cost of a diesel...

If I needed a frugal car it would definitely be a small, light petrol car.

Diesel IMO is for big, regular motorway miles.

[Sifly]

Ozzie Osmond said:

Absolutely right. A gallon of diesel only contains about 15% more energy than a gallon of petrol and costs more before you even start. So about 10% max advantage to diesel. then add a bit for "thermal efficiency2 so long as the darned thing is operating in the right rpm range. Then deduct the increased maintenance cost of a diesel...

If I needed a frugal car it would definitely be a small, light petrol car.

Diesel IMO is for big, regular motorway miles.

Yes I would tend to agree.............however, i do find that the extra torque of a diesel means that the clio will pull away from crawling speed easily in 3rd or 4th gear saving on excessive revs!

Anyway, time to take the M5 for a blast I think.........once I've been for fuel first!