least fuel efficient car? nothing 'obscure'

[thejpster]

I only get 70 mpg out of my ForTwo when the book says more like 83 mpg.

I'll get my coat ...

[acricha3]

otolith said:

acricha3 said:

I average about 22-25mpg every fill up, nice mix of motorway into and out of London and awful stop start on the way to work (this is what kills it). I can get 28-30mpg on a long run (driving around 75mph (keep it less than 4k RPM is the key!) all the way, boring but doable).

192, by any chance? That's pretty good going if a 231.

Nope 231! Took me a long time to work out how to get even close to the manufacturer figures, trick is gentle throttle inputs within the 2k to 4k RPM band. The standard ECU overfuels hugely if it thinks you want to accelerate in a decent fashion (especially from a low RPM) as it helps supress detonation that knocks the tips out, a case of Mazda being too cautious for their own good!

Admittedly I can easily get it down to single figures if I'm up at my parents having a thrash! :-D

I was quite dissapointed by a 370z I test drove recently as it seemed to drink the same (if not a tad more) petrol.

I think its a simple case of bhp equals fuel + air, therefore for the same amount of bhp you will always end up consuming a similar amount of petrol regardless of the engine/car. Where some cars seem to excel is at part throttle consumption which is why you see the likes of my dads car getting 35-40mpg on a run but dropping down to single figures with the rest of us when being thrashed!

[tali1]

Rollcage said:

tali1 said:

Herman Toothrot said:

doug1e1972 said:

i get 28 mpg average out of my sportka

That st, so far for me its the most impressive figure quoted. A car that small with so little power returning such a poor figure.

Nah WAYYYYY OFF -try mine - urban mpg over last 20 years- and that's dawdling along(although thrashing had no effect whatsover -in fact nothing increased/decreased mpg)
33 mpg Nissan Micra 1.0 (4 of them) 55BHP
23 mpg -94pug 405td 92BHP
22mpg -87mg montego turbo
18-22mpg -83toyota camry 1.8 90BHP
18mgg 03 peugeot 307 1.6 110bhp
17-mpg -91citroen ax gt 85BHP
17 mpg -80 toyota starlet 1.2 55BHP
16mpg -85montego 1.6 90BHP
15mpg -99mondeo 2.0auto - 12 mpg with a/c on 125BHP
14mpg - 01 rover 75 2.5

Edited by tali1 on Thursday 30th December 20:32

You are doing something wrong.

23mpg out of a 405TD isn't achievable in the real world, unless it was terminally sick or you were towing a small house.

Engine was smokey. .Managed 34mpg on m/way.Oh ,and Autocar road test they only got 31MPG average
BTW my brothers friend has had FOUR Toyota Surf 3.0TD ALL did -13MPG -even his BMW x5 4.8 gets better mpg urban

Cost Captain said:

MondeoMan1981 said:

tali1 said:

Herman Toothrot said:

doug1e1972 said:

i get 28 mpg average out of my sportka

That st, so far for me its the most impressive figure quoted. A car that small with so little power returning such a poor figure.

Nah WAYYYYY OFF -try mine - urban mpg over last 20 years- and that's dawdling along(although thrashing had no effect whatsover -in fact nothing increased/decreased mpg)

18mgg 03 peugeot 307 1.6 110bhp

Edited by tali1 on Thursday 30th December 20:32

I had one of these and even with 2000 miles on the clock it would happily average 36-39mpg in my driving, which at the time was a good 80% urban.

my 250bhp, 3.2 v6 1700 kg audi a3 will do 16mpg crawling in traffic through central london. so you're either lying, driving like a tt, or the car was about to die a horrific death due to massive overfueling (not that overfueling is worse than underfueling. but still. my god, that's just not right).

Edited by Cost Captain on Thursday 30th December 22:39

100% NO thrashing
Car drove fine -pulled well no probs , nice idler
M/way 28mpg ,then 25mpg and AFTER SERVICE 22MPG-although urban did improve to 20mpg

Edited by tali1 on Thursday 30th December 22:46

[Eagerbeaver]

All of this just goes to show - we don't give a st about the price of petrol. I spend a lower proportion of my income on petrol than my dad did in the early 70s doing similar jobs and similar miles.

He drove a 1.6 Cortina - I drive a BMW Z4M!!!

[Mr Gearchange]

Subaru Legacy. 21.3 average over the last 10K.
15mpg around town. 9mpg until the engine warms.

[pacman1]

read5458 said:

4.2mpg from Jezz Clarksons GT40

4.2mpg? Pah!

4.2gpm..

[marcosgt]

dave9 said:

edo said:

rx8.

which is prob why at 4k they are great value. this months evo had their fleet car at 21.8 mpg which whilst bad isn't bad enough!

Mine usually averages about that too.

It IS the RX8's Achilles Heel, but heh ho, short of buying a Diesel I'm not going to get much better fuel consumption from anything similar if I drive them fast (The RX8's flaw is that it tends to do about 22 MPG no matter how I drive it...)

M.

Edited by marcosgt on Thursday 30th December 22:50

[cptsideways]

pacman1 said:

read5458 said:

4.2mpg from Jezz Clarksons GT40

4.2mpg? Pah!

4.2gpm..

That's excusable with 27 litres under the bonnet

[Pigeon]

My Volvo 164 does about 20 to the gallon but seems to use less if you drive it faster...

Mate had a Yank tank once, a Pontiac I think it was, that we could never get running right because a few minutes of idling and tweaking things used to empty the tank long before our tweaking had done any good...

[Elskeggso]

davepoth said:

Win.

Is that the 42-odd litre V12 jobby? It must do GPM rather than MPG

[kayzee]

Have only owned my Impreza WRX STI PPP for a few weeks now, but have worked out it's running about 9MPG. Painful!

[Mattt]

Let me guess - you've got a fuel card from work including private mileage, and you want the best car possible for it?

[dave_s13]

tali1 said:

Herman Toothrot said:

doug1e1972 said:

i get 28 mpg average out of my sportka

That st, so far for me its the most impressive figure quoted. A car that small with so little power returning such a poor figure.

Nah WAYYYYY OFF -try mine - urban mpg over last 20 years- and that's dawdling along(although thrashing had no effect whatsover -in fact nothing increased/decreased mpg)
33 mpg Nissan Micra 1.0 (4 of them) 55BHP
23 mpg -94pug 405td 92BHP
22mpg -87mg montego turbo
18-22mpg -83toyota camry 1.8 90BHP
18mgg 03 peugeot 307 1.6 110bhp
17-mpg -91citroen ax gt 85BHP
17 mpg -80 toyota starlet 1.2 55BHP
16mpg -85montego 1.6 90BHP
15mpg -99mondeo 2.0auto - 12 mpg with a/c on 125BHP
14mpg - 01 rover 75 2.5

Edited by tali1 on Thursday 30th December 20:32

Eh??

That's useless information, "urban"?? How do you calculate an Urban figure?

Surely the only figure relavant to running costs is the combined one??

BTW I had a pug 405td and it would do 600 odd miles on a tank...23mpg WTF!?!

[spud989]

W7NNS said:

stackmonkey said:

edo said:

rx8.

+1 for this. Every owner I've spoken to has said mid teens mpg.

Only had mine a month and it makes me cry every time I have to fill up. Last night it cost me £35 to get to Manchester and back - a round trip of just 80 miles. Works out about 12.5 mpg Not helped by Super Unleaded being 129.9 now.

Don't bother - wankel engines don't benefit from increased RON.

[otolith]

acricha3 said:

otolith said:

acricha3 said:

I average about 22-25mpg every fill up, nice mix of motorway into and out of London and awful stop start on the way to work (this is what kills it). I can get 28-30mpg on a long run (driving around 75mph (keep it less than 4k RPM is the key!) all the way, boring but doable).

192, by any chance? That's pretty good going if a 231.

Nope 231! Took me a long time to work out how to get even close to the manufacturer figures, trick is gentle throttle inputs within the 2k to 4k RPM band.

That's better than most people get. I typically used to get high 20's on a motorway run, and saw 30 once, but 20mpg day to day was about normal for my use. Having said that, my use was almost all B-roads

[anonymous-user]

A Murcielago is apparently more inefficient than a Veyron with 8mpg in the city and 13mpg on the motorway. I think that might be the lowest current production car.

[k-ink]

I've emptied half a tank of petrol in 20 miles in a Prodrive Subaru. It was 3am in the summer and was on boost for maybe 80% of the time. Do the maths!

[Willy Nilly]

We don't get quoted figures for efficiency, just economy. They are two different things. Efficiency is work out for fuel in (grammes of fuel per killowatt hour) 200 g/kw hr is pretty good. Don't know the specific fuel consumption of my 1.4 litre car, but I'll guess it is poorer than "my" 6.6 litre tractor

[markcoznottz]

MSTRBKR said:

A Murcielago is apparently more inefficient than a Veyron with 8mpg in the city and 13mpg on the motorway. I think that might be the lowest current production car.

Yep, and was the most polluting car on sale, although the murci is currently out of production now. Its an ancient engine, which is why the murci has an all new design of v12.

[tali1]

dave_s13 said:

tali1 said:

Herman Toothrot said:

doug1e1972 said:

i get 28 mpg average out of my sportka

That st, so far for me its the most impressive figure quoted. A car that small with so little power returning such a poor figure.

Nah WAYYYYY OFF -try mine - urban mpg over last 20 years- and that's dawdling along(although thrashing had no effect whatsover -in fact nothing increased/decreased mpg)
33 mpg Nissan Micra 1.0 (4 of them) 55BHP
23 mpg -94pug 405td 92BHP
22mpg -87mg montego turbo
18-22mpg -83toyota camry 1.8 90BHP
18mgg 03 peugeot 307 1.6 110bhp
17-mpg -91citroen ax gt 85BHP
17 mpg -80 toyota starlet 1.2 55BHP
16mpg -85montego 1.6 90BHP
15mpg -99mondeo 2.0auto - 12 mpg with a/c on 125BHP
14mpg - 01 rover 75 2.5

Edited by tali1 on Thursday 30th December 20:32

Eh??

That's useless information, "urban"?? How do you calculate an Urban figure?

Surely the only figure relavant to running costs is the combined one??

BTW I had a pug 405td and it would do 600 odd miles on a tank...23mpg WTF!?!

WRONG -Urban is certainly not useless information- it was used by car makers MPG figures before they switched to "city"
I used the urban figure because 99% of my driving is urban ie - non motorway -hence the lack of combined figure