My MPG figures vs The Missus & general cleanliness!
Discussion
Arite guys,
Just wondering if any of you have noticed the difference in the fuel consumption between you're driving and you're partners? Currently my missus is using my ZT and according to the trip computer last week She averaged 21mpg. The same sort of journeys I tend to get nearer 30mpg. Ok its a big heavy car but there is no reason for staying in 3rd on the flat at 30mph and putting the poor thing through hell doing the same speed up a hill in 4th is there??
Now I can live with the fuel wasteage, life is too short too bother but I look after my car & like it clean, sparkling inside & out. She has had it for a week....there is mud up the sides, the alloys are caked in it, there is mud inside, the mats are kicked to one side etc. The reason : the car park that She parks in is 20p a day cheaper than the one that is tarmac'd....but its made of mud, gravel & puddles....but it doesn't matter apparently, i shouldn't be bothered...its only a car!!
Good job I love Her.......the sooner Her car is back on the road the better though!!!
Just wondering if any of you have noticed the difference in the fuel consumption between you're driving and you're partners? Currently my missus is using my ZT and according to the trip computer last week She averaged 21mpg. The same sort of journeys I tend to get nearer 30mpg. Ok its a big heavy car but there is no reason for staying in 3rd on the flat at 30mph and putting the poor thing through hell doing the same speed up a hill in 4th is there??
Now I can live with the fuel wasteage, life is too short too bother but I look after my car & like it clean, sparkling inside & out. She has had it for a week....there is mud up the sides, the alloys are caked in it, there is mud inside, the mats are kicked to one side etc. The reason : the car park that She parks in is 20p a day cheaper than the one that is tarmac'd....but its made of mud, gravel & puddles....but it doesn't matter apparently, i shouldn't be bothered...its only a car!!
Good job I love Her.......the sooner Her car is back on the road the better though!!!
MGgeordie said:
apparently, i shouldn't be bothered...its only a car!!
....
Good job I love Her...
Somehow I'm failing to put these two together!....
Good job I love Her...
My missus doesn't trouble much to keep her own car clean and she's not especially interested in cars at all, but she knows full well mine is my prized possession and that its care and cleanliness is very important to me - as a result she treats it exceptionally, even though she's not bothered much herself, she knows I am so takes just as much care.
There's your problem..
OP I feel your pain, our good car is shared, I use it at nights/weekends, the rest of the time she has it
I have seen me spending an entire day cleaning it inside and out, for it to be caked in mud the following day. Her reasons being a back road saves her sitting in traffic and approx 10 minutes
Hardly surprising I want my own car again
I have seen me spending an entire day cleaning it inside and out, for it to be caked in mud the following day. Her reasons being a back road saves her sitting in traffic and approx 10 minutes
Hardly surprising I want my own car again
Mrs 120d - her driving 43mpg average, me driving 57.8mpg average - both shared a 600+ mile journey over the weekend with similar wind and weather conditions on both days and sharing the driving at opposite points so we both drove the same distance on the same part of road. She doesn't read the road ahead well enough to stay in higher gears (6th not much good under 50mph on her car) and drives with more caution (so on the brakes more and looses momentum in the corners). Not a bad driver but not the most efficent style.
Totally and utterly feel your pain O.P!
Mine is the same and granted at the moment the fleet consists of the bangernomics Volvo and the Cavalier and given the latter rarely ventures outside, the Volvo is the 99.9% useage car given the 850R was sold on a few weeks back. Now, I don't care about it externally - I use it to flatten trees in the yard, I stand on it, the kids run over it, I aim for muddy puddles and uses the braille method for parking. It's great. However, as abused as it is externally, I hate a dirty interior so it's immaculate and always is. Right up until the stage she has it for more than half an hour.
It defies belief how one woman and two small kids can destroy a Volvo interior in so little time. She went to her folks for the weekend with it and when it returned, bloody hell. Crisps, empty water bottles, the entire contents of Ayr beach in the boot, stones, various sticks, more shoes than the three combined own, McDonald's chips under the seats, a size 1 Nike foorprints on the roof (kudos for that one wee man!) and givven the amount of hair I found, how she's not bald I don't know. Plus, I can eek about 140 miles from £20 of fuel so about 45mpg give her take but her? I can only assume she drills holes in the tank as she comes back having done 180 miles and annouces it's used £40 of diesel. I'm not sure that's even possible.
Can't quite fathom it out... the house it tidy, she's always looking immacualte, the boys tidy their rooms and they know the rules of the car (bums on seats, seatbelts on, feet on the floor and put all your crap in a bag) and yet the car just seems to be the place to let off steam.
I'm sure she does it on purpose and then siphons the tank for good measure...
Mine is the same and granted at the moment the fleet consists of the bangernomics Volvo and the Cavalier and given the latter rarely ventures outside, the Volvo is the 99.9% useage car given the 850R was sold on a few weeks back. Now, I don't care about it externally - I use it to flatten trees in the yard, I stand on it, the kids run over it, I aim for muddy puddles and uses the braille method for parking. It's great. However, as abused as it is externally, I hate a dirty interior so it's immaculate and always is. Right up until the stage she has it for more than half an hour.
It defies belief how one woman and two small kids can destroy a Volvo interior in so little time. She went to her folks for the weekend with it and when it returned, bloody hell. Crisps, empty water bottles, the entire contents of Ayr beach in the boot, stones, various sticks, more shoes than the three combined own, McDonald's chips under the seats, a size 1 Nike foorprints on the roof (kudos for that one wee man!) and givven the amount of hair I found, how she's not bald I don't know. Plus, I can eek about 140 miles from £20 of fuel so about 45mpg give her take but her? I can only assume she drills holes in the tank as she comes back having done 180 miles and annouces it's used £40 of diesel. I'm not sure that's even possible.
Can't quite fathom it out... the house it tidy, she's always looking immacualte, the boys tidy their rooms and they know the rules of the car (bums on seats, seatbelts on, feet on the floor and put all your crap in a bag) and yet the car just seems to be the place to let off steam.
I'm sure she does it on purpose and then siphons the tank for good measure...
Yes, She isn't a bad driver, its Her driving style. What I don't understand is the cleanliness. Her car is a little MGF (Allegro with a hood - LOL, that's why its currently broken!) and that never comes home caked in mud, She is always careful where She parks it, moans when its dirty & always wants it sparkling. My ZT must have no appeal whatsoever & is treated like like its a 25 year old escort!!
This could rapidly descend into a "men vs women drivers" thread but it's interesting that so far, it seems us chaps are capable of getting much better economy figures given the same car and driving conditions. It is a bit of an odd one. As said, we do the Fife > Ayr > Fife round trip fairly regularly and given it's 90% motorway door to door, how she manages to burn more fuel is quite odd and that applies to all the cars we've used for the trip. I don't understand how 180 miles at 80ish sees me getting high 40's and yet her, same route, same car and it barely cracks 40. I could understand it if was A roads and so on as yes, she tends to be a little more agressive than I am but a motorway run... how?
Maybe she drives in third all the way or leaves the handbrake on.
Maybe she drives in third all the way or leaves the handbrake on.
Edited by Davie on Tuesday 18th September 11:24
I wouldn't want to turn this into a men v woman argument, but my lady is the same. Last weekend we visited my parents in my car. I drove there, she drove back. I got 28mpg, she got 21mpg. Bizarre as probably 80% of the journey is motorway and neither of us really go above 70. It's an auto as well, so gear changing shouldn't be the issue.
I don't complain though as: 1 - the mpg is bloody awful anyway so I just tend not to think about it, and 2 - I could drive both directions and save a few quid, or let her drive back and have a few beers. Easy choice!
I don't complain though as: 1 - the mpg is bloody awful anyway so I just tend not to think about it, and 2 - I could drive both directions and save a few quid, or let her drive back and have a few beers. Easy choice!
This phenomenon is called BT, which stands for Binary Throttle, it's either on, or off.
Most of the ladies I know tend to apply faster inputs to the throttle rather than "chasing" the rev increase with increased peddle depression.
So the put the pedal to the floor/position they want to reach and wait for the revs to match it rather than pushing the pedal down slowly to keep just ahead of the rev increase till you reach the level you want.
Most of the ladies I know tend to apply faster inputs to the throttle rather than "chasing" the rev increase with increased peddle depression.
So the put the pedal to the floor/position they want to reach and wait for the revs to match it rather than pushing the pedal down slowly to keep just ahead of the rev increase till you reach the level you want.
Daft thing is, when I got the car She asked 'will that use a lot of petrol?'. She hasn't a clue how much it uses anyway, I was thinking of swapping it for a 2.5V6 as the 1.8 is a bit underpowered....you can gaurantee that She won't notice any difference in fuel economy....or power for that matter!!!
My missus is always in one or two gears lower than she should be, down the bypass at sixty in fourth, she gets a face on if I say anything, fuel drops at an alraming rate swhen she uses the car sometimes.
Also, the cleanliness thing, she plucks, buffs, combs, moisturises, exfoliates, trims every single centimetre of her person, she chooses outfits carefully yet will drive round in what is basically like travelling in the back of a council bin wagon, the only way I can tell is the bloody Adele CD on constant loop, you could piece together her last two years from the parking tickets still stuck around the place, post it notes I am on pain of death not to remove and a general air of maloudouresness.
Also, the cleanliness thing, she plucks, buffs, combs, moisturises, exfoliates, trims every single centimetre of her person, she chooses outfits carefully yet will drive round in what is basically like travelling in the back of a council bin wagon, the only way I can tell is the bloody Adele CD on constant loop, you could piece together her last two years from the parking tickets still stuck around the place, post it notes I am on pain of death not to remove and a general air of maloudouresness.
We don't share cars as we have our own, however she is constantly moaning that the fuel consumption on her car is crap and she is correct, this is because:
a) she drives like she stole it
b) she doesn't anticipate what may happen at traffic lights, junctions and a stationary line of traffic, just zooming up to a red light at the back of a stationary car and slamming on the brakes rather than seeing a light is red a fair distance away and lifting off to cruise up to it and chances are before she gets there it will have gone green
c) 50mph in third!
d) drives half a mile to work
e) drives the eldest a mile to work
f) hangs on to gears until the engine is screaming
I point out the reasons why her fuel consumption is rubbish and I just get the usual woman response. I noticed the other day that after about a miles worth of driving the OBC miles left in the tank display had dropped by three miles.
I have even driven it with her in the passanger seat, shown her how to drive smoothly and economicaly, shown her the miles left in the tank display, gone to town and back and even though we have done 5 miles the display had actually gone up, not down, by three miles.
"Oh I can't concentrate on everything when I'm driving" is the usual response I get, I even tell her that driving like she does gets her to her destination no quicker but probably more stressed. She could improve the fuel consumption by 50% easy but she just either can't grasp it or more likely probably doesn't want to admit that maybe I might be right!
a) she drives like she stole it
b) she doesn't anticipate what may happen at traffic lights, junctions and a stationary line of traffic, just zooming up to a red light at the back of a stationary car and slamming on the brakes rather than seeing a light is red a fair distance away and lifting off to cruise up to it and chances are before she gets there it will have gone green
c) 50mph in third!
d) drives half a mile to work
e) drives the eldest a mile to work
f) hangs on to gears until the engine is screaming
I point out the reasons why her fuel consumption is rubbish and I just get the usual woman response. I noticed the other day that after about a miles worth of driving the OBC miles left in the tank display had dropped by three miles.
I have even driven it with her in the passanger seat, shown her how to drive smoothly and economicaly, shown her the miles left in the tank display, gone to town and back and even though we have done 5 miles the display had actually gone up, not down, by three miles.
"Oh I can't concentrate on everything when I'm driving" is the usual response I get, I even tell her that driving like she does gets her to her destination no quicker but probably more stressed. She could improve the fuel consumption by 50% easy but she just either can't grasp it or more likely probably doesn't want to admit that maybe I might be right!
Edited by HTP99 on Tuesday 18th September 12:50
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