4.2 Petrol. Real Life Mpg? If Bad Is Lpg Worth It?

[trutta]

Hi there, I registered previously but for some reason it is not accepting my username or pass. Not to worry.

Anyway, I have been looking out for a Rav4 diesel but finding it nearly impossible to get a decent low mileage model. I have started to look at the petrol 4 wheel drive models and noticed that I will get a lot more car for my 5k budget but I am very wary of the costs of running a petrol 4x4. I will be doing a maximum of 5000 miles a year which will mostly be short journeys in town so I am not too sure that I will get the benefit of a diesel or not. I am mainly looking for another members real life experience with a Rav4 petrol about town, am I being optimistic to expect 70 miles for a tenner if petrol costs £1.17 a litre? If anyone could let me know the average mileage they get for £10 worth of fuel in a 2001-2003 2.0 petrol and diesel for town driving it would really help me make my mind up.

There is also the option of a lpg conversion as I have spied a 2.0 vx petrol with 70k and all the toys that is £1 under budget so it would allow me to fit an lpg conversion within by budget. I know that there are issues with the valves receding but I thought that the flashlube accessory that is separate to the lpg conversion would solve any problems. Thoughts anyone?

Thanks.

[Davrav]

Hi there, I registered previously but for some reason it is not accepting my username or pass. Not to worry.

Anyway, I have been looking out for a Rav4 diesel but finding it nearly impossible to get a decent low mileage model. I have started to look at the petrol 4 wheel drive models and noticed that I will get a lot more car for my 5k budget but I am very wary of the costs of running a petrol 4x4. I will be doing a maximum of 5000 miles a year which will mostly be short journeys in town so I am not too sure that I will get the benefit of a diesel or not. I am mainly looking for another members real life experience with a Rav4 petrol about town, am I being optimistic to expect 70 miles for a tenner if petrol costs £1.17 a litre? If anyone could let me know the average mileage they get for £10 worth of fuel in a 2001-2003 2.0 petrol and diesel for town driving it would really help me make my mind up.

There is also the option of a lpg conversion as I have spied a 2.0 vx petrol with 70k and all the toys that is £1 under budget so it would allow me to fit an lpg conversion within by budget. I know that there are issues with the valves receding but I thought that the flashlube accessory that is separate to the lpg conversion would solve any problems. Thoughts anyone?

Thanks.

Firstly, I do not have a petrol so cannot say what one does in temrs of mpg however,IMHO, with the miles you are talking about you will not do anywhere near enough to benefit from either diesel or an LPG conversion. You will pay a premium to purchase a Diesel and you will never recoup the cost of an LPG conversion. There is also the problem of finding LPG gas stations. I would suggest going for a decent petrol version and offset what you save on the purches price against the oncost of petrol. Also, don't think you will get a conversion for £1

5000 miles at say 5.5mpl [roughly 25mpg] = 909 litres @ 1.17/litre = £1063/year at current price of petrol and your predicted mileage. Someone please check my sums

[pmb]

I think you're being optimistic. I get 27mpg on shortish journeys (or less if very local) so that's 6 miles per litre. Just had mine mot'd again and I've only done 3k in the last year (must get out more). Got 47k on my VX , had it since new.

[trutta]

Hi there, I registered previously but for some reason it is not accepting my username or pass. Not to worry.

Anyway, I have been looking out for a Rav4 diesel but finding it nearly impossible to get a decent low mileage model. I have started to look at the petrol 4 wheel drive models and noticed that I will get a lot more car for my 5k budget but I am very wary of the costs of running a petrol 4x4. I will be doing a maximum of 5000 miles a year which will mostly be short journeys in town so I am not too sure that I will get the benefit of a diesel or not. I am mainly looking for another members real life experience with a Rav4 petrol about town, am I being optimistic to expect 70 miles for a tenner if petrol costs £1.17 a litre? If anyone could let me know the average mileage they get for £10 worth of fuel in a 2001-2003 2.0 petrol and diesel for town driving it would really help me make my mind up.

There is also the option of a lpg conversion as I have spied a 2.0 vx petrol with 70k and all the toys that is £1 under budget so it would allow me to fit an lpg conversion within by budget. I know that there are issues with the valves receding but I thought that the flashlube accessory that is separate to the lpg conversion would solve any problems. Thoughts anyone?

Thanks.

Firstly, I do not have a petrol so cannot say what one does in temrs of mpg however,IMHO, with the miles you are talking about you will not do anywhere near enough to benefit from either diesel or an LPG conversion. You will pay a premium to purchase a Diesel and you will never recoup the cost of an LPG conversion. There is also the problem of finding LPG gas stations. I would suggest going for a decent petrol version and offset what you save on the purches price against the oncost of petrol. Also, don't think you will get a conversion for £1

5000 miles at say 5.5mpl [roughly 25mpg] = 909 litres @ 1.17/litre = £1063/year at current price of petrol and your predicted mileage. Someone please check my sums

Hi Davrav, Thanks for taking the time to reply. :) I meant I would have between £1,000 - £1,500 for an lpg conversion and not a quid!

To give you an example of why the decision is hard for me I will explain. The "best" diesel that I have seen for 5k was a 52 plate with 77k but is over 300 miles away. There is a petrol that is a 51 plate vx with 70k on the clock and local for 4k so there is a grand saving there. I am just worrying about the cost to drive about town in a petrol. If your economy figures are correct with at 5.5mpl then it works out at an eyewatering 47 miles about town for £10? Please tell me that my maths are wrong!

[trutta]

I think you're being optimistic. I get 27mpg on shortish journeys (or less if very local) so that's 6 miles per litre. Just had mine mot'd again and I've only done 3k in the last year (must get out more). Got 47k on my VX , had it since new.

Hi pmb, thanks for taking the time to reply. As you have the same model that I am looking at may I ask how many miles you are getting about town for £10? The 6mpl figure suggests that it would be 50 miles for a tenner, is that correct?

[IanXT4]

I have a 2004 petrol and I guess if I stuck around town it would average 25 - 28mpg

With really low mileage I think other issues than MPG are important

5000 miles at 25mpg X 4.45 X £1.17 = £1041 ( petrol - 48 miles for £10)

5000 miles at 32mpg x 4.45 x £1.17 = £813 ( diesel - 62 miles for £10)

Difference of a car doing 32mpg vs 25mpg is £228 per year (best case).

Note I have assumed Petrol = diesel in cost, diesel has been much more expensive.

To this you have to weigh up

1) The higher purchase cost of a diesel

2) Extra diesel service costs, plus diesel RAV4's have cam belts (expensive to change every few years)

3) Reliability, early RAV4 diesels have very expensive issues with Dual Mass Flywheel (DMF) and Diesel pumps

4) Practicality, diesels take a very long while to warm up on cold mornings

As for LPG at 5000 miles per year it will be way more aggravation than its worth.

If anything goes wrong you are in specialist territory ££.

Plus the payback period will be long, you may even have sold the car before you have recouped the LPG conversion cost ?

To be honest if you are worrying about MPG a 4 wheel drive is probably not the ideal town car, its extra trans-axle, diff, bearings etc absorb energy and reduce efficiency.

[pmb]

Hi pmb, thanks for taking the time to reply. As you have the same model that I am looking at may I ask how many miles you are getting about town for £10? The 6mpl figure suggests that it would be 50 miles for a tenner, is that correct?

Yes 50-60 would probably be realistic. I agree with the post of IanXT4. I've had a water pump and a couple of oxygen sensors go (hasn't everyone) in the 8 years (on wednesday) that I have owned it. Glad the petrol doesn't have the dmf issue (which isn't exclusive to the Rav4).

[trutta]

I have a 2004 petrol and I guess if I stuck around town it would average 25 - 28mpg

With really low mileage I think other issues than MPG are important

5000 miles at 25mpg X 4.45 X £1.17 = £1041 ( petrol - 48 miles for £10)

5000 miles at 32mpg x 4.45 x £1.17 = £813 ( diesel - 62 miles for £10)

Difference of a car doing 32mpg vs 25mpg is £228 per year (best case).

Note I have assumed Petrol = diesel in cost, diesel has been much more expensive.

To this you have to weigh up

1) The higher purchase cost of a diesel

2) Extra diesel service costs, plus diesel RAV4's have cam belts (expensive to change every few years)

3) Reliability, early RAV4 diesels have very expensive issues with Dual Mass Flywheel (DMF) and Diesel pumps

4) Practicality, diesels take a very long while to warm up on cold mornings

As for LPG at 5000 miles per year it will be way more aggravation than its worth.

If anything goes wrong you are in specialist territory ££.

Plus the payback period will be long, you may even have sold the car before you have recouped the LPG conversion cost ?

To be honest if you are worrying about MPG a 4 wheel drive is probably not the ideal town car, its extra trans-axle, diff, bearings etc absorb energy and reduce efficiency.

Thank you very much Ian, your post is exactly what I was looking for. :) You make an important point about worrying about mpg but my hobbies have changed somewhat and I now have the need for some light offroading which my old car could never do. I was aware of the DMF problems with the diesels but there is one car that has really caught my eye and that is a petrol 51 plate with 70k on the clock. Does that seem like a good deal?

[bothwell_buyer]

At that low mileage, petrol would seem obvious. Folk have put the arguments well, above.

I get 22mpg with my 2 RAVs but then they both have turbo engines!!

ON lpg, I have owned a Jaguar and a Renault both fitted with lpg and both had problems. You simply have extra injectors/ecu etc etc to work it plus the tank takes up space somewhere too. At that mileage, again just not worth it. So much more to go wrong... and people dis-trust lpg so you won't get a dealer allowing yer car onto the fore-court = problem on re-sale.

[Davrav]

Thank you very much Ian, your post is exactly what I was looking for. :) You make an important point about worrying about mpg but my hobbies have changed somewhat and I now have the need for some light offroading which my old car could never do. I was aware of the DMF problems with the diesels but there is one car that has really caught my eye and that is a petrol 51 plate with 70k on the clock. Does that seem like a good deal?

Does it have a full Toyota service history?

5K is in line with Parkers for a dealer price for that vehicle but there are a lot out there at around the 4K mark, depending on trim type.

At circa 8K/year it hasn't been overused. You can do your own HPI check online for £20 though you will need chassis number and V5 registration document serial number to get full details.

Why not go for a test drive, point out a few defects and haggle them down if you are serious about buying it. There are a lot of vehicles around at the moment

[trutta]

Thanks Davrav, I called the garage up today and the motor sold this morning The hunt continues!

[Davrav]

Thanks Davrav, I called the garage up today and the motor sold this morning The hunt continues!

Not to worry, as I said earlier, there are a lot of motors out there just now and I suspect you can get a good'un for less. You may need to be prepared to travel a bit though

Happy hunting

[trutta]

This has caught me eye now. Decisions decisions...

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201033365901429

[Davrav]

This has caught me eye now. Decisions decisions...

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201033365901429

Quite possibly a good car but...............has it had the DMF changed? If not and it goes you are talking big money to fix. If it were me [and I know it's not] doing the mileage you are talking and having concern for expense generally, I would still look for a petrol

EDIT:

Something else to consider is that, in the winter, if you are only doing short journeys, you will freeze your bits off as Diesels take a good few miles to get comfortably warm.

[ashpole]

Hi there, I registered previously but for some reason it is not accepting my username or pass. Not to worry.

Anyway, I have been looking out for a Rav4 diesel but finding it nearly impossible to get a decent low mileage model. I have started to look at the petrol 4 wheel drive models and noticed that I will get a lot more car for my 5k budget but I am very wary of the costs of running a petrol 4x4. I will be doing a maximum of 5000 miles a year which will mostly be short journeys in town so I am not too sure that I will get the benefit of a diesel or not. I am mainly looking for another members real life experience with a Rav4 petrol about town, am I being optimistic to expect 70 miles for a tenner if petrol costs £1.17 a litre? If anyone could let me know the average mileage they get for £10 worth of fuel in a 2001-2003 2.0 petrol and diesel for town driving it would really help me make my mind up.

There is also the option of a lpg conversion as I have spied a 2.0 vx petrol with 70k and all the toys that is £1 under budget so it would allow me to fit an lpg conversion within by budget. I know that there are issues with the valves receding but I thought that the flashlube accessory that is separate to the lpg conversion would solve any problems. Thoughts anyone?

Thanks.

I've just traded-in my May 2005 XT5 Auto Petrol, great car, looking forward to my Auris Hybrid in September! For what it's worth attached is a print-out of every litre and mile I did with the RAV4. Mostly town stuff but some long journeys in there.

Enjoy!

RAV4 XT5 Auto 2005.pdf

[pmb]

I've just traded-in my May 2005 XT5 Auto Petrol, great car, looking forward to my Auris Hybrid in September! For what it's worth attached is a print-out of every litre and mile I did with the RAV4. Mostly town stuff but some long journeys in there.

Glad I'm not the only sad one to have done a spreadsheet on my fuel consumption. Did mine for the first 31k then I got bored with it. Just looked at the excel file and it said 26.5 overall.

[trutta]

Thanks guys. That spreadsheet makes for interesting reading as I always thought that the auto was more thirsty than the manual. There are a few on autotrader that have caught the eye with up to 60k for only 4 thousand. I was ideally going to buy tomorrow as I am off on hols soon but it will probably need to wait till I get back. Thanks again everyone. :)

[matt@theforce]

As per my Signature, SWMBO's RAV 2.0vvti has averaged 29.7mpg since we bought it, she does about 30miles per day which is a mixture of Motorway 8miles / A/B roads and town for the rest. Its also very hilly where she goes.

Milage calculator

We also spent alot of time working out other costs, purchase/servicing/road tax/insurance/common fault costs etc and decided that the petrol wouldn't cost that much more in the short term until we moved house and her annual milage falls to around 5k per year then the petrol makes much more sence.

[Bristim]

For what it's worth I would say that for you with that low mileage, in a town, wanting a 4x4 - then a petrol is a no-brainer - I know someone doing low mileage who has a V8 Range Rover on the basis that mpg is virtually irrelevant.

My experience of a petrol 03 5-door RAV is that I can wizz round town easily (Bristol - hilly and lots of traffic) I can generally get away with 10 - 20 GBP a week on petrol - I also usually run with only 1/4 tank so that I am not lugging the weight of extra fuel around. I guess it depends on how you drive too.

I also tried a diesel and reckon it is much lumpier for town driving, with a fair bit of lag.

[Hoovie]

Hi there, I registered previously but for some reason it is not accepting my username or pass. Not to worry.

Anyway, I have been looking out for a Rav4 diesel but finding it nearly impossible to get a decent low mileage model. I have started to look at the petrol 4 wheel drive models and noticed that I will get a lot more car for my 5k budget but I am very wary of the costs of running a petrol 4x4. I will be doing a maximum of 5000 miles a year which will mostly be short journeys in town so I am not too sure that I will get the benefit of a diesel or not. I am mainly looking for another members real life experience with a Rav4 petrol about town, am I being optimistic to expect 70 miles for a tenner if petrol costs £1.17 a litre? If anyone could let me know the average mileage they get for £10 worth of fuel in a 2001-2003 2.0 petrol and diesel for town driving it would really help me make my mind up.

There is also the option of a lpg conversion as I have spied a 2.0 vx petrol with 70k and all the toys that is £1 under budget so it would allow me to fit an lpg conversion within by budget. I know that there are issues with the valves receding but I thought that the flashlube accessory that is separate to the lpg conversion would solve any problems. Thoughts anyone?

Thanks.

I've just traded-in my May 2005 XT5 Auto Petrol, great car, looking forward to my Auris Hybrid in September!  For what it's worth attached is a print-out of every litre and mile I did with the RAV4.  Mostly town stuff but some long journeys in there.

Enjoy!

Ashpole, just scanned through your PDF with consumption figures... very comprehensive. 

Trutta,  I sold my May 2005 XT3 Manual Petrol just under 4 months ago after 4 good years owning the car.  My Fuel economy pattern was pretty much identical to Ashpoles and while I was keeping records of the fuel economy (around 2 years worth only), I very, very occasionally touched 35MPG, but 25-30MPG was more typical. Even when driving over 400 Miles in one hit (which I have done on many occasions), I didn't get past 30MPG! 

As far as the RAV4 4.2 model goes, the economy is the only complaint I have with it, and that was a major reason why I sold it and bought my current vehicle - and am now saving around £125-£150 per month in fuel compared to the RAV4, so not inconsiderable!

As one of the replies said, if you want to be buying a competent 4x4 SUV like a RAV4, then economy can't really be your major concern (and it is only one part of cost of ownership of course)

I would say go Petrol if you are covering lower mileage as you can forget DMF entirely, no belt to change at 60,000 miles and a very nice pokey engine (which I do miss compared to my current car)

[zimboy]

we definatly all seem to have the same problem re fuel consumption i get around 250miles a tank and it's all short driving, no matter how light i on the foot i drive, the stupid thing is with the mpi calculator on the dashboard i tend to get better millage once the vvti had done it's job and i'm in higher rev's than stop start driving.

Does anyone have anything that has worked to conserve more, apart from using the magnetic doodad's over the fuel pipe or the "turbo" air intake gizmo, can't say i've tried them but i can't see them working "as advertised"

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1-FUEL-SAVER-TOYOTA-AVENIS-YARIS-RAV4-MR2-SUPRA-/120614696026?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item1c1532345a

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/35bhp-Turbo-31-Fuel-saver-TOYOTA-RAV4-LAND-CRUISER-/190435640861

[Davrav]

we definatly all seem to have the same problem re fuel consumption i get around 250miles a tank and it's all short driving, no matter how light i on the foot i drive, the stupid thing is with the mpi calculator on the dashboard i tend to get better millage once the vvti had done it's job and i'm in higher rev's than stop start driving.

Does anyone have anything that has worked to conserve more, apart from using the magnetic doodad's over the fuel pipe or the "turbo" air intake gizmo, can't say i've tried them but i can't see them working "as advertised"

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1-FUEL-SAVER-TOYOTA-AVENIS-YARIS-RAV4-MR2-SUPRA-/120614696026?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item1c1532345a

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/35bhp-Turbo-31-Fuel-saver-TOYOTA-RAV4-LAND-CRUISER-/190435640861

Don't waste your money.

Better off using high grade fuel and keeping the engine serviced and in tip top condition, tyre pressures corect for load, boot empty, only fill to half tank etc.

[zimboy]

yea that's what i thought gimmicks are gimicks they never work, anyone know what the tyre pressures should be, the tyres say max 44psi but that's a little high is it not? i'm guessing 2 or 2.2bar? or at least thats what it was when it came back from it's last services.

fuel wise we only get super and premium fuel and i'm sure the manuel only recommended super...

[Davrav]

yea that's what i thought gimmicks are gimicks they never work, anyone know what the tyre pressures should be, the tyres say max 44psi but that's a little high is it not? i'm guessing 2 or 2.2bar? or at least thats what it was when it came back from it's last services.

fuel wise we only get super and premium fuel and i'm sure the manuel only recommended super...

Correct pressures should be on a sticker on door pillar

[zimboy]

shot! will have a look on the way home :)