Poor Fuel Consumtion

[Gods_gift]

Just done Newcastle to Heathrow avg 40.2mpg with over qtr tank left 292 miles at 13-15 degrees. Manual 56 plate XT4 2.2 diesel in about 4hrs.

[Guest]

I could have gone to LHR in 20Mins, using about 2 Litres averaging approx 41 mpg

[Hoovie]

not bad getting to LHR from Newcastle in that time! I found to get to Aldershot, it was quicker from my Devon home then from my St Albans home due to the wonders of the M25 (and now it takes a hell of a lot longer then either from Scotland!)

[cabcurtains]

Glad your sorted, i knew you would be and the car is fine

Except now I want to know why MY economy is 20% below hers !!!!

(oh, foot, right, lead - enough said .... )

Because its knackered David

[Hoovie]

Glad your sorted, i knew you would be and the car is fine

Except now I want to know why MY economy is 20% below hers !!!!

(oh, foot, right, lead - enough said .... )

Because its knackered David

yup , need a new whatever and a replacement thingabob

[Guest]

is it me or is it anything Dale puts up censored?

Gus

[Manxrav]

Yes it is censored. All little red crosses!!!!!!

Regards Clare

[cabcurtains]

is it me or is it anything Dale puts up censored?

Gus

Ha Ha thats funny, some browsers strip the smileys, please don't think its because i called Hoovie an F*****g S****y B******d, because i only do that via PM

Manual winking smiley ;-)

[firemac]

Still magic beans lol

Price of diesel/petrol will keep going up until the middle east is sorted out.

The supply itself isn't so much an issue as in the past. The real drivers of price increases are the speculators who are effectively creating a shortfall in supply artificially.

Their ability to drive up prices at the moment is even more galling given that the US has moved so far in identifying shale oil reserves that one report I read recently suggested that they will soon be virtually self-sufficient in energy again.

Bankers' bonus are chickens*1t compared to the profits being made by commodity brokers/speculators! That's what we should be getting pi55ed off at!!

[Hoovie]

So the results are in:

Before the long journey I filled up with vpower diesel reset obc.

On the way I put it in sport mode (the Toyota salesman said the button would make no difference except it would use more fuel - so under the circumstances I havent used it until now). But now felt I had nothing to loose.

In sport mode the rav averaged a fantastic 37.5 - as good as the books say.

On the way back I left it out of sport mode - would you believe it did less mpg at 34.9.

This has proved a couple of things amongst others:

The salesman didn't know what he was talking about

& my poor fuel consumption is obviously due to the type of driving I'm doing ie short journeys thus not letting the engine get warm to work at its optimum performance.

So vpower & sport mode for me from now on.

I have decided to try this "Sport Mode" test on my current tank of fuel (did 20 miles after fillup before I read this and decided to try)

Driving 20 miles to a hotel in the afternoon, then 20 miles home late evening yesterday, in "Sport" model and keeping within all Speed limits, I got 36.8mpg, which was pretty good really (yes, this was reading from the OBC, but that is usually good within 1mpg and is never better then actual).

Will try the whole tank in Sport and see what I average :)

[Guest]

wow if you can keep it up thats a heck of a difference over the life of the car, heck it is noticeable on a full fill up at todays prices.

Gus

[Hoovie]

at the moment going for a economy-minded driving style, with gentle acceleration, and driving in a reasonable but fairly relaxed manner·····

So today, I drove to a retail park in the east of Edinburgh. about 45 miles away on mostly quiet country roads and some dual carriageways and only two villages to go through.

A BMW X3 overtook me about 3 miles after I left home, and while he was by no means hooning around, he drove at around 70-75 MPH on the country roads where possible while I was sticking to a gentle 50-55 MPH and anticipating the road ahead etc.

Now the interesting thing is that the difference in approach to the speeds driven ended up making a total time difference of SEVEN SECONDS to the journey time over the next 40 Miles! !

He got to the junction of the retail park just 7 seconds before me and carried on while I turned off.

Food for thought there I think :)

[Davrav]

at the moment going for a economy-minded driving style, with gentle acceleration, and driving in a reasonable but fairly relaxed manner·····

So today, I drove to a retail park in the east of Edinburgh. about 45 miles away on mostly quiet country roads and some dual carriageways and only two villages to go through.

A BMW X3 overtook me about 3 miles after I left home, and while he was by no means hooning around, he drove at around 70-75 MPH on the country roads where possible while I was sticking to a gentle 50-55 MPH and anticipating the road ahead etc.

Now the interesting thing is that the difference in approach to the speeds driven ended up making a total time difference of SEVEN SECONDS to the journey time over the next 40 Miles! !

He got to the junction of the retail park just 7 seconds before me and carried on while I turned off.

Food for thought there I think :)

I seem to remember a challenge set on a TV programme many years ago where a pair of drivers were set the task of driving the same route but one going as fast as conditions allowed, the other taking it steady and abiding by speed limits. Similar outcome to yours Hoovie. Also less fuel used and steady driver far more relaxed at the end of the journey.

Here's http://eartheasy.com/move_fuel_efficient_driving.html an interesting article on driving efficiency. Most of the points are generally well known but the figures are worth keeping in mind.

[Gods_gift]

If that was rallying you'd be 7 seconds of the leader and the team manager would be shouting at you after reviewing the data logging lol

I love the signs they put up motorways "23mins to J17" thats what I call the bogey time lol

In all seriousness I know what you mean and having grown up and learned to drive in the South East before migrating to the Northeast it took me a while to realise up here atleast you dont have to drive at maximum attack to get somewhere. Saying that last year I drove in Germany a lot and found my fuel economy actually went up when sitting at 90mph for long periods.

[Hoovie]

I lived in the South East virtually all my life until about 10 years ago, I drove into London as a service engineer and all that kind of thing and it is very hard to break what becomes an ingrained way of 'cut & thrust' driving.

Moving to Devon about 7 years ago, when driving round there, I think the locals thought I was driving too fast, but in reality, slowing down from the norm; and then moving to the Borders about 3 years ago, the locals are sooooo slow in comparison to even Devon (they seem to have to wait for a written invitation from the queen to proceed over a roundabout)

Ref driving abroad, I did a bit of a '10 countries in 10 days' euro tour year before last and I thought the drivers in most countries were pretty good (not sure about Luxembourg as it was a Sunday so closed :D ) EXCEPT for Belgium! Drove into Belgium from Germany and up to Ostende on a wet Sunday evening on the motorway and the drivers were changing lanes suddenly, no indicators, tailgating, overtaking all sides.... dreadful driving!

[Gods_gift]

Hoovie you know the score mate when it comes to the South East driving divide. As you drive down the a1 onto the A1m then M18 M1 and around when the M6 joins M1 it gets quicker and quicker. When I go down to Reading always makes me laugh as you cut across A43 onto M40 it's almost 90 is the new 70 and people are still whipping by. People around Oxford Banbury drive fast but seem stupid.

Best place to drive in the world is Italy in a hire car every traffic light is an F1 start and if you dont beat the guy next to you he will cut you up!

[Whiteclaw]

I always laugh when I see people going stupid speeds on the motorway (Usually the cause of the phantom traffic jams)

They get hardly anywhere anyway. I find I always catch up to them due to something.

[James Warren_99078]

I have a T180 that has never done more than 33mpg and that was on a 550 mile run. It doesn't matter how hard or soft you are on the throttle. I have always done my own servicing but have had it into Mr T's on numerous occasions for them to look at it. Every time it comes back with "There's absolutely nothing wrong with it sir". I even had a new engine about 20K back by Mr T. I thought after they did that things would improve but it's exactly the same which has made me think. I took the MAF sensor off and swapped it for a mates. (bear in mind I had changed or cleaned just about every other thing under the bonnet). I remember when I had a Rover 75 diesel the MAF would last about 50k then the economy wouild suffer.

Anyway since I swapped it I recon it's worth about 3-4 mpg. It's worth checking and I find it strange that no-one else has mentioned this as a possible culprit. I'm taking it for a long run today so it will be interesting to see if I get more than the usual 31mpg for the same journey. I'll let you know.

[Hoovie]

Got some more results on the RAV4.3 SR 150 Auto which are quite interesting (to me anyway!)

Little bit of preamble .... I had tried the 'Sport' mode to check the economy, but basically failed, as the sport mode gets reset to standard on every ignition-off and I forgot to press the button on each startup, so my results would be unreliable in terms of "Was it 'sport' or not that made a difference"

Filled up yesterday - first time for 3 weeks, which means here has been quite a few short journeys as well as a a couple of 70 mile ones. - Calculated Economy was 32.6 MPG

Due to lack of choice, I fitted up with Standard BP Diesel.

I took off the the Conti-Winter Winter Tyres on Thursday and refitted the original Bridgestone Tyres. I then filled the Car again this afteroon in Edinburgh after driving upto Glasgow and then over to Edinburgh. Again due to availability, I filled up this time with Shell Fuel Save. Calculated economy on this run (fairly short at 120 miles) was a pretty good 36.5 MPG. Following the usual pattern, the OBC had the MPG at a lower 35.9 MPG

I always reset the OBC data on each fillup, and it (the OBC) is currently showing after an additonal 75 miles an even more impressive 37MPG (so is likely to really be a touch under 38 MPG).

Comparisons to the previous MPGs and reasons for differences are a bit hard to define as what has changed is:

1) Changed from Winter to Standard Tyres (that is meant to be good for a couple of MPG I think)

2) Changed from Premium Branded Fuel to Standard Branded Fuel - that should make things worse if anything.

3) General Ambient Temp is higher

4) Different Journeys (though kept the same driving style)

5) No Cruise Control - decided to try without CC to avoid the 'surge to resume' inclination

Now... one final thing which I noticed in the last couple of days and would be interested if anyone else has seen this, or if they fancied doing a similar check if they have a Scanguage or other EODB device ....

When I fill up, I reset the MPH and MPG counters and also the Trip B counter (which is my miles from fillup reminder). I also do the "Fill up" on the scanguage, which also resets the various counters on that device, including the "miles from fillup" xgauge monitor.

I noticed yesterday that the Scanguage counter is approx 3.5% higher then the Trip Meter on the dash. And confirmed the same thing today after the next fillup.

I also compared the distances on the gauges against the Sat Nav info and that tied up with the Scanguage.

This means that apparently the mileage will be around 350 miles per 10,000 understated, and it also means that the REAL mpg is actually around 1MPG better then calculated (every little helps :D )

So overall conclusions ....

Will have to see how things go for the next 600-1,000 miles to really get a better idea, but the figures are definately going in the right direction

[Gods_gift]

Done 364 miles today before light came on which isnt too bad for me on Tesco diesel. I think using cruise control knacks MPG as far as I can see as I get 35-37mpg with it on, an off 42-44mpg on same journey weird...

[Davrav]

I'm guessing here but, when using cruise control, down changes that would be natural when driving by foot instead of finger, get overlooked.

The resultant unnecessary labouring probably accounts for the higher consumption.

[Hoovie]

I have not used the cruise for the last 400 miles or so and I think as you guys are saying it is a negative in terms of fuel.

I have even investigated fitting the Gold Cruise into the SR as that had, if memory serves, a much more gradual resume.

interesting observation Dave.

when I am on a road outside of towns and with a constant 60 or 70 Limit, on my current MPG 'test quest' I am trying a new routine of flicking the gear shift from Auto to Manual to avoid uncessary downshifts so I stay in 6th rather then allowing any activating of kick down (the auto box is very reactive and responsive). in that mode, it will stick in 6th unless it detects it would labour and changes down itself even though in manual mode. But then I sometimes don't notice it has done that and forget to change again.

[anchorman]

It has been said by my non-petite Scottish friend (kettle and pots) that the economy is worse with the Cruise Control on. Might save you getting nicked though.