Fuel Consuption Experiment

[punyXpress]

The other thing to consider is the TIME spent filling up.
Used to spend about 1.5 hours per month & at my time of life that's getting serious!

The one advantage I have is being retired so time is not of the essence normally.
Just done a quick comparison on the Nissan Note 1.4petrol against the 1.5diesel 2008
New prices against trade after 3years old,45000miles tax,insurance and fuel only and they are even all but £100.Admittedly the diesel will win when high mileage is concerned but how many of us keep their cars for over 3 years unless buying new
Considering the petrol is 47mpg and the diesel 65mpg I am surprised.The difference in purchase price between the two being £1365 and after 3 years £790 on trade
Forking out an extra £1365 to gain £100 seems hardly worth while in my book but in the end we all have different ideals.

Originally Posted by Dicky Ticker

The one advantage I have is being retired so time is not of the essence normally.
Just done a quick comparison on the Nissan Note 1.4petrol against the 1.5diesel 2008
New prices against trade after 3years old,45000miles tax,insurance and fuel only and they are even all but £100.Admittedly the diesel will win when high mileage is concerned but how many of us keep their cars for over 3 years unless buying new
Considering the petrol is 47mpg and the diesel 65mpg I am surprised.The difference in purchase price between the two being £1365 and after 3 years £790 on trade
Forking out an extra £1365 to gain £100 seems hardly worth while in my book but in the end we all have different ideals.

I support your logic and when I have bought my own cars in recent years i swapped to petrol as they were cheaper to buy and the extra fuel used didnt get paid back in economy.

However as I dont have to worry about the running costs but do have to worry about the BIK costs and MPG the diesel was a no brainer for the company car option.

Catherines car is 2.0 auto petrol and its does 23mpg around town, however the equivalent diesel auto was another £2000..and that would have never ever been paid back with the small mileage she does.

[G]

Slipstreaming is the way forwards for extreme MPG. Also called hypermiling.

There is a study about the distance you need to sit behind larger vehicle, obviously the closer you are the more economical it is. I once managed 72MPG in a fiesta 1.6tdci over a 250 miles trip doing this. As long as you don't take the **** and let bigger trucks slipstream to overtake then it's fine in my eyes.

Economy is bottom of my list of concerns at the moment though. My commute when I'm in the office is 369 miles and the other day my trip computer read that I had average 78.3 mph for the the 180 mile trip one way. Took a little under 2 hours 30 minutes.

[mikerj]

Originally Posted by neio79

Diesels rock. Only fools drive petrol cars these days.

Or people who don't like their car sounding like a taxi, tiny power bands, and the potentialy crippling bills a modern common rail engine can throw up.

Originally Posted by mikerj

Or people who don't like their car sounding like a taxi, tiny power bands, and the potentialy crippling bills a modern common rail engine can throw up.

personally I have have had equall numbers of petrol & diesel failures all resulting in scrapping the cars

[punyXpress]

Originally Posted by G

Slipstreaming is the way forwards for extreme MPG. Also called hypermiling.

There is a study about the distance you need to sit behind larger vehicle, obviously the closer you are the more economical it is.

1973 Italian GP @ Monza: Lad had been sent out from Wolverhampton in a Luton-bodied Transit economy version, max speed 45mpg.
He was a wreck when he got there & to cheer him up took it in turns to drive the thing & found that by slipstreaming ( FAR less than a yard ) the speed increased to that of the truck, about 75 mph, but if you dropped back by as much as a foot it was like hitting a brick wall & you were back to 45! It took forever to regain the tow. Also knew every fly-spot on the back of the truck and the effort was quite ' challenging '
Sorry, forgot post is about mpg & there's me rattling on about MPH!

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Dicky Ticker

Considering the petrol is 47mpg and the diesel 65mpg I am surprised.The difference in purchase price between the two being £1365 and after 3 years £790 on trade

Buy secondhand and it makes near as no difference. 2000 ish astra estate, 1.7tdi, 60mpg, £500... sometimes even runs on 4 cylinders

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Buy secondhand and it makes near as no difference. 2000 ish astra estate, 1.7tdi, 60mpg, £500... sometimes even runs on 4 cylinders

must be 25% more efficient if its running on 3?

Originally Posted by mikerj

Or people who don't like their car sounding like a taxi, tiny power bands, and the potentialy crippling bills a modern common rail engine can throw up.

YAwwwwwwwwwn , that old flawed argument again, gets a bit boring after a while. Yes at standstill i can hear the click and noise of the engine a bit more than i would if i was in a petrol AND I TURNED THE STEREO OFF!!!!!!

dont know about you but i tend not to drive around in silence listening to my engine and at motorway speeds or any speed infact road noise and haing the stereo on strangley enouhg drowns out the tiny noise made by the engine.

I can also put up with a little bit of a noisier engine for the sake of near on 200 miles more tank range than the petrol equivilent.

As for power, well it has healthy 140+ BHP and more tourque than the equivilent petrol could only dream of. Pretty sure off the line or more importantly where it counts, on a overtake my TDCI would p**s all over the 2.0l petrol equivilent focus.

But you keep deluding yourself that the average petrol is better. you either have to have a 2.0l+ petrol to get near the same performance as a decent 1.8- 2.0L tourqey diesel of a pitiful 1.2 petrol to get near their performance.