Fiat 500 Twinair - 37 mpg in the real world

Leonard Hofstadter

Now everyone knows that no car will ever match the official tests, but this is barely half the official figure of 70 mpg!

This is what Autocar got when they tested the Twinair.

This just shows that downsizing has only one benefit - it makes cars look good in the official EU tests.

I'm not criticising Fiat specifically, because they are far from the only make that is downsizing its engine range.

In the real world, the engine has to work extremely hard(relative to an old fashioned larger displacement engine), assisted by the turbo(and turbos disimprove fuel consumption over a similarly sized NA engine).

Fiat says in the official tests that the Twinair is 23% more efficient than the 1.4 in the 500 but offers similar performance.

They fail to mention the fact that the 1.4 in the 500 does not have direct injection or Multiair, so in a like for like comparison this engine is NOT 23% more economical in theory, and with only 37 mpg in the real world, it is certainly worse than 1.4s I've driven in larger cars with uncomplex and less efficient engines.

ottostreet

make bigger engines.

screw emissions.

Zubeneschamali

If you read the review, they don't say they got 37 mpg, they say the trip computer reported 37 mpg. That's not the same thing.

Ghost Train

I presume 70 is longer journeys, continuous driving

37 more urban or mixed?

Anan1

If I were a motoring journo and someone gave me a 500 Twin Air i'd be driving the balls off it.

EPM

Anan1 wrote: »

If I were a motoring journo and someone gave me a 500 Twin Air i'd be driving the balls off it.

+1

I suspect this explains a lot of the difference

Leonard Hofstadter

That, if anything, makes it even worse, in my experience(and I always brim the tank and reset the trip computer every time I fill up) trip computers quote around 10% better than the true fuel consumption.

So that means it could have got as little as 33.3 mpg, that's less than half the quoted 70 mpg this car is meant to achieve. Even if the trip computer was under reading by 10%, the car got no better 40.7 mpg, that's still less than 60% as good as the stated fuel consumption says it is, which is dismal.

I'd say something if it got even 55 mpg, because, as we know, the official tests are completely unrealistic, but less than 40 is a long way short of that.

EPM

The article mentions it holding it's own at 85mph. That will kill MPG on any car!

Anan1

captainspeed wrote: »

That, if anything, makes it even worse, in my experience(and I always brim the tank and reset the trip computer every time I fill up) trip computers quote around 10% better than the true fuel consumption.

So that means it could have got as little as 33.3 mpg, that's less than half the quoted 70 mpg this car is meant to achieve. Even if the trip computer was under reading by 10%, the car got no better 40.7 mpg, that's still less than 60% as good as the stated fuel consumption says it is, which is dismal.

I'd say something if it got even 55 mpg, because, as we know, the official tests are completely unrealistic, but less than 40 is a long way short of that.

Like I said, it depends how it was driven.

Ghost Train

Trip computer should be a good guide. It's more the magazines fault for not actually doing a few tests to give the mpg under different driving conditions

Leadership

There was an interesting feature on Top Gear where a Toyota Prius was chased around the track by a BMW M3. The Prius used more Petrol than the M3 as it was a small engine being ragged.

Bodhan

The MPG of any car is always in doubt because it depends on the driver. I had a MiTo Cloverleaf recently and if I drove it in normal mode I could easily get 40mpg but I didn't, it stayed in dynamic mode which changes the way the car works, it turns on all 170bhp all the time. I got it with a full tank and still had to put another 60 euro of petrol in it over the week.
The twin air is due here early next year, I'll do a real economy run in it e.g. Fill the tank, drive around, fill the tank again and see what it does.

ShiresV2

If I'm conscientious I can achieve and sometimes beat the 4.8L/100km (58MPG) mixed that my Punto is supposed to get. To get it below 40MPG they must have been caning it everywhere.

R.O.R

Bodhan wrote: »

The MPG of any car is always in doubt because it depends on the driver. I had a MiTo Cloverleaf recently and if I drove it in normal mode I could easily get 40mpg but I didn't, it stayed in dynamic mode which changes the way the car works, it turns on all 170bhp all the time. I got it with a full tank and still had to put another 60 euro of petrol in it over the week.
The twin air is due here early next year, I'll do a real economy run in it e.g. Fill the tank, drive around, fill the tank again and see what it does.

I had the Giulietta 1.6Tdi for a couple of weeks and managed to beat the combined fuel consumption on my standard journey to and from work. Was coming out at 4.1 l/100km at an average of 70km/h - which is bloody amazing. It did get a bit of proper Alfa driving in dynamic mode too which upped the consumption considerably, but it still ended up going back showing an average of 4.8 l/100km over the 900+ km's I ran it for. It had just over half a tank when I got it, stuck €20 of diesel in and there was around 100km to empty when it went back. Cost me more in tolls than it did in fuel

Bodhan

R.O.R wrote: »

I had the Giulietta 1.6Tdi for a couple of weeks and managed to beat the combined fuel consumption on my standard journey to and from work. Was coming out at 4.1 l/100km at an average of 70km/h - which is bloody amazing. It did get a bit of proper Alfa driving in dynamic mode too which upped the consumption considerably, but it still ended up going back showing an average of 4.8 l/100km over the 900+ km's I ran it for. It had just over half a tank when I got it, stuck €20 of diesel in and there was around 100km to empty when it went back. Cost me more in tolls than it did in fuel

I just can't drive an Alfa like a normal car, I see the little D and I'm off like nutcase. I have the Giulietta next month, not sure what one but in Jan/Feb I'll have a Cloverleaf one on a real track so then we'll see what's what

voteforpedro

i dont feel so bad now about my 2 litre turbo vectra getting on average 28 mpg:)

L1011

Fiat don't overstate figures. Pretty much any small Fiat can can go slightly faster than the top speed in the manual and can do slightly more mpg if you're obsessive (and go nowhere near the previously mentioned speed!)

The 37mpg would have been an average of all the driving they were doing, including the 85mph stuff.