Super eco conventional cars - Polo Bluemotion etc.

BrianD3

By conventional I mean not hybrid or electric. Some of the economy figures for plug in hybrids that are being quoted don't seem to take account of the electricity used when the vehicle is plugged in.

Anyway, two very economical conventional cars are the Polo Bluemotion 1.2 TDi 3 cylinder and Kia Rio 1.1d 3 cylinder (coming out soon) Official average mpg for these is in the 80s, with the Kia being in the high 80s :eek: The Polo is too expensive at around 20k new but the Kia will hopefully be significantly cheaper and will have the usual excellent Kia warranty.

I drove a Megane 1.5 DCi (86 bhp, 5 speed) for a total of 120 miles yesterday and today and averaged 4.2 l/100 or 67 mpg. Quite good.

Driving consisted of cold starts, M, N and R roads and urban areas. some basic hypermiling techniques, staying at 100 km/h on the motorway etc. Stopped at a level crossing twice for a total of ~5 minutes, switched engine off immediately, basic fuel saving stuff. I'd do slightly better with a Clio 1.5 DCi or I reckon significantly better with the Polo or Rio above.

Has anyone got the Polo Bluemotion. The new one, not the old 1.4 TDi.

ottostreet

I get 25mpg. And damn happy about it!

Sorry, I know its off topic completely. Apart from the economy, how did they drive?

R.O.R

I've found I can get better L/100km in the 2.0Tdi's rather than the smaller engines, as my driving is mainly motorway. Smaller (1.6 ish) stuff tends to suffer badly fuel economy wise when you stray over 100km/h.

Was at 4.5 l/100km in the Superb over 360km. The Mitsubishi Lancer 1.8 D-ID is pretty astonishing at 4.3 l/100km without trying. It goes like a hot snot (for a mid size diesel) and asks to be driven that way, but still returns under 4.5l/100km.

Ardennes1944

my 1.8 astra was getting 6.5/100kms back from naas

BrianD3

R.O.R wrote: »

I've found I can get better L/100km in the 2.0Tdi's rather than the smaller engines, as my driving is mainly motorway. Smaller (1.6 ish) stuff tends to suffer badly fuel economy wise when you stray over 100km/h.

Was at 4.5 l/100km in the Superb over 360km. The Mitsubishi Lancer 1.8 D-ID is pretty astonishing at 4.3 l/100km without trying. It goes like a hot snot (for a mid size diesel) and asks to be driven that way, but still returns under 4.5l/100km.

I seem to remember that the Megane 1.5 DCi does 5.9 l/100 km (48 mpg) at a steady, indicated 125 km/h on the M-way.

Unless fuel comes down I will not be driving at more than 100 km/h on a motorway for the forseeable future

Eleganza

I'm on course for another 1200km tank out of my Megane Coupe 1.5DCi EDC.
The car is consistently hitting between 1100 and 1200km on a 60l tank although claimed consumption figues would indicate there are over 1400kms in a tank.

I note that there are a fair few nearly new Megane diesels on the secondhand market. They're about as refined a motorway cruiser as you will find in that size class but the engine doesn't have the cubic capacity to be responsive when you need to accelerate quickly.

robtri

BrianD3 wrote: »

By conventional I mean not hybrid or electric. Some of the economy figures for plug in hybrids that are being quoted don't seem to take account of the electricity used when the vehicle is plugged in.

Anyway, two very economical conventional cars are the Polo Bluemotion 1.2 TDi 3 cylinder and Kia Rio 1.1d 3 cylinder (coming out soon) Official average mpg for these is in the 80s, with the Kia being in the high 80s :eek: The Polo is too expensive at around 20k new but the Kia will hopefully be significantly cheaper and will have the usual excellent Kia warranty.

I drove a Megane 1.5 DCi (86 bhp, 5 speed) for a total of 120 miles yesterday and today and averaged 4.2 l/100 or 67 mpg. Quite good.

Driving consisted of cold starts, M, N and R roads and urban areas. some basic hypermiling techniques, staying at 100 km/h on the motorway etc. Stopped at a level crossing twice for a total of ~5 minutes, switched engine off immediately, basic fuel saving stuff. I'd do slightly better with a Clio 1.5 DCi or I reckon significantly better with the Polo or Rio above.

Has anyone got the Polo Bluemotion. The new one, not the old 1.4 TDi.

sounds like the most boring and tiring way to drive a car....

si_guru

I used to have a Fabia vRS. 65mpg no bother.

Plenty of torque and no weight!

shedweller

robtri wrote: »

sounds like the most boring and tiring way to drive a car....

If you're not interested in the topic then don't post. If you want to drive hard and fast everywhere then thats your business. I'd rather not have to replace pads, tyres and clutches too regularly, not to mention a couple of grand a year in fuel. I'm sure there are others that feel the same, given how broke most of us are.

OP, i drive a 1.4 d4d yaris(2004) and always get 1300 km per 42-43 litre fill. I do 100kph on my commute and use basic hypermiling techniques. No coasting or any of that nonsense.
I do my own servicing and it's dead easy on this car. All in it's a great car for the job.

BrianD3

shedweller wrote: »

OP, i drive a 1.4 d4d yaris(2004) and always get 1300 km per 42-43 litre fill. I do 100kph on my commute and use basic hypermiling techniques. No coasting or any of that nonsense.
I do my own servicing and it's dead easy on this car. All in it's a great car for the job.

3.2 l/100km or 88 mpg!

shedweller

Yup. Although it was a good deal worse over the winter, maybe 3.7L/100k :pac: but i honestly can't complain. Handled the snow and ice very well too.
No DMF in it, oil and filters twice a year, no pads because i hardly use them, tyres are on it since i bought it at the end of 2008. Win!:)

BrianD3

In case any of the arguments about small eco cars being unsafe in a crash crop up - the VW Polo is one of very few cars to achieve 0 mm A pillar movement in EuroNCAP test. There was also tiny or no movement of the pedals and steering wheel.
http://www.euroncap.com/results/vw/polo/371.aspx

Obviously its light weight is a still a disadvantage in a crash with a larger vehicle but the passenger compartment strength and integrity shown in the NCAP test would certainly be in its favour.

BrianD3

shedweller wrote: »

Yup. Although it was a good deal worse over the winter, maybe 3.7L/100k :pac: but i honestly can't complain. Handled the snow and ice very well too.
No DMF in it, oil and filters twice a year, no pads because i hardly use them, tyres are on it since i bought it at the end of 2008. Win!:)

I checked the official figures for a 2011 Yaris D4D your economy is significantly better than the official extra urban figure in summer and matching it in winter.

You sure you're not doing soem serious hypermiling?

Alanstrainor

BrianD3 wrote: »

You sure you're not doing soem serious hypermiling?

I think he just pushes it everywhere!

shedweller

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I think he just pushes it everywhere!

The thought did cross my mind.....

Seriously though, i drive it reasonably normally in terms of speed. I just don't do 120kph. Otherwise i let the DFCO (decceleration fuel cut off) do its thing on the downhill bits or up to the lights, junctions etc instead of keeping her lit right up until jumping on the brakes. Sure, any eejit could do that!

BrianD3

shedweller wrote: »

The thought did cross my mind.....

Seriously though, i drive it reasonably normally in terms of speed. I just don't do 120kph. Otherwise i let the DFCO (decceleration fuel cut off) do its thing on the downhill bits or up to the lights, junctions etc instead of keeping her lit right up until jumping on the brakes. Sure, any eejit could do that!

This is indeed a major part of economical driving. I've been doing it for years. Generally the longer the time between lifting off the throttle and pressing the brake, the better, ideally the brake doesn't get used at all. One result of this is I got 160k miles from the front brake pads on my Laguna and when I took them off I found I had jumped the gun a bit, would probably have been good for 200k!

I prefer to have nothing behind me when I'm coming up to a slowdown or stop so that I can lift off hundreds of metres in advance without someone up my hole getting pissed off.

BrianD3

I was just doing some "experimenting" with the Megane. I am not used to small turbo diesels so am still learning how to get fuel economy from it.

Shedweller mentioned the DFCO and that is a big part of my fuel saving strategy. Very useful on downhill sections where you take your feet off all the pedals with the drive engaged. There is an instantanous fuel consumption readout in the Megane and it generally reads 0.0 l/100 km when DFCOing

I had presumed that the highest gear possible would be the most economical for this as it would produce the least engine braking and maintain the most momentum - but it looks like when the revs drop too low the readout goes above 0.0 l/100 km - even though the driver's foot is still completely off the throttle. A protection against stalling/labouring?

I suppose when the revs go too low, even though the car is travelling down hill with the drive engaged, DFCO no longer happens and the car is now idling. In that case you're no better off than if you were coasting down the hill in neutral.

shedweller

BrianD3 wrote: »

I had presumed that the highest gear possible would be the most economical for this as it would produce the least engine braking and maintain the most momentum - but it looks like when the revs drop too low the readout goes above 0.0 l/100 km - even though the driver's foot is still completely off the throttle. A protection against stalling/labouring?

The engine runs no lower than its idle speed so this is where DFCO cuts out and you start using fuel again.

BrianD3 wrote: »

I suppose when the revs go too low, even though the car is travelling down hill with the drive engaged, DFCO no longer happens and the car is now idling. In that case you're no better off than if you were coasting down the hill in neutral.

What you do here is when you are just above the DFCO cut off point, you go down a gear and continue DFCOing until you need to go down another gear, and so on. This is assuming you want to stop eventually or drop your speed to a low urban limit, although you could be in 4th at 50kph so it would not entail a whole lot of gear dropping. 30kph and you drop all the way to 3rd, DFCOing all the way.

On long descents where i need to maintain speed i just lift the throttle ever so slightly and can maintain the same speed while lowering the instant L/100k by a large margin.
For example, without doing it i might be at, say 2L/100k on a downhill (down from 2.5 to 3L/100k on the flat) but by lifting off slightly i might lower it to 1.5L/100k or even 0.8L/100k which is my idle fuel consumption. Any steeper and i would be almost into DFCO territory.
This lifting off technique will work on the flat but is very susceptible to loads created by uphill sections or even slight rises that you can hardly see.
And the great thing about this is that you can do it while keeping to the speed limit!

ottostreet

Lads, you're driving cars that do great mileage already...concentrate on the road and not your read outs!

BrianD3

Cool The Megane seem to stop DFCO'ing and start using fuel again at around 1100 rpm and there are signs of labouring from about 1400 rpm downwards. I'm going to aim to keep it between 1400 and 2200 rpm and see what happens.

Also noticed that when DFCO'ing, if the brake is used, the computer shows slight fuel use even if the revs haven't gone below the DPCO threshold. presumbly this is due to the brake servo. So not only does braking waste already expended energy, braking itself uses fuel!

shedweller

ottostreet wrote: »

Lads, you're driving cars that do great mileage already...concentrate on the road and not your read outs!

Given how many people i see racing up to red lights, junctions, trucks etc. i would say i have a very good awareness of whats going on around me on the road.
The reason i pay a lot of attention to the road ahead of me, (and behind) is so that i get better mileage. My earlier points above refer to this and explain how.
But i take your point and readers should also take your point that excessive looking at mpg readouts at the expense of looking out the window is dangerous.

alancuran

Lupo 3L - 1.2 Tdi and consume about 3L/100Km ;dd

shedweller

alancuran wrote: »

Lupo 3L - 1.2 Tdi and consume about 3L/100Km ;dd

That is one special machine. There was a lad on cleanmpg with one that got:



Those are per-tank readings, not instant. Mental!

barron

shedweller wrote: »

That is one special machine. There was a lad on cleanmpg with one that got:



Those are per-tank readings, not instant. Mental!

Wow!!! ;dd

Dont be at yourself

Picked up a Fiat 500 Twinair the other week. 500 miles on the clock and an MPG of around 45 so far. That's supposed to improve as the engine is run in, but I'm already happy with it. Mainly motorway driving.

Manufacturer's figure is 70mpg I think, but the car's too fun to drive to drive it economically. It has an "eco" button which is supposed to improve mpg, but I can't bring myself to turn it on!

si_guru

I have the 1.2... will try a TwinAir at the next service!

My 1.2 gives 47-50 on every tank... will go over 50 on a steady (90 max) run. I am very happy with it.