Miles to the gallon question

kat.mac

Hi all,

Just bought a 06 Skoda Superb 1.9 TDI, with 70,000 km on the clock.

Great car so far, very happy with it, just not sure it's as economical as it was made out to be. I'm in the process of figuring out exactly what I'm getting from it.

Any suggestions on how much I should/could be getting from it?

Thanks!

Mycroft H

Between 45-55 depending on how it's driven

MuppetCheck

Fill the tank, drive and then fill it again.

Divide the number of litres used by 4.54 to get the number of gallons.

Givide the miles travelled to get the mpg.

What are you getting at the moment? What type of driving do you do?

kat.mac

MuppetCheck wrote: »

Fill the tank, drive and then fill it again.

Divide the number of litres used by 4.54 to get the number of gallons.

Givide the miles travelled to get the mpg.

What are you getting at the moment? What type of driving do you do?

Thanks for the advice. Not sure what I'm getting at the moment, but I'm in the middle of measuring it the same way you've suggested. I commute between Carlow and Portlaoise during the week but I clock up a good bit of motorway mileage at the weekends.

kat.mac

BX 19 wrote: »

Between 45-55 depending on how it's driven

Hopefully I'll come up with a figure in or around that!

spank_inferno

Is there a computer read-out on the dash showing current & average MPG?

kat.mac

spank_inferno wrote: »

Is there a computer read-out on the dash showing current & average MPG?

There's a readout for litres per 100km and an average usage readout, none for MPG

langdang

I am doing something wrong with my life. I can figure out L/100km to mpg, but I can't afford a car that actually has a L/100km readout.

kat.mac

langdang wrote: »

I am doing something wrong with my life. I can figure out L/100km to mpg, but I can't afford a car that actually has a L/100km readout.

After I had replied to your first post I realised I'd be able to work it out from that but my brain is too fried from work to attempt it right now!

MuppetCheck

kat.mac wrote: »

There's a readout for litres per 100km and an average usage readout, none for MPG

Divide 283.5 by the l/100km figure to get mpg. The computer will be on the optimistic side though.

spank_inferno

In the dashboard computer thing, hit the "back" button on the steering wheel (if you have one).
then go to: Settings -> Units -> Consumption -> MPG (GB)

That is how I change it on my Yeti.
Hopefully your Superb will have the same menu option.

Matt Simis

kat.mac wrote: »

There's a readout for litres per 100km and an average usage readout, none for MPG

Whats the problem then!?
L/100km is a more useful and relevant figure, just adjust your mindset to utilise this. You buy fuel in litres, speed in KM. Its a "destructive" metric as its based on consumption, not efficiency and it has an "over time" component which is also beneficial to working out costing. The remaining "MPG" countries are trying to switch from MPG to G/100miles too.

10l/100 is 28mpg. You should be "consuming" 5 to 6 litres of fuel for every 100km you drive.
You are driving to work and know your car consumes 5litres per 100km and your work commute is 75km.. its very very easy to figure out on the spot that if you stop at the petrol station and buy 30litres of fuel you have 600km worth of driving left. 600km is about 8 trips to/from work (600/75).
Doing that with MPG and Gallons is a massive pain the hole.


http://fuel.netcessible.com/FuelEuro/FuelEuro.htm

Other metrics:
http://fuel.netcessible.com/

kat.mac

Matt Simis wrote: »

You should be "consuming" 5 to 6 litres of fuel for every 100km you drive.

Thanks. I'm new to this so thanks for the help.

kat.mac

spank_inferno wrote: »

In the dashboard computer thing, hit the "back" button on the steering wheel (if you have one).
then go to: Settings -> Units -> Consumption -> MPG (GB)

That is how I change it on my Yeti.
Hopefully your Superb will have the same menu option.

No such luck! Thanks though!

ION08

Well, are you gonna tell us what exactly your read out for L/100km says or are you gonna keep us in suspense?


Anywhere between 6.5 - 7.5 L / 100 on average would be very good.

below 6.5 is excellent

above 7.5 would be concerning

willfer

My 06 focus is 7.9 per 100km, but all i do is city driving, should i be really concerned??

ION08

willfer wrote: »

My 06 focus is 7.9 per 100km, but all i do is city driving, should i be really concerned??

No, thats actually quite good if youre only doing city driving.

Is it diesel or petrol?

willfer

ION08 wrote: »

No, thats actually quite good if youre only doing city driving.

Is it diesel or petrol?

1.4 petrol, that's good to hear, cheers!

Marcin_diy

ION08 wrote: »

Well, are you gonna tell us what exactly your read out for L/100km says or are you gonna keep us in suspense?


Anywhere between 6.5 - 7.5 L / 100 on average would be very good.

below 6.5 is excellent

above 7.5 would be concerning

Mine has average of 10.9L/100km
I should be veeeery concerned. :eek:

Ireland has metric system since 2006.

- at petrol station we pay for litres
- cars (after2006) have readings in km
- we use km, not miles.

whats the point to convert these figures to miles per gallon?

MuppetCheck

Mpg is probably most familiar to people as it had been used up until pretty recently. It's a metric people understand.

Mycroft H

Marcin_diy wrote: »

Mine has average of 10.9L/100km
I should be veeeery concerned. :eek:

Ireland has metric system since 2006.

- at petrol station we pay for litres
- cars (after2006) have readings in km
- we use km, not miles.

whats the point to convert these figures to miles per gallon?

Because I understand them! 10l/100km is meaningless as a consumption figure for me.

28mpg = bad
38mpg = mediocre
48mpg = good
58mpg = brilliant

dredg

I use the app road trip on my iphone to record the litres and mileage of my car at every fill. I get graphs and it's easy to switch between l/100km and mpg. It has the added bonus of recording the price so I get historical fuel prices and lets me know how much I've been spending on fuel per week/month/ and how many km I get out of a tank. I've only been using it a few weeks but it's really excellent.

Sample graphs below.





God I love graphs.

kat.mac

dredg wrote: »

I use the app road trip on my iphone to record the litres and mileage of my car at every fill.

Excellent, I'll download that, thanks a million!!

I've been monitoring the average l/100km and it seems to mostly hover around the 6litres/100km mark once I'm clear of the town/city, but as others mentioned above, it actually means very little to me and certainly means nothing to others who ask me how the car is going!

Thanks for all the advice!

RootX

Go to google.com, type 6l/100km to mpg and you'll get the conversion to mpg, 47.08 in your case, which is great btw.

Rowley Birkin QC

kat.mac wrote: »

Excellent, I'll download that, thanks a million!!

I've been monitoring the average l/100km and it seems to mostly hover around the 6litres/100km mark once I'm clear of the town/city, but as others mentioned above, it actually means very little to me and certainly means nothing to others who ask me how the car is going!

Thanks for all the advice!

Honestly, I don't see how it could be simpler.

You buy fuel in litres. On average, for every 6 litres of fuel you buy, you travel 100 kilometres.

I have this out with my dad every so often; gallons, miles, yards and feet. I have no idea what any of these things are, nor do I want to.

Lanshane

MuppetCheck wrote: »

Fill the tank, drive and then fill it again.

Divide the number of litres used by 4.54 to get the number of gallons.

Givide the miles travelled to get the mpg.

What are you getting at the moment? What type of driving do you do?

I have a 09 Octavia, 1.9 TDI with 60000 Mls on lcock. I have calculated the MPG based on the above method over the last 10 fills. It averages out at 58 MPG. I do mainly 5th gear driving, very little city driving (it is a diesel after all!). Very happy with it. Great economical BXE engine. Making sure all your filters are changed at the required intervals will help also.

kat.mac

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

Honestly, I don't see how it could be simpler.

You buy fuel in litres. On average, for every 6 litres of fuel you buy, you travel 100 kilometres.

I understand what you're saying, and I understand that I'm getting 100km for every 6 litres of fuel I buy.

It's just that every car dealer I have ever spoken to, every ad I see on Done Deal or elsewhere, and every other person I talk to or ask for advice on cars speaks in terms of mpg - therefore, that's what I refer to when I talk about performance.

Simply, when someone tells me they're getting, say, 50mpg, I automatically know that's very good.

If someone gave me the equivalent in km/litre, I don't automatically know how good or bad that is. It's obviously just a matter of getting my head around it, but honestly no one I've spoken to apart from on this thread uses the km/litre measurement, so it seems likely that I'll continue to use mpg for the foreseeable.

kat.mac

Lanshane wrote: »

I have a 09 Octavia, 1.9 TDI with 60000 Mls on lcock. I have calculated the MPG based on the above method over the last 10 fills. It averages out at 58 MPG. I do mainly 5th gear driving, very little city driving (it is a diesel after all!). Very happy with it. Great economical BXE engine. Making sure all your filters are changed at the required intervals will help also.

Mainly 5th gear driving for me also, I'm delighted with the economy. Only have the car 3 weeks and already seeing a huge benefit to my pocket on the weekly commute!

Rowley Birkin QC

kat.mac wrote: »

I understand what you're saying, and I understand that I'm getting 100km for every 6 litres of fuel I buy.

It's just that every car dealer I have ever spoken to, every ad I see on Done Deal or elsewhere, and every other person I talk to or ask for advice on cars speaks in terms of mpg - therefore, that's what I refer to when I talk about performance.

Simply, when someone tells me they're getting, say, 50mpg, I automatically know that's very good.

If someone gave me the equivalent in km/litre, I don't automatically know how good or bad that is. It's obviously just a matter of getting my head around it, but honestly no one I've spoken to apart from on this thread uses the km/litre measurement, so it seems likely that I'll continue to use mpg for the foreseeable.

So go forth and spread the good word!

ION08

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

Honestly, I don't see how it could be simpler.

You buy fuel in litres. On average, for every 6 litres of fuel you buy, you travel 100 kilometres.

I have this out with my dad every so often; gallons, miles, yards and feet. I have no idea what any of these things are, nor do I want to.

As above, it really couldn't be any simpler!

It means your car is using 6 litres of diesel for every 100 kilometers driven.

It makes soooooo much more sense than the backward "mpg" calculation.

I mean even prices as petrol station are in "per Litre" value.

So if you are averaging 6L/100km you can easily conclude that if diesel is 1,60 per litre, it would cost you €9.60 to travel 100km.

Since all road signs are in kilometers you know exactly what distance you are covering and for how much.

So say you have to travel 50km, you know you will use €4.80 worth of diesel.

It really couldn't be any simpler and any more logical than that.

kat.mac

ION08 wrote: »

As above, it really couldn't be any simpler!

It means your car is using 6 litres of diesel for every 100 kilometers driven.

It makes soooooo much more sense than the backward "mpg" calculation.

I mean even prices as petrol station are in "per Litre" value.

So if you are averaging 6L/100km you can easily conclude that if diesel is 1,60 per litre, it would cost you €9.60 to travel 100km.

Since all road signs are in kilometers you know exactly what distance you are covering and for how much.

So say you have to travel 50km, you know you will use €4.80 worth of diesel.

It really couldn't be any simpler and any more logical than that.

Yes, it is simple. As I've said above, I understand it, you don't need to repeat what several others have said. But as I also said above, mpg is still very widely used. That's why I want to know mpg AND km/l.

beazee

38-48 UK mpg or 5.9-7.4 L/100km according to fuelly.com

ION08

kat.mac wrote: »

Yes, it is simple. As I've said above, I understand it, you don't need to repeat what several others have said. But as I also said above, mpg is still very widely used. That's why I want to know mpg AND km/l.

Ok jeez, I was just trying to put it into perspective for you.

A lot of my friends dint grasp L/100km either to begin with but when I calculated it out for them and told them that basically driving 100km costs you a tenner and driving 50km costs you a fiver, it opened their eyes and made more sense.

Back on topic though your figure of 6l/100km is absolutely excellent efficiency-wise on the combined cycle!

beazee

There's another website as well people use to track their car fuel consumption: www.spritmonitor.de

And their database says:
Min: 4.14
Avg: 6.59
Max: 10.04 (l/100km)
out of 422 diesel Superbs

kat.mac

ION08 wrote: »

Back on topic though your figure of 6l/100km is absolutely excellent efficiency-wise on the combined cycle!

Thanks, delighted she's doing the business!

I am getting my head around the l/km measurement also, I'll be bilingual shortly enough

kat.mac

beazee wrote: »

There's another website as well people use to track their car fuel consumption: www.spritmonitor.de

And their database says:
Min: 4.14
Avg: 6.59
Max: 10.04 (l/100km)
out of 422 diesel Superbs

Thanks, I'll be gunning for the 4.14 now!

beazee

kat.mac wrote: »

Thanks, I'll be gunning for the 4.14 now!

Ask him how's he doing:
http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/522446.html
Seems to be a lot of motorway commute.

Rowley Birkin QC

kat.mac wrote: »

Thanks, delighted she's doing the business!

I am getting my head around the l/km measurement also, I'll be bilingual shortly enough

If you're chatting to dealers ask them to quote you l/100km aswell! Auf Deutsch!

Idbatterim

I have a 09 Octavia, 1.9 TDI with 60000 Mls on lcock. I have calculated the MPG based on the above method over the last 10 fills. It averages out at 58 MPG. I do mainly 5th gear driving, very little city driving (it is a diesel after all!).

does car have 6th gear?

650Ginge

L/100km as a calculation is only 96% acturate.

Seperately, any fuel usage figure is only really acturate when you have collected enough data to iron out all the fuelling inaccuracies, all the different types of driving you do. I think anything shirt of 20 fills is not going to be accurate. Certainly reading of a display inboard the car should be used only as an indication.

Going back to the sprit and fuelly data, it gives a very good view on what is 'normal' with so many users and data. Where u fit into the scale of normal is up to you and your driving technique. The cars are the same the only difference is you.

Getting 6l/100 seems to be rather poor when compared against what is possible.

Lanshane

Idbatterim wrote: »

does car have 6th gear?

Nope, 5 gears 105 BHP

yllw.ldbttr

I use the same app as Dredg, well worth the couple of euro.