On Monday we left on a weeks travel down to Donegal. I brimmed the tank on departure. The day before we left, I just happened to read an article on, 'hypermiling', the practice of scraping every bit of energy from the fuel you use and increase the Mpg. These nutters do loads of things including driving in their socks so they can feel the accelerator better on driving!

One thing did stick in my mind though, reducing the speed driven significantly increases your fuel efficiency. Yes, everyone 'knows' that, but I never really did it before. However, being on holiday, I thought, why not I'll try it. During the week we drove just under 300 miles. Normally I get between 30 & 32 Mpg, and on quite vigorous driving, it can drop to 28Mpg.

I never once went above 55Mph, even on motorways, and on 60Mph limit, I kept to 45Mph. Initially it took much willpower as I hate being overtaken, still a boy racer at heart, but got use to it surprisingly quickly.

Anyway, brimmed up again earlier today, and was genuinely surprised at the result. My old jalopy managed 38.7Mpg!

I doubt I'll always drive like Miss Daisy, but speed definitely impacts significantly on Mpg much more than I gave credit for. Oh, and yes, of course  I kept my A/C on at full blast, I'm not an animal! LOL

That's incredible Stephen, though I note you were driving down to Donegal so it may not be as good on the way back up!😀

1 hour ago, StephenFord said:

On Monday we left on a weeks travel down to Donegal. I brimmed the tank on departure. The day before we left, I just happened to read an article on, 'hypermiling', the practice of scraping every bit of energy from the fuel you use and increase the Mpg. These nutters do loads of things including driving in their socks so they can feel the accelerator better on driving!

One thing did stick in my mind though, reducing the speed driven significantly increases your fuel efficiency. Yes, everyone 'knows' that, but I never really did it before. However, being on holiday, I thought, why not I'll try it. During the week we drove just under 300 miles. Normally I get between 30 & 32 Mpg, and on quite vigorous driving, it can drop to 28Mpg.

I never once went above 55Mph, even on motorways, and on 60Mph limit, I kept to 45Mph. Initially it took much willpower as I hate being overtaken, still a boy racer at heart, but got use to it surprisingly quickly.

Anyway, brimmed up again earlier today, and was genuinely surprised at the result. My old jalopy managed 38.7Mpg!

I doubt I'll always drive like Miss Daisy, but speed definitely impacts significantly on Mpg much more than I gave credit for. Oh, and yes, of course  I kept my A/C on at full blast, I'm not an animal! LOL

How many tickets have you recieved for Kerb crawling 😄

All that effort and it still couldn't crack 40mpg?

I never did understand why anyone bought these new.  1.6 TDCi in the same car would've done over 60mpg on that journey.  They'll do 55mpg without even trying (and without holding everyone else up).  Plus they're only £30 a year to tax...  

Don't get me wrong I like a petrol engine in a sports model where MPG is less of a concern...but for a daily runabout, it's been diesel every time for me since 2011.

22 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

All that effort and it still couldn't crack 40mpg?

I cracked 40mpg in my 2009 1.6 Petrol........once 🤣

Cornwall to Leeds (350+ miles) 70-80mph with a couple of stops.

 

13 minutes ago, RAIDER32 said:

I cracked 40mpg in my 2009 1.6 Petrol........once 🤣

Biggest problem with those cars are just 5 gears, at 70mph it sits at 3200rpm and it's noisy and inefficient,
Now I have a 2.0 litre ST and at 70mph it sits around 2500rpm in 6th gear (can't remember exactly but it's much lower).
I honestly don't think I fill up the ST anymore than I did in the 1.6 Zetec, maybe because I had to rev harder in the 1.6.

6 hours ago, StephenFord said:

I never once went above 55Mph, even on motorways,

What can I say ? 🤔

Sad, very very sad !!

You may as well buy a caravan 🤣

 

12 hours ago, RAIDER32 said:

Biggest problem with those cars are just 5 gears, at 70mph it sits at 3200rpm and it's noisy and inefficient,
Now I have a 2.0 litre ST and at 70mph it sits around 2500rpm in 6th gear (can't remember exactly but it's much lower).
I honestly don't think I fill up the ST anymore than I did in the 1.6 Zetec, maybe because I had to rev harder in the 1.6.

1.6 TDCi was also only 5 speed in Mk2 tbf.  But they have enough torque not to need a super-low ratio box.

 

15 hours ago, unofix said:

You may as well buy a caravan 🤣

 

I knew someone would say that, as I thought it myself! LOL However, fuel consumption would plummet then to about 15Mpg 😅

43.5mpg on a 250 mile trip mainly doing 70mph in the 2.3 ST. Pretty impressed with that.

4 hours ago, StephenFord said:

I knew someone would say that, as I thought it myself! LOL However, fuel consumption would plummet then to about 15Mpg 😅

I've seen no increase in fuel consumption over the 15+ years we've had a caravan. (But then, it is a static😀)

On 9/10/2022 at 7:28 PM, TomsFocus said:

I never did understand why anyone bought these new.  1.6 TDCi in the same car would've done over 60mpg on that journey.  They'll do 55mpg without even trying (and without holding everyone else up).  Plus they're only £30 a year to tax... 

The reasons some people dislike diesels seem to still be fairly common.

A lot still think of them as being slow to accelerate, noisy, smoky, prone to vibration etc.

One I used to hear often was that they are more expensive to repair if they go wrong. Was there ever much truth to that?

My petrol 1.6 Mk2 is not great on fuel. I would have the diesel version if I didn't have to drive into the London ULEZ area for work every day.

 

22 minutes ago, AntonovAN12 said:

One I used to hear often was that they are more expensive to repair if they go wrong. Was there ever much truth to that?

Not in my personal experience, at least. I had a variety of diesels over the years, some doing 100k miles, without any problems that could be attributed to the diesel engine.

Only reverted to petrol as my annual mileage is too low to make a diesel worthwhile anymore. Miss the torque!

34 minutes ago, AntonovAN12 said:

One I used to hear often was that they are more expensive to repair if they go wrong. Was there ever much truth to that?

There used to be a great deal of truth in that - but that was in the days of carburetors and no cats. These days with cats, O2 sensors, EGR systems. dodgy throttle valves, expensive electronic ignition & fuel injection systems, and sometimes turbos and high pressure direct fuel injection (GTDI), the balance has probably shifted towards the Diesel being the more reliable and cheaper option. Provided you avoid one of the early DPF systems like the dreadful PSA Eolys systems. Later DPFs seem to be much better.

12 minutes ago, Eric Bloodaxe said:

my annual mileage is too low to make a diesel worthwhile anymore.

That is not a good reason in itself. Diesels are very good at coping with occasional use, The exhaust does not rot for a start, as there is so little steam in the exhaust of a Diesel (lean burn).

The real advantage of a simple (non GTDI) petrol engine is faster warm up, so frequent very short journeys (eg. less than 6 miles) will not make good use of the better efficiency of a Diesel, as the engine needs to be warm to get that advantage properly, and petrol can end up being better.

Recently my old heap recorded 59mpg over a 530 mile fill to fill time involving about 300 miles on motorways. Speed was 65 to 75 typical on the motorway when conditions allowed. I suspect foam (that can cut off the fuel fill a bit early) may have had a small effect, but it was well over 57mpg even allowing for that. At almost £2 to the litre, I was well pleased with that..

I only ever had one diesel, in 1988, a Peugeot 205 1.9 Van! It was my company car at the time. The acceleration was incredible, especially if not loaded.  Being a 'company' car, the fuel economy was unimportant to me as it was all paid for. The one thing I do remember was having to wait for the little 'spark plug' dash light to extinguish before being able to start the engine...

35 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

The one thing I do remember was having to wait for the little 'spark plug' dash light to extinguish before being able to start the engine...

Ah, the olden days of indirect injection.  By the late 90's Peugeot had mastered common rail, no need to wait for plugs on the HDi! 

PD was slightly different though...I was in a rush one morning so didn't bother to wait for the light on the Mk4 Golf.  Filled the street with white smoke and diesel clatter.   In fairness it did catch immediately though!  Did have an IDI 106 with a snapped glowplug at one point, which was interesting to start on a cold morning...benefit of a £300 car though, no worries about ragging it when cold to get some heat into that cylinder.  

 

10 hours ago, AntonovAN12 said:

The reasons some people dislike diesels seem to still be fairly common.

A lot still think of them as being slow to accelerate, noisy, smoky, prone to vibration etc.

One I used to hear often was that they are more expensive to repair if they go wrong. Was there ever much truth to that?

Fair point!  I must admit, I am the only one in my family to have bought diesels.  Though that's mainly due to conditioning and a reticence to change on their part.

One of the weird things I kept being told by family members was that 'diesel costs more'...which it did at the time by only a few pence, not sure I ever really got it through that the massive difference in MPG more than made up for the pump price difference.

They are noisy at idle, there's no getting away from that.  But on the move they're quieter, especially when cruising at speed as you can use much lower revs as someone mentioned earlier in the thread.  Ford's in general seem to be prone to vibration in my experience...not sure if they just can't design engine mounts properly...don't remember my original Mk2 being too bad, but the Mk3 was awful despite changing all mounts at 40k miles, and both Mk4 EcoBoosts I've had vibrated the cabin much more than my diesel Golf.  My current Mk2 diesel Focus also vibrates more than the diesel Golf, could attribute that to wear now, but both cars are around the same age and mileage.  Smelly really depends where you are, neither should be smelly from the drivers seat in a modern car, and I can't say I find petrol exhaust to be any more pleasant than diesel exhaust, my preference in that area would be full electric for slow speed so not smelly at all.  Slow to accelerate is completely wrong since turbo's started becoming the norm for diesels, they're much nippier than equivalent petrols around town.  The main issue is the small powerband, so you can't rev them out like you can a petrol, have to keep changing gear to drop back into the powerband and will run out of top end puff sooner than a petrol.  However the introduction of VNT turbo's in the early 2000's widened the powerband a bit more, so modern diesels feel more petrolly.

I'm not sure I could say either petrol or diesel is more expensive to repair across the board.  It totally depends on the specific engines that you're comparing.  In the 90's an IDI diesel had one electrical component to stop the fuel pump, much more reliable than a petrol where you need electricity for both spark and fuel pump/injectors.  In the 2000's with VNT turbos, piezo injectors, electric EGRs and DPF's all in their early days diesels became more expensive to repair.  But then people realised that they were making petrols look bad in terms of both performance & emissions so around the 2010s petrols gained turbos and direct injection bringing their repair costs up as well.  Nowadays I'd say it's probably pretty even, neither petrol or diesel is cheap to repair any more.

11 hours ago, Tdci-Peter said:

That is not a good reason in itself. Diesels are very good at coping with occasional use,

I'm perhaps over simplifying it there, and am thinking in terms of what's available new now, which, for my purposes, are generally too big, automatic, far too expensive, etc, and the cost/benefit equation doesn't work for me anymore.

(It did in my company car days when I got a fixed mileage rate for business use and going diesel increased my mpg by 50%. Happy days!😀)

I would certainly concur when talking about older, simpler, diesels. Back in the day, we had an XUD engined Citroen as a second car, mainly for my Mrs, who does very little mileage. It stayed in the family for 13 years and the only expense other than normal servicing was one glowplug and a battery at 9 or 10 years. 

 

 

I'm on my first and last diesel. And perhaps I need a caravan too if hypermiling is the pre requisite. I'm a hypermiling expert but with my shoes on. Did an all time best on my way home tonight according to trip computer. 

7 minutes ago, iantt said:

I'm a hypermiling expert but with my shoes on. 

One of my mates always used to drive in socks, no shoes. It probably helped his mpg by lightening the car, as no one wanted to be in the car with him because of his smelly feet!

9 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Fair point!  I must admit, I am the only one in my family to have bought diesels.  Though that's mainly due to conditioning and a reticence to change on their part.

One of the weird things I kept being told by family members was that 'diesel costs more'...which it did at the time by only a few pence, not sure I ever really got it through that the massive difference in MPG more than made up for the pump price difference.

I am not saying I agree with the points I made myself, they are simply what I have often heard. Many wouldn't understand the concept of MPG, and only see the higher pump price, especially if they only do local journeys.

I have owned an early 2.5TD Mitsubishi Shogun in the past which was a basic all mechanical turbo diesel. That did need the injection pump seals replaced as it started to leak. I saved a lot of money by removing and refitting the pump myself.

As for short journeys, any modern diesel with a DPF apparently needs a long run every so often to burn the soot off. Someone at work had that problem with a VW Passat that only ever got used to take the kids to school.

27 minutes ago, AntonovAN12 said:

As for short journeys, any modern diesel with a DPF apparently needs a long run every so often to burn the soot off. Someone at work had that problem with a VW Passat that only ever got used to take the kids to school.

That's not totally accurate, they just need to understand how and roughly when the DPF will regenerate.  Different types of DPF can be used on different engines, even within the same model range. 

Since the pandemic started I only ever did short journeys at max 40mph in my 2.0 TDI Golf and never had any DPF problems.  It will regenerate at town speeds within about 20 minutes.

My 2011 mondeo 1.6 tdci only ever used for short journeys regens under normal driving conditions. Owned a peugeot 407 (slightly older 2007) had constant issues with dpf. 

My own non-scientific observations on Petrol v Diesel problems are that there seems to be a lot of difficult to diagnose engine problems with Diesel engines on forums compared to Petrol engines, obviously excluding Wet Belt problems. There also seems to be a lot of Clutch/Gearbox problems with Petrol cars though, although Diesel cars do have a lot of DMF problems.

I don't know what the ratio of Petrol v Diesel cars is in say the last 15 years and maybe as Petrol engines are getting more sophisticated the ratio of problems will change, who knows.

Before I got my first Diesel I was against them for the same reasons as never owned a Diesel owners are, but after getting my first one when I was doing 25000 miles a year I never regretted it. 

I do have a Petrol engine now. I did think long and hard and it was a toss-up between the 1.5 Petrol and the 2.0 Diesel, the 1.5 Diesel looked a bit slow for what now is all pleasure driving, but because I don't do many miles any longer the difference in consumption verses fuel cost difference and the amount of fuel I need to buy in is tiny.

If I did go for the 2.0 Diesel I'm sure I would be equally happy.

Always had petrol cars till I mistakenly bought a Peugeot 308 with the infamous prince (bmw/Peugeot) engine a few years back. Modern petrol engine’s rely on vvt to keep emissions low then squeeze as much power out them. When not looked after result’s are expensive repairs so for now it’s diesel car’s for me.😁

Don't you just love the internet... A simple post on me getting a surprising Mpg figure on an ageing car, has developed into an in depth analysis of petrol v diesel.

Though the overriding thing against diesel is that the government in the mid 90s proclaimed it as the fuel of the future, subsidised  new diesel car sales, and then when critical mass was reached, increased the fuel tax to make it more expensive than petrol.

Thank goodness they learned their lesson and haven't interfered since on what we drive..... oh, wait a minute 🤣