filling your car tank up

[byegad]

In theory running with very little fuel can give you slightly better mpg. In practice the nearest garage is 5 miles from me and I don't usually drive past it on the way to anywhere. So I run with a full tank and refill it every time I need fuel.

 

[ufkacbln]

Did anyone listen to Jeremy Vine on R2 yesterday??

Martin Lewis was going on about getting more miles from your tankful & said to only use aircon when needed then some bloke from, I think, VW called to say basically what Night Train had said!

Another prediction was a specialist who had accompanied a rep on a drive. He calculated that by driving smoothly (as opposed to fast accelarate and rapid brake) in urban traffic and sticking to speed limits on the motorway the driver could cut his fuel costs by 25%!

 

[numbnuts]

I hardly use my car, I've only bought £50 worth this year

 

[funnymummy]

I can't let my tank go below half way - My parents live in Derbyshire & a few years bcak my dad had an accident, 2 days til payday & not enough petrol to get me there.. Panicing I had to knock on neighbours doors to borrow funds! I have since always made sure I have enough in the tank to get me there in an emergency!
I bought a new car last month, it's much bigger then my old one & a diesel, thought i'd fill her right up, just to see what she would hold....
£85 OMFG!! The tank is as big as a blooming 18wheelers!!

 

[asterix]

Whilst we might whinge about fuel prices, the amount of energy you get for your money is an absolute bargain. Imagine how much work you would have to do in order to shift the weight that your petrol or diesel does for you.

As cyclists we try to get light bikes and so on because we know how hard it is to shift just a small amount of weight but when driving a motor vehicle we never even think about it.

 

[Paulus]

it never cost me any more... i always get the same £20 i've been getting for years

A good mate of mine at work say's something very similar. "it costs me £25, it always has done". Myself, I haven't a car, but my motorbike now costs me £20 instead of the £12.50 it did 8 years ago. It is an old tatty CB500 and I still get around 80/90 mpg.

 

[fossyant]

I don't fill mine up now, I fear a heart attack.

3-4 years ago it was a full tank every 5 days, OMG !

 

[mcshroom]

I fill up each time so that I know how much is left in the tank exactly. I have far more trust in my 'gallons used' measure (why gallons used not on a French car litres I don't know but anyway) than I do in my overcautious fuel gauge and warning light. I have driven over 100 miles with the petrol light on and the gauge below empty getting home on a Sunday night once.

Cost me over £80 last time I filled up; does last me about 6-8 weeks now though instead of the 2-3 it used to before i started cycling

 

[gbb]

The only time i ever, ever filled mine up are on long journeys, which are rarer than sqirrell sh1t for me.
Not because of the prices now....i never did fill her up.
The Jeremy Vine program was interesting but didnt really tell me anything i didn't know. I almost felt the urge to email them with something i've found that wasn't mentioned...your economy computer in the car. I can get better fuel consumption at say 65 than i can at say 55 mph. Its about the power bands your engine works at. Going slower ISN'T always best. I'd never have known that if i didn't use the computer in the car.

My boss owns a Bentley convertible....£100 a week in fuel and that's just commuting for the most part.

 

[rusky]

A guy at work said you should drive fast then you would get there quicker & therefore use less fuel because you weren't driving for as long.

 

[mcshroom]

I'm sure someone used that as a reason when stopped for speeding on Road Wars/Traffic Cops once (racing to get to the petrol station)

 

[craigwend]

I pay a lot more attention to this weekly email now

http://www.petrolprices.com/

I would not travel out of my way, but saving 2p a litre on route is worth it

 

[Paulus]

hmmm, there may be a flaw in his idea. Surely, once over a certain speed the relation between speed and fuel economy widens. The optimum speed used to be a steady 55mph, only attainable on a motorway or a long stretch of A road with no roundabouts or traffic lights. I stand to be corrected though.

 

[Night Train]

A guy at work said you should drive fast then you would get there quicker & therefore use less fuel because you weren't driving for as long.

I have tested this and found that with a light car hard accellerationup to speed and then cuising on a light throttle was more economic then slow acceleration through the gears.

It works on the basis that 20mpg for 10 seconds uses less fuel then 35mpg for 60 seconds before cruising. On this basis I will drop a couple of gears and blast up a hill quickly rather then slog it out in top gear for a minute or so.

 

[mgarl10024]

Whilst we might whinge about fuel prices, the amount of energy you get for your money is an absolute bargain. Imagine how much work you would have to do in order to shift the weight that your petrol or diesel does for you.

As cyclists we try to get light bikes and so on because we know how hard it is to shift just a small amount of weight but when driving a motor vehicle we never even think about it.

Spot on.

I tried explaining to a colleague once to imagine pushing their car to work and how much energy that would require. Then to imagine the millions of cars. I'm not sure if that thought is 100% accurate, but it certainly is staggering and must make you think about how unsustainable this is and the amount of damage we're doing.

Out of interest - how does it compare with electricity prices? I'll assume that electrical energy is more expensive as you have to convert it and rarely get better than about 40% of the energy in a fossil fuel.