How to get more MPG

[ASC1951]

"Buy your petrol just before dawn. Your car won't use any less of it, but it will be denser so you will buy more of it per £."

There again, our local swimming pool is the wrong length because they forgot to allow for the tiles ....

 

[numbnuts]

I've only used my car seven times this year

 

[Gary E]

If you look at how people drive, most are driving to close to the car in front so have to, over, react to every little speed change they make & makes it hard to read the road ahead properly.

Yes but then drafting saves you fuel, I saw it on Mythbusters

 

[Gary E]

I've only used my car seven times this year

About the same for me.

If it wasn't for the large amounts of kit/bikes that I occasionally need to move about I'd seriously consider getting rid. I'm beginning to wonder what the relative costs would be if I got rid but then hired a car for the odd few days that I need one

 

[Arsen Gere]

Pulse and glide efficiency at low speed surprised me.
"
During the pulse (acceleration) phase of pulse and glide, the efficiency is near maximal due to the high torque and much of this energy is stored as kinetic energy of the moving vehicle. This efficiently-obtained kinetic energy is then used in the glide phase to overcome rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. In other words, going between periods of very efficient acceleration and gliding gives an overall efficiency that is usually significantly higher than just cruising at a constant speed. Computer calculations have predicted that in rare cases (at low speeds where the torque required for cruising at steady speed is low) it's possible to double (or even triple) fuel economy.[28]
These two- or three-fold improvements in fuel economy are possible only at city driving speeds of say 25 or 35 miles/hour"

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-efficient_driving

 

[helston90]

More worrying is the often forgotten cost of depreciation- all to often people are begrudging 2/3p per litre increase at the pump but their brand whatever sits there loosing heaps of money (up to £50 a day for some top exec cars) even when they're not in use.
I would feel sick to think- oh, the car is another day older, that's just cost me £20 and I haven't even driven anywhere yet.

 

[Doseone]

Between depreciation, running costs etc the cost of running a car does my head in.

 

[JayBear]

More worrying is the often forgotten cost of depreciation- all to often people are begrudging 2/3p per litre increase at the pump but their brand whatever sits there loosing heaps of money (up to £50 a day for some top exec cars) even when they're not in use.
I would feel sick to think- oh, the car is another day older, that's just cost me £20 and I haven't even driven anywhere yet.

I always get confused at that sort of thinking. I know it is how a lot of people veiw the world. But when I buy a depreciating asset (a car in this example) I always feel I am turning money into a completly valuless lump of metal that will suck maintainance and tax out of me untill it dies. I never expect to get any money back from it. Once it dies I buy a new(er) one and it always suprises me that there is any residual value to it at all. Bonus!

I guess it is because I was brought up with a drummed in sense that finance deals and loans were always complete rip offs, and if you don't have £2k in the bank you can't buy the shiny £2k thing... much irritation now as my freinds go and buy shiny new(ish) things and I just sit there saying I can't afford it. Even if by most metrics I am "better off" than some of them.

Anyway, Mpg. It was a revalation to me how much of a difference a bit of smoothness makes to the economy. It is now a bugbear to my dad that I can manage to get his car loaded with 3 adults to yorkshire and back more efficiently, and quicker than he manages.

 

[tyred]

I avoid depreciation by always driving cars which are finished depreciating

 

[Over The Hill]

If you look at drivers on any road today (with fuel at six quid a gallon) you will see almost all of them driving in a way to use up as much fuel as they possibly can both in driving style and choice of car.

Although people occasionally moan they actually do not do anything to change their fuel use.

I find the best thing to save fuel is simply to try to do two or three things on one journey.

 

[vernon]

"Buy your petrol just before dawn. Your car won't use any less of it, but it will be denser so you will buy more of it per £."

There again, our local swimming pool is the wrong length because they forgot to allow for the tiles ....

That's Poulson for you.

I take it that you were referring to the now demolished Leeds international Pool?

 

[subaqua]

"Buy your petrol just before dawn. Your car won't use any less of it, but it will be denser so you will buy more of it per £."

There again, our local swimming pool is the wrong length because they forgot to allow for the tiles ....

thats gotta be the old leeds pool .

semi hypermiling is easy, I can get more out of any car than the manufacturer states by driving it sensibly.

 

[accountantpete]

My motoring diary for the last month reads

Petrol £nil
Car Tax and Ins £nil
Car Repairs £nil
Sense of personal well-being without all the frustrations of modern motoring +5

 

[Fnaar]

About 4 times a year, we make a particular long journey by car, to visit relatives. Somewtimes I drive, other times Mrs F drives. When I drive, we finish the journey having used 1/4 of a tank of fuel less than when Mrs F drives.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

There again, our local swimming pool is the wrong length because they forgot to allow for the tiles ....

That would be OK though if everyone hunched down by the thickness of 2 tiles, say 8mm.