40MPG ??

I don't see how it can't. If It's injected it should be a fairly easy figure to get, particularly with the aerodyamic shape. Certainly I found it easy to get 40mpg or so out of a 1.8 Mondeo and I wasn't driving it gently. Hell, I can get the far side of 40mpg out of an 18 year old 1.8 Golf...

Your calculations are right, so good driving! I get 30mpg from a 2.8 sierra 4x4 on motorway runs. If you have the 1.8 CVH sierra and drive it carefully with blown up tyres, then I would say 40 is quite possible. My wife gets 40 out of her Lexus GS300 on motorway runs, but only 19 locally. Much depends on the driver I reckon.

I get 39mpg commuting and 42mpg on a long 70+mph motorway run in my 1997 2.0 Primera. It consistently does 4mpg more than a work colleague's 1.8 Focus on the same commute but his journey is slightly longer.

I had a 1.8 Sierra back in the early '90s and it would regularly achieve

40mpg plus on a motorway run.

Modern cars generally use more fuel; safety protection systems add weight. (The Sierra weighs less than a Focus for example.) Power steering, air-con, and increased electrical loads all cost in terms of fuel.

Add to that the fact that an older car is likely to be driven more gently than a newer one, and your figures make perfect sense.

Chris

Yes, 1.8 CVH. Route is not totally motorway. 40 minutes on A11, 40 minutes on M11 and 40 minutes crossing East and SE London via Blackwall tunnel etc. I had no idea such an old bucket could achieve that high MPG. Next time I might try and keep under the speed limit and see if it improves even more.

Graham

I can get 40mpg on my Saab 9000 CSE 2.0 LPT if I drive carefully at 56mph, but as soon that I turn off the motorway, it drops to 30mpg in city traffic.

You drive like a nun?

JB

Well my 22 year old 2 Litre Capri does 37 so it's quite possible, especially as the 1.8 Pinto was an E-Max engine designed for economy and the CVH also fitted was more economical per CC than the Pinto.

I'd say that's believable in favorable conditions, gently driven. So much depends on driver and conditions. If I drive my Fabia fast and accelerate hard, or if I get stuck in heavy traffic, it will drop below

40mpg (worst ever- 28mpg with a lot of idling and queuing in snow), but driven steadily at 55-60mph you can see 55-60mpg without trouble.

I was about to say .. my 2L GL Sierra Estate never did much more than

35 mpg .. but it was a Pinto.

All the best ..

T i m

Ok, for the record, lets pin it down. It was usual 20-30 stop/start/speed humps/crossings/hills and lights from SE London to A102. Stuck in traffic for 10 minutes on northbound tunnel approach. Then 40-55 along the A12. Stopped for fuel at Redbridge and topped up, which is where I top up every time. M11 was no more than 80 until junction 8, mostly a tad either side of

70 (being a good boy for a change and it was raining fairly hard). Wind was South westerly so not against me and may have helped a bit. When I got to the two lane section of M11 there were lots of lorries blocking both lanes, so I took the option to sit in lane one at 55-60 rather than do the concertina/stop/go dance in lane 2 while the lorries play leap frog on the hills. After turning off the M11 at jnt 9, rain was fairly heavy and I was in no hurry and floated between 60-70. I overtook a few cars and lorries, but was taking it sedately.

I was certainly not trying to be economical. Next time I may treat it as a challenge and see if it. Thanks for all opinions. Good to hear your thoughts.

Graham

On 21-Mar-08 12:01:02, Graham said

Your maths check out fine here.

I was getting 45 mpg on a good week on my '94 Golf 1.8 petrol.

All the best, Angus Manwaring. (for e-mail remove ANTISPEM)

I need your memories for the Amiga Games Database: A collection of Amiga Game reviews by Amiga players

I used to have a 1.8 Sierra but the Pinto version not the CVH I see from later posts that you own. Checking through my fuel records which cover every tank of most of the cars I've owned (barring the first two nearly 30 years ago) the best I ever got out of it was 32.5 mpg with an average of 29 during the first 8k miles and then I fitted a 2.1 litre engine with big valve ported head, cam and exhaust which I built for it and the mpg fell to about

23 mpg for the last 9k miles. It was a good deal more fun though after that with an additional 40 or 50 bhp. The Sierra has very low aerodynamic drag, expecially for its era and had a fair turn of speed for a given bhp. I once saw 135 mph on the clock on the flat with the big engine although that would only have been mid 120s true speed allowing for the speedo error. Still, not to be sniffed at. It would have given my 2.0 Focus a good run for its money at the top end and beaten it quite easily off the line given the lower weight.

I suspect the CVH is better for economy than the Pinto anyway going by the various 1.6 CVH engined cars I've owned and the injected versions are very much more economical than the carb ones as is usually the case. I once squeezed 51.5mpg out of an XR2i during the fuel crisis a few years ago by sticking to no more than 50 mph on a motorway trip.

Best thing you can do to a Sierra btw is fit uprated bushes to the front track control arms. It transforms the turn in and cornering making everything very much more precise.

I had the 1600 pinto before this Sierra and the 1.8 CVH is much more economical. I haven't checked it, but the fuel gauge on this one hardly moves by comparison to my old pinto. The engine on my CVH Sierra is not tip top condition either. Burns a little oil when just started and needs about a pint of oil every 400 miles. Rattles a bit at the top, grumbles a bit from the lower end under certain loads, but goes fine. All I've done in the two years I've had it, is change the oil every 5000 miles. Comfortably drives at

85 all day without much difference in feel to when its doing 70. I'm happy for a £200 buy from ebay two years ago.

Graham

I used to get 36mpg out of a Capri 2.8i trundling up the motorway at 70, so no surprise to get 40 out of a 1.8 Sierra at all

Mike P

Surprised me. In fact Stunned is a better adjective.

Graham

Yeah, me too. So much so I thought the gauge was faulty so I filled it up again! Did the same journey a few times with the same result. Early on a Sunday morning, Wycombe-Burnley.

Mike P

Yup, 24-27 out of a 2l 4spd capri,17-23 out of the 2.8

Another good calculator is this one, which I use:

By the way, I have found it not at all easy to spot anomaly merely by scanning the sequential fill-up figures alone: they fluctuate quite a bit.