Fuel Economy Official Figures

Nov 29, 2008 42 Replies

Just inspired by this bit of a post of Dervy's, but thinking it warranted a separate thread.....



>
> Now official fuel consumption figures are a bit of a nonsense really, but > of
> the last three similar sized cars (Accord 1.8, Saab 9-3 2.2 TiD, Saab 9-3
> 1.8t) my average and highest mpg figures have been 110% of the official
> combined cycle and 122% respectively.

....I've found in quite a few cars that the general mpg I tend to get seems to be about half-way between (or the average of) the constant 75mph figure and the urban figure.


Does that work for most people?


Not if you drive round London. ;-)

But the constant 75 figure isn't quoted any more... :-/

Do you mean the Urban and Extra Urban figures?

Nope. I've never failed to exceed the 56MPH figure by at least 10%.

Seconded. Conor, maybe you can provide the data?

I suspect you're not doing the calculation correctly, given your recent claims.

I just hopped on the PC after having fallen asleep for a fair chunk of the afternoon, and got dead confused by the fact that yours and Dervy's clocks aren't in sync, and that his reply to your post came before your post....

My clock is synchronised to an internet time server....

Is it the same internet time server that's powered by whatever powers the calculator behind Conor's economy calculations?

On a different note, I know this isn't exactly a new thing, but is there any genuine reason other than greed, for diesel to be so much dearer than petrol? The differential now, percentage-wise, is probably the same as when they were at their peak, but last time petrol was 89.9p/litre, diesel was about 4p/litre more, tops.

Still, good for me running on LPG, as it's now cheaper than half the price of derv by a little bit, rather than bang on half the price. Filled up at

49.9p/litre the other day. I bet if I check petrolprices.com, Wycombe ASDA is probably heading for sub-40p type money....
+AD4- is there any genuine reason other than greed, for diesel to be so much +AD4- dearer than petrol?

Supply and demand, more demand for diesel than petrol, it's similar to heating oil. According to the posh people on Radio 4 anyway :)

Doesn't diesel attract a higher rate of duty, too?

Yes, diesel is Satans own fuel. HTH!

"AstraVanMann" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Supply & demand.

A barrel of crude can't be used to make diesel or petrol - it breaks down into certain amounts of different grades which go to different products. Diesel comes from the same portion as a bunch of other things, including heating oil. Petrol, IIRC, is fairly unique.

More and more people now drive diesels - so demand has gone up. Supply hasn't and can't.

The duty on diesel's not changed, relative to that on petrol.

As others have said, supply and demand issues. It isn't going to ease any time soon, which is one of the reasons why defecting to the puny, watery stuff earlier in the year wasn't as hard as it could have been!

We've been over this before. We came to the conclusion my trip meter on the Mondeo is exaggerating to the tune of 5% and this has been factored in. HOWEVER on my Capri, there's no trip computer and it's worked out on a fill to fill basis. Speedo is spot on with GPS for a change.

Yawn. Go back a while when I said I got just over 60MPG going to Hull and back for a week (I think it was in September) according to the trip computer and I posted links to the piccy of the trip computer showing

60.2 I think. The conversation then carried on and it was concluded it was overreading by 5%.

Although in that other thread about Top Gear, you said - "I get the thick end of 60 MPG caning around East Yorkshire in the Mondy." That's not really the same as commuting to Hull and back for a week. The combined official figure is only 48mpg... I don't think even Dervy would get 60mpg when driving for economy, let alone caining it. If you were actually 'caining' it, you'd be flying down near SteveHs Passat averages, he also had a 130bhp

2.0 TD iirc although a VW, and he seemed to get 30-40mpg under normal 'making progress' conditions.

I reckon dervy could easily surpass 60mpg. He was pushing 50mpg out of my merc which is auto, has more cylinders and substantially bigger than the mondy.

*cough* Indicated, yes, but it takes some doing. Genuine, dunno...

Yup; 35 to 40 seems to be what they do when driven hard. Not 60.

So where did you get the 56 mph fuel consumption data from, as this isn't published by Ford?

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