Getting by the week.

My SOEscort Van was free. I had to put a battery and a glowplug relay on it, so it owed me £33 by the time it was running. I've since put a new fanbelt on, replaced the nuts on the alternator with nylocs, and put a new stop solenoid on the fuel pump.

If the van had cost me money to buy I'd have just flogged it to one of my mechanic mates - they're always after cheap vans - but for the sake of the £60 odd it owes me now, and the fact that it's saved me most of that in fuel in the last week, I really don't mind fixing it up.

I've been offered £350 for it already, but I want to at least get it to the end of the month before offloading it.

Got to fit the E36 rack to the E30 before the van can go anyway.

It has very little power at the redline either. It's basically a cheap CO2 special.

Ahh, fit a turbo...

But they then get to stick it to you by telling you they can't afford to give you a wage rise because of the fuel bills....

Well I do things slightly differently. Possibly how they do it in Europe. I brim the tank, then drive exactly 62.1 miles, which always brings me exactly outside a petrol station (overcrowded South-East you know, they're everywhere), and filling up gives me an accurate litres/100km figure.

There's only one way to find out.....f...f..f...FIIIIIIIIGHT!

LOL!

Which isn't bad for a small capacity six cylinder machine. Also shows how temperatures have increased over the last week too!

Over how many miles, just out of interest? I've only managed to buy fuel twice in the last fornight, I probably won't need motion lotion until Thursday / 1,200 miles. The car will have averaged ~36 mpg over this distance.

But calculating it to two decimal places is a bit meaningless as the information fed in isn't equally accurate (even if it will have as many decimal places)... I read 30, 31, 31, 32, 33... although record it to one decimal place myself.

Arround 230-235 a week. Works out at 1/2 tank or just less. Tends to be drive to work 30 then 40 road usually busy, then motorway for about half hour, can be very busy, the 40 then 30 road. Rolly but not significant hills. Not proper climbs, so I steady throttle/constand speed quite well now.

I don't really like rounding up/down to whole numbers. Adds to the innacuries. I know I'm not going to get it dead on without adding variables for things like temperature change and tyre wear over the life, but it shows trends well enough for me.

The tank is 70 litre capacity and one of the biggest moans on the Lexus owners club site is how some people can just about get 300 miles from a tank, and they claim they drive like saints. Maybe they are in autos, but as proved, an easy 400 should be doable on a decent run.

All the religious folk I know don't drive anything near as economical as I do... most people think that driving economically means slowly. Also, most people are borderline clueless unless it's something that interests them.

Nope, it means people don't know what they're talking about, but how it's used makes a huge difference. The 9-3 as I imagine the IS200 feels silly thirsty in the city. It's capable of showing 50 mpg on a quiet, moderate pace (HGV speed) run through the country or on motorways and suchlike.