just been watching top gear...

Up the tyre pressures to the highest recommended in the handbook, get rid of anything not needed from the car, accellerate gently, brake as little as possible, cruise slower.

Buy narrower (steel) rims with narrow, hard compound tires (Michelin markets them as "Energy Saver").

Choose a tire with reduced diameter of about an inch(choosing sidewallheight). Rideheight and frontal area will reduce and in doing so lower aerodynamic drag. Put tires arond 2.5 bar and don't drive in the rain. That should bring your MPG close to 45 mph

Want an extra 5% in fuelreduction? Deconnect the power-steering.

Wedge a piece of wood, around 3 inch think under your gaspedal.

Still want more? Never accelerate faster than a bus and never drive over

ALternatively you could leave the Mini alone and start walking of biking.

Tom De moor

Freewheel down inclines, incurring the wrath of Conor and others ;)

Buy a French shopping trolley.

HTH.

Put a phonebook under the accelerator.

Yes because you use more fuel than if you were in gear...

By not being lead-footed. This may, on past evidence, be completely beyond you.

Have a look here

That'll give you some ideas.

Mike P

No idea why that link didn't work. I'm playing with Linux and Pan again..

anyway, I was trying to send you here

Drafting is complete bollocks. In order to benefit from it, you need to be up the vehicle in fronts arse. If you do as that site suggests and leave a 2 second gap, at non urban speeds, that'll put you in the position of quite a high level of wind resistance. Try it behind a lorry on the motorway. Drop back slowly and as you reach the 2 second mark, you'll feel a bit of buffeting.

Coast and Burn is a very good suggestion HOWEVER YOU HAVE TO BE IN GEAR, NOT IN NEUTRAL. In gear, the engine management system will cut off all fuel to the enging until you reach around 1200RPM. In neutral, it'll supply fuel constantly to keep the engine running.

Conor gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Not quite, but...

Short seconds around you, mate.

Slipstreaming or drafting is definitely the easiest way to get past a wagon on the motorway in a 2cv - but anything more than "Ohfuckthisisclose" means you get no benefit at all. The period of buffeting is _well_ within 1sec gap, nowhere near as far back as 2sec.

WTF would you want to? I'm getting 35mpg out of my 2l HDI at the minute. Need a GTI of some sort. I could easily better that in a petrol...

The absolute worst I've had is 52MPG.

I guess I just know how to drive..

Not only that - I drove past a petrol station that used to be one of the more expensive ones around (BP in Twyford, Berks), and now it's cheap on a par to the vaguely local Asda, which always has been the cheapest (methinks BP have had a rethink about pricing their fuel to drive more people in to the shops, which probably works particularly well at the M+S BP places...) - anyway, it's 89.9 for petrol and 105.9 for diesel, meaning you only need a petrol doing 84.9% of the economy of a diesel for equal running costs.

You might drive without the towhook you swing at lorries. :-)

TDM

Hey! Used to get that too.

When I was in the army, stationed in Germay I went home by car. The tanc filled up courtesy of army fuel. Snow, ice all the way; *Autobahn* closed etc yett I drove through like a man possessed.

Where I went into a spin, taken nearly a telephone boot out, ending in a small ditch?

Since then I pay high attention the last few miles from destination :-)

Tom De Moor

Oh Yeah?

Try it on a bike and I think you might change your mind

Mark

Actually Adrian, just re-read what you said and I concour.

Conor---Try it on a bike and I think you might change your mind

Mark

Fair enough. Was trying to recall from memory. I don't usually spend long behind lorries unless I'm in one.