Set a new MPG Record!

So I thought I'd try to see what I could do with the Coupe if I actually drove sensibly and not like a fool.

Bearing in mind, its 11 years old, 108000 miles and only a five speeder, I've managed 33MPG! Now I think thats pretty impressive, however this involved 250 miles of motorway driving at a consistant 70MPH, I reckon with a six speed box I could get 36MPG, I could almost justify keeping it then, as the 306 only manages 43MPG


Ben

just recently, as you may have read in my thread, i managed to get 155 miles out of £20! this averaged 41mpg! ive got a 5 speeder and the car was totally drained of petrol before i put that £20 in to repair the fuel tank.

i was quite proud of that! except it ran out finally on my drive and wouldnt start/move properly!

Joe

At the brooklands meet on Saturday, i did 310 miles to about 45 litres (33ish mpg). Most was motorway work, some having a play with a r32 and a Porsche, the rest driving round and round the town centre near brooklands for 45 minutes due to tomtom having a direction fit
If i drove at 70 and no tomtom having a fit i reckon i would have got to 400miles.

Mines a 5 speeder, and got quite afew mods (about 300bhp)

I was very pleased with the car, smooth, powerful and soooo easy to drive. Makes me remember why i spend so much time on it

Ash

i have had 34mpg out of my 5 speeder!

Earlier 30's i reckon im about in my 6 speed le. Town drivin just kills it really, on runs its very good.

I might just hold both records for fuel consumption.

7.9mpg over 100 miles at Bedford Autodrome (while running about 300bhp - I reckon it could be even higher now )

43.6 mpg over 375 miles driving to Gateshead and back - averaging about 60mph

This is going to be a bigger concern for us all the way fuel prices are going ..

I bet Duke748 ( Mike, previous owner of my LE ) is well chuffed with the diesel vectra I traded him now ..
Especially with the 78 mpg it achieved on a 100 mile dual carriageway run ( proven, brimming method, photo of disply to prove )

I'm happy with the mpg on the coupe.. does very well for such an old engine design IMO

Hehehehe! I remember that morning panic!

Blinkin' great fuel economy though!

haha yes stan! you were there at 7.00am to help me! everythings been fine since.

well apart from the laughing turbo..

Joe

im normally in the low 30's, and have a 300hp (more or less) coupe.

but i usually am "driving miss daisy", and quite often make my daily commute (50 miles or so, mostly motorway or a roads, depending which way i go) without seeing positive boost.

except for the odd thing which "looks at me funny" (you know what i mean ), or is exotic enough to tempt me to have a play, then the coupe sees the boost needle fly up, and the fuel needle plummet.

Beat the lot of you (except Nigel!) this weekend: Been around the M25 from Hemel to Caterham three times and back (with a detour once to Brooklands) and just filled up at 35.5 mpg

Thinks... if the 16v had the 16vt gearbox... hmmm....

I managed to get 463 miles on a tank from full to empty which I was very impressed with!

Can someone cleverer than me do the math?

about 35mpg, assuming you were close to empty

Got exactly 40mpg on a run up to Dover. Crossed the channel and got on those French roads..... down to about 27mpg....but it was worth it!

I was really happy this weekend because I got 30.6mpg, until I read this thread ! Mind you, I was not driving on the motorway at a constant 55mph !

Dave

I have to drive to skegness in a couple of weeks which is 135 miles each way and I thought it was gonna be a tank each way but seeing what some of you have managed I may be able to do a tank there and back provided I can keep my speed down a bit.

The best I have managed is 400 miles on a tank, can't remember how much it took to fill it but it was just over 30mpg. Best I have got is about 32 I think, with an average over 84k miles of 26.9mpg. How big is the tank anyway?

I'm VERY proud to report that I drove from Porto to Lisbon and back, on B roads (traffic, lights etc) spent a day around lisbon, drove back and my 5speeder 102000 mile baby stayed with me 581miles of the way!!! now with a 63L tank that makes 43MPG!!!!!!

Very, VERY proud of my baby!!!

935km range is similar to so many diesel cars!!!

On the motorway coupe is ok. I think my best was around 30mpg but when in a city, cut that by half

you have a problem if you can't do 270 on a tank - I can get that much running full boost and driving "enthusiastically"

I suppose it depends when you consider the tank empty. My parents consider 1/4 of a tank empty!

Dave

The thing is I have only used the car around town so far and that usually equates to some heavy footed driving at some point so the fuel hasn't lasted very long. Hopefully should be ok then!

I though tI'd done really well until I read all these replies!! You have all well and truely pissed on my bonfire!!

Ben

PS Nigel - I normally only see 270 miles to a tank, although I think the thermostat maybe on its way out, despite it only being 12 months old

benje - 270 is OK - nothing special, but nothing worrying either.

BenCoupeTurbo was wondering if he'd do 270 on TWO tanks - if that was the case, there would have to be something seriously wrong, or his route involved ten laps of Silverstone

I'm pretty well sure of my 581 range because it kind of parked itself on the side of the road..

Thought the fuel tank limit was under the red line... bahhh

I only got 340 from 64 l last week, that was taking it very easy after 240 from my first tank. (20VT 6 speed on 95 ron)

Are my sums right that you need to get 422 miles out of a tank (64 litres for me) to be doing 30 mpg?

It's gutting to think that it was not that long ago when unleaded was 85p. That means a tank was £55, now £70!

Does anyone know is super unleaded pays for itself with added mpg?

I'm also presuming that a standard 20vt works fine on super?

I might try this next week.

Yes, it pays dividends in the mpg stakes....and....

You should be running it on Super anyway!!!!!

95RON will make your coop run like a dog.

Higher RON the better...So Tesco 99 or V Power are best, then BP Ultimate or Excellium at 98 then the 97 varieties.

well iv been using normal unleaded 95 ron.
thought that was the right fuel to use.
my coupe is lightly modded
do you really get better mpg from super?
can you tell the difference performance wise?
might try it out on a oldham-colwyn bay-oldham run tomorrow.

Let us know if you do BigTop, I'd be interested to know.

I get my unleaded at Tescos anyway, it's super is only 4p a litre more (noticed yesterday and was temped to use).

With me doing 340 miles to a tank on unleaded, it'd only have to do an extra 12.5 miles to make it pay for itself.

since i had a new thermostat fitted my turbo has leapt from around 26mpg average to 31mpg over a tankful....im gonna really try on the next tank to behave and see what i can eke out...or, i might just say sod it, thats not what i bought teh damn thing for...i use 'normal' unleaded as the garage we have our account at doesnt stock 'super' of any kind...bu**er...

And I thought I was the saddest man in the country this weekend I too have been conducting an MPG test for the last tank:

I got sat-nav a couple of weeks ago, and have been driving (Wherever safe) at the exact speed limit according to Sat-Nav, avoiding braking wherever possible. This has mostly been on long Motorway drives. I'm still to complete the test, but based on the needle on the tank, my current estimate is an improvement of 15-20% in fuel efficiency based on normal 'accelerate/brake' driving.

Current estimate is I'll get 37mpg, where I normally get 30. Not bad when you think this equates to a saving of about £12 for every £60 of fuel bought !

Boring though, so I think a better idea would be to save the money elsewhere !

(Sainsbury's fuel, as there was nothing else nearby at the time)

I have done 420 miles and still have 3 quarters of a tank left...

Oh sorry did I forget to say the sender unit was fooked

A while ago, I did some tests of Shell V-Power versus regular Tesco 95 RON. From a cost point of view, I calculated that the additional cost of the Shell V-Power was almost exactly matched by the increase in mileage achieved. I think the difference was about 7-8% at the time. (ie. V-Power cost 8% more, and I got 8% more miles from the tank).

Therefore, the cost per mile of them both were almost identical. However, the performance did seem fractionally better with the V-Power, but that might have been imaginary. I'd say there's not a lot in it really unless you're really driving the car at the margins of its performance.

When it comes to straightforward efficiency at normal road speeds, there are much greater factors involved than the fuel.

As a benchmark, I have a regular 20v, with a straight-through exhaust, and I generally get 420 - 460 mpg on a full tank of whatever fuel comes to hand. Most of my driving is on motorways where I normally drive 'quickly but smoothly'.

This is'nt true.. I drive 600 miles every week and have tried eveery fuel there is... 95 octane fuel got me 43mpg last week!!

I did a new personal worst yesterday of about 100 miles on half a tank. It was brilliant!

(Just need to tape the letterbox shut for the next few months and not answer the door).

hahaha brilliant!!!

420 - 460 mpg now that's a record!!!!

fwiw,

450Km including
250Km @100mph (motorway),
50km @120+mph (motorway, bored and playing with a vectra coupe turbo ),
130km city driving (start stop 1-2nd gear @30+ C) and
20km racing 2 PunotGTs and a 20vt in Athens
costed me 43lt of 99ron, or in yourspeak around 30mpg which I find absolutely amazing!

As Nigel says, headwork does pay back (also looks like my custom map is quite good at keeping mixture stoich for up to 4Krpm, then drops to 13.6AFR at 4.2-4.5Krpm)
Just for an example I used to get that sort of fuel consumption when driving on a motorway under heavy rain (at 70-75mph) before the engine rebuilt!

V.

Who cares anyway, as lets face it, nobody ever bought a Coupe to see who could get the most MPG............

525 miles, boring ones at that
but it's good to know it can be done

Exactly , its boring so whats the point????? Just go buy a diseasal........

well, iv reached 400 miles on a tank..thats a record for me.....mostly back road or m way miles inc. jaunt to edinburgh and back today.....pretty chuffed with that tbh...

If you were really serious about fuel economy, buy a Barnacle Widget, have it set to read throttle angle and teach yourself how to maintain a given speed at the smallest possible throttle angle

"Best" mpg I have managed was probably less than 10mpg on the track days I have done. Didn't do accurate calculations as the tanks concerned got me to the track, but not back! Average was about 18mpg, and as over half the mileage was getting there where I would normally expect 30mpg that is what I base the less than 10 on.

I know if I stuck to less than 70 on motorways I would get a lot more, but if that was what I wanted I wouldn't drive the coupe. A Smart diesel is very tempting though!

or get an Apexi avcr - and show TPS, revs and boost.
Then try and keep the TPS less than 40%, revs below 3krpm and boost in the vacuum. Very dull though

Oops. Miles per tank ! Good point ! If only !

My 16VT does about 16 mpg on my every day commute. (which involves standing almost still in traffic for half of the time and using the turbo once in a while...)

Last week was a school-vacation so many people were away for a week: empty roads. Did about 28 mpg last week, when I didn't have to stop all the time...

I think I can do even better if I keep it off the turbo and drive like my dad...

I'm also going to have to talk to my boss about my travel expenses. I get 19 eurocents/km while the coup costs me about twice that...

i feel very lucky as i get a full tank f fuel a week from my boss and that covers my 'work' miles......so in reality, its up to me if i wanna save the environemnt and put the fuel in my cinq or stick it in something half sensible like the coop...or waste it all on stoopid cars like the 928 i used to own.....

worked out fuel con. over last tank as 402 miles on 52 litres....34mpg....more than happy with that...

Driving up to Barnsley in the 20vt on Friday night, we got 38.2mpg over a hundred and sixty miles at <cough> a shade under eighty... I had it up to 39.5 at one stage but then we hit standing traffic for a while which brought it down...

Oh, yeah, I knew there was something... that was the Cupra

20 miles urban and 70 miles motorway at 85kph 55mpg in a brand new car It's quite easy to tell it's not a coop too