Fuel consumption

[Chas]

10 days ago I sold my roof tent and have been checking the consumption without the extra weight and wind drag of the tent on top, I was very surprised to find it made no difference whatsoever, it's still about 16.5 mpg
But the good news is the new tent looks and fits the roof rack much better, no overlap, and I think the black colour goes with the red better too, I'm very pleased with it mind you, the old white one with the overlap worked well as a tree slider, ask Jon W

Before and after

 

[Paul]

16.5!!!!!!!!!!

 

[sae70]

Sleek And nice new lights as well

 

[Nick Shepherd]

I drive like a lunatic, over mountains, and I managed 20mpg last weekend

Lovely tent and all but wow, it really takes it out of your fuel tank, eh?

 

[vrecha]

This consumption is a little for me. Are the gallons in question imperial or US?
I get around 13 L/100km which is about 21.7 mpg (imperial) or 18 mpg (US).
And I'm not really satisfied with this consumption. Always have feeling it should burn less.
And true, I too hardly notice the difference in mpg with the roof tent or without.

 

[Chas]

This consumption is a little for me. Are the gallons in question imperial or US?
I get around 13 L/100km which is about 21.7 mpg (imperial) or 18 mpg (US). And I'm not really satisfied with this consumption. Always have feeling it should burn less. And true, I too hardly notice the difference in mpg with the roof tent or without.

It's UK gallons, I did 289 miles on 78.8 ltrs which I converted to 17.33 UK gallons (I have a small prog on the PC which will convert anything to anything) so unless my maths are all cockeyed that equals roundabout 16.6 mpg

 

[Graham]

Hi Chas,

16,5 mpg, is surley going to hurt most people.
If it's not your daily driver, then it's a complete different kettle of fish.
However, if your going to need to drive it everry day then OUCH

f I was an owner of a 4,2 TD 80 series, I would be wanting minimum of 20mpg.
Sure there must be some thing not quite right? or is that just the way some 80 series are?

G.

 

[Chas]

Hi Chas,16,5 mpg, is surley going to hurt most people. If it's not your daily driver, then it's a complete different kettle of fish. However, if your going to need to drive it everry day then OUCH if I was an owner of a 4,2 TD 80 series, I would be wanting minimum of 20mpg.Sure there must be some thing not quite right? or is that just the way some 80 series are?
G.

It is my daily drive, and there is something not quite right, it's the combination of an intercooler and a heavy right foot. If I don't drive it like I stole it and keep to 60mph or below I can get it down (up?) to 18mpg but that's so boring and not much of a saving

 

[Ben]

how much veg oil you putting in it chas?

do you think the veg effects your mpg?

i find my 70 runs smoother and better on veg than derv.

 

[Paul]

On the recent Ukraine trip i was getting at worst 21-21mpg on a day with high head winds and driving rain and best was 31mpg when going through Ukraine itself (back on proper diesel)
This was loaded up and with roof boxes, two people in the truck also. As we were trying to keep up with a 95 series so she was driven quite hard but not thrashed.
No intercooler and no pump adjustments.

 

[Andrew Prince]

no pump adjustments.

I suspect that this may be the big difference between decent consumption and heavy consumption...
I don't have a RR on mine and I routinely get mid 20s with mixed driving. If I really push it on the motorway it falls away quite a bit (300 miles for approx 75l). I normally get 400 miles per 75l as a long-term average (remember I live in London, so there's a fair amount of city stop-start driving in there). I never do "economy" driving substantially below the speed limit...
I think the 80's consumption is rather impressive for such a big lump and relatively old engine technology!

My 80 is my weekend runabout, so the consumption really isn't an issue for me, although Chas' figures would probably grate after a while

 

[sae70]

I know that you guys are mostly talking about the consumption in 80's here & mine is a 90, but isn't it odd the differences that we all get in the way of mpg between the same models of vehicles You'd expect 2/3mpg difference between us all but this is clearly not the case I do think that this is mostly due to our differing driving styles more than anything else

I recently kept a very accurate of my fuel consumption over the whole range of driving types on my recent trip to Wales. I posted the results in another 'mpg' topic on here rescently

Just worked out all of my mpg's associated with my rescent trip to Wales a total of 643miles

Local driving the day before going 19.27mpg

Journey to wales A12, M25, M4 bla bla bla 228miles @ motorway speeds 19.57mpg

A days laning on Saturday 50/50 lanes & tarmac, lots of low range 99mile round trip 16.78mpg

A days laning on Sunday simular to Saturday 112miles 18.92mpg

Fast journey home from Wales @ motorway speeds 19.16mpg

Now these figures did surprise me a little as I thought I was getting around 24mpg on average But all things considered I really do drive her as though I've stolen her in all circumstances, so I only have myself to blame really I'm certain that if I lifted my right foot a little things could be significantly improved as I proved with my TD Vitara on a trip to & from the Dodington show one year

I decided to Keep a very accurate account of time, mileage and fuel consumption going to and from Donnington yesterday and here are the results

Journey to Donnington I left mine @ 07:30 and arrived @ 09:40 travelling a distance of 146 miles with my right foot planted to drivers foot well all the way, squeezing every ounce of performance out of Snowy as was safely possible This resulted in a journey time of 2hrs & 10min with an average speed for the journey of 67mph using 33 litres of fuel giving me a fuel consumption of 20mpg

Now the journey back home was very different I drove far more sedately between 60 & 70mph with the occasional blip to overtake keeping her mostly in fifth gear with hardly any gear changing and the results were surprisingly different to the journey up I joined the M1 @ 15:45 and arrived home @ 18:35 so my journey time was 40 minuets longer, but I was held up in traffic for a good 20 minuets unlike my journey there in the morning. This gave me an average speed for the journey of 50mph but the most surprising thing for me was the fuel consumption only 20 liters for the journey home giving me a fuel consumption figure of 32mpg

So to sum up

Foot flat to the deck 20mpg

Relaxed brisk driving with a journey time just 14% longer than the above option 32mpg


I just thought I'd share

 

[Lorin]

You gotta love how we endlessly scrutinise our mpg and that of others

I for one keep a log of all fuel in and all miles done so I can work out what my mpg was for each tank of fuel. I do it because I want to see how everything I'm doing mechanically, the addition of accessories, and driving over different terrains etc effects the mpg - so I can work out with some degree of accuracy the costings for our planned big trip.

In approx 6000 miles over two years, the ONLY thing that has ever had any noticable effect on mpg was doing a tank of fuel at 70-75mph with a rooftent - that reduced it to just under 17mpg.

Otherwise I just get pretty much 20-22mpg everywhere, irrelevant of whether I do a tank driving round town, off road, or on the motorway. Reducing from 70mph to 60mph makes little more than a 1-2 mpg difference. Doing the injectors (against Greg's good advice!) proved to be a total waste of money as it also had NO effect on mpg. I have not touched the fuel pump and dont have an intercooler.

From what everyone keeps reporting, it seems to me that on average the 24v routinely returns at least a 4-6mpg advantage over the 12v.

 

[AndyCook]

I keep a log of fuel usage too,
used to get about 24mpg - 3.0 auto colorado
after mods fitted - sliders, winch, underbody ski plate, AT tyres
I have been getting about 22mpg for local driving e.g. 5miles each way to station, and country roads with lots gear changes (I think these hammer the fuel economy for an AUTO)

drove down to durham/wales on motorways etc, kept cruising speed to 55-60mph and got 27mpg on two fillups. nothing on roof, 2 bikes in backseat area, and recovery gear. so pretty loaded
offroading trip in weardale - 80miles mixed greenlanes and backroads got 17mpg.

wife drove back to scotland, at 70-75mph and got 23mpg
so that extra 15mph makes a big difference (4mpg) on my vehicle, otherwise the AUTO box is a lot more economical on long cruises in O/D at a sedate 60mph

 

[Paul]

To be honest though, i dont really care.

Its a big heavy truck with loads of gear in it, the only reason i know the mpg is that someone else worked it out for me out of interest.

 

[Chris]

Remember that we're all suffering poorer consumption as a result of the compulsory addition of up to 7% biodiesel in our fuel. No good chasing the old claimed figures of 24 mpg combined extra urban whatever. All bets are off. We'll never see those days again. If you are getting a good 20 mpg, it's likely that you are in reality hitting 24 mpg or closer (if you follow that bizarre logic)

My company d4d Verso plummeted from around 45 mpg to 36 on a good day. Our whole fleet has been hit like this.

I can get 20 out of my 80 on a good day and I have learned to be happy with that. When it came it had 8 year old derv in the tank from being stood all that time. It was a different colour and smell. I ran it on this before filling up. It drove differently that's for sure. Once I filled up, I noticed a change.

I did some comparisons between supermarket diesel and major brand diesel some years ogo in another company car. Esso, Shell, BP all gave me 4 mpg more per gallon than supermarket. I met a chap from a refinery once who told me that this was due to the additives that Supermarkets don't pay to put in. I then found a source of Wynns Cetane Booster (going cheap) and I put this in for a while. Gave me between 4 and 6 more MPG.

Face the facts. There simply isn't any goodness left in our fuel.

Chris

 

[Graham]

Remember that we're all suffering poorer consumption as a result of the compulsory addition of up to 7% biodiesel in our fuel. No good chasing the old claimed figures of 24 mpg combined extra urban whatever. All bets are off. We'll never see those days again. If you are getting a good 20 mpg, it's likely that you are in reality hitting 24 mpg or closer (if you follow that bizarre logic)

My company d4d Verso plummeted from around 45 mpg to 36 on a good day. Our whole fleet has been hit like this.

I can get 20 out of my 80 on a good day and I have learned to be happy with that. When it came it had 8 year old derv in the tank from being stood all that time. It was a different colour and smell. I ran it on this before filling up. It drove differently that's for sure. Once I filled up, I noticed a change.

I did some comparisons between supermarket diesel and major brand diesel some years ogo in another company car. Esso, Shell, BP all gave me 4 mpg more per gallon than supermarket. I met a chap from a refinery once who told me that this was due to the additives that Supermarkets don't pay to put in. I then found a source of Wynns Cetane Booster (going cheap) and I put this in for a while. Gave me between 4 and 6 more MPG.

Face the facts. There simply isn't any goodness left in our fuel.

Chris

.
Good wrie up and explanation Chris.

The 120 returns around 31 ish on a motorway, probably never more than 33 in this life time, and that is betweem 55 and 60.
It;s not good, but like mentioned before, it's not a small vehicle.
I note on the Toyota blurb, for the 120, it suggests 37 mpg, how can that be true?
G.

 

[Chas]

how much veg oil you putting in it chas?do you think the veg effects your mpg?i find my 70 runs smoother and better on veg than derv.

I usually put in about 10% (9 ltrs per tankful) but on that last check I hadn't put in any veg, but I do find it runs smoother when I have used it, I also put it 500ml of two stroke oil which definitely make it run quieter, I was quite surprised the first time I used the two stroke at the difference it made, Greg @ http://www.landcruisersoverland.com/ commented recently it was one of the smoothest running engines he had heard.
Although it is my DD it doesn't do a great deal of miles, I'm retired now (best carreer move I ever made ) so it's just social use, sometimes a tankful can last me two weeks or more.

 

[goodoldboy]

I've just managed 32.5 MPG in my 90 on a 700 mile journey - mostly on french peage & using the trip computer found that my average speed was 55 MPH . Keeping the revs below 2200 , accelerating slowly and only stopping every two and a half hours seems to have helped oh and Spanish diesel , the cheapest no name stuff.

 

[Chas]

This consumption is a little for me. Are the gallons in question imperial or US?
.

It's UK gallons, I did 289 miles on 78.8 ltrs which I converted to 17.33 UK gallons (I have a small prog on the PC which will convert anything to anything) so unless my maths are all cockeyed that equals roundabout 16.6 mpg

I've just checked the consumption after the next tankful, with new roof tent on, 298 miles on 69.84 ltrs = 15.36 UK gallons = 19.4 mpg, nearly 3 miles per gallon better, so why the big improvement, the new tent can't be that much more aerodynamic, can it and the previous check was with no roof tent, just the rack.