Is it worth driving economically ?

[F Body]

With diesel at £1.298 a litre a thought I'd do a spell of economy driving this week
With the newish gripper tyres the average mpg for the Panda dropped from 62mpg to 56mpg.
I've covered 562 miles in the last four days, mostly in the M1 road works, M25 and up & down the hills of the M40.

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So 562 miles at 70 mph = 10.03 gallons = £59.11

Or 562 miles at 58mph = 8.00 gallons = £47.14p  = -£11.97 or – 20.30%

The other real bonus is just chilling without being right up the chuff of the car in front in the outside lane

[55starchief]

As i have said before with the SAAB, im getting 37.4-39mpg with an average speed of 45mph, my mate has the same car and gets 45mpg with an average speed of 37mph. That little difference is not worth the fun i have spanking the ass of the car each day

[F Body]

Quoting: 55starchief

That little difference is not worth the fun i have spanking the ass of the car each day

Plenty of people doing that everywhere, they rarely get more than a few places in front of you

Beside which driving in town or the motorway nowdays is anything but fun

[Flip Martian]

Quoting: F Body

Beside which driving in town or the motorway nowdays is anything but fun

That's cos you're not out in the Z28. I'm grinning every time I'm out there in it.

[HardRockCamaro]

I've been experimenting with the Caddy the last few weeks.

Thing is, just nailing that throttle once makes a massive difference to your average mpg.  It beggars belief.  To get the average figure yup takes miles and miles and miles of careful driving, watching it creep up 0.1mpg at a time.  But nailing it makes it plummet real fast.  But so does sitting idling in traffic (when it's a relatively short journey).

The government could make a big difference to the countries oil consumption by simply keeping traffic flowing.  The amount of times I come to a set of lights, at night, with no-one around and as I approach them they turn red.  I then sit there for a minute or two or so idling while no car comes out of the cross-road.  Then I have to accelerate back up to 50 or whatever.  In LA I noticed the red traffic lights changed to green as I approached them if there was no traffic on the cross-road.  Ours should do that!

Another thing I don't like is this countries obsession with roundabouts.  Especially the latest addiction to mini roundabouts outside housing estates.  Are there really enough people causing a road block by waiting to turn right into the housing estate that they can justify putting a roundabout there causing *every* car to slow down on the main road as they approach it in case someone is coming out of the housing estate to their right?  And then having to speed up again?

There is a *lot* more we could do to keep traffic flowing in this country...

[55starchief]

yup agreed like the turn right on a red deal in america, plenty of places i know in the UK you could turn left on a red and not cause a problem

[Flip Martian]

JA - but ultimately they don't WANT people to drive... I reckon that's why they forever dig up the roads and resurface (badly) round here too...

[F Body]

Quoting: F Body

= +38 minutes.

One no is doesn't

Just re-read that an it's + 1 hour and 38 minutes !

Therefore divided by 7 journeys = + 14 minutes per journey

Still you can't really estimate any journey time now, I can't even remember the last time I got anywhere quicker than I thought it would take

[Titsy]

Quoting: F Body

+38 minutes

you're an hour short there mate... it's 1hr 38mins difference...

[Titsy]

Doh... that'll teach me not to read to the end...

[F Body]

Quoting: Titsy

Doh... that'll teach me not to read to the end...

I'm old and senile what's your excuse

[Fieldy]

Even if I averaged 50MPG in the Citroen, it's enough for me to justify the car over driving A yank to work......

[EDGE]

driving sensible does indeed save gas.. however, is buying a brand new diesel car a bit of a false economy?  

I bought the chavscort to drive to work and back, within 3 months it had saved enough money on fuel to pay for the car, the tax, insurance and MOT for the year.. so that was fine... However, a lot of people seem to be, trading in a 1.8 mondeo and buying a brand new £15,000 diesel car... you know, because its cheaper to run... now THAT is successful marketing!!  

Imagine a new 15k diesel doing 60mpg, that works out to £100/1000 miles, an old mondeo 1800 works out to £184/1000 miles.. so a difference of £84 per 1000 miles.  That means, that even if you got a trade in of £500 and paid CASH (which most people dont) you'd have paid £14,500 to save £84/1000 miles... you youd need to drive 172,000 miles to save that back on fuel...

I know people dont only buy a new car for economy, but a fair few of my friends have said, damn, i need to sell my car and buy a diesel, they're so much cheaper to run... and instantly ignore the £3k or £4k they plan to spend on one...

I worked out that if I split my driving equally for the year between the chavscort and the camaro, taking on to account insurance, tax etc, and over the 7k i seem to do each year, it costs me £2705 all in....  If i were to just drive the camaro everyday and not have the scort, that figure drops to £2404... Admittedly, if you do more miles there's probably a point where it crosses over the otherway... but you really need to look at these things FULLY, not just the mpg...

anyway....

that's my $0.02

[Fieldy]

Quoting: EDGE

and instantly ignore the £3k or £4k they plan to spend on one...

including me, but, Everytime I drove the yank, I couldn't smile knowing it was costing me so much, now, peace of mind prevails, and I can drive the Citroen everyday, whenever, where-ever, and I simply don't care about the cost of driving it.....

Making the Truffle more special when I do drive it

+ I plan on driving the Citroen into the ground and never selling it, I actually like driving it, Go Karts FTMFW!!

[EDGE]

[F Body]

Well done Gordon Brown

US sweet, light crude for August delivery increased by $2.46 to $137.08 a barrel, while London Brent crude rose $1.03 to $135.89 a barrel.

The rises came despite his meeting and Saudi Arabia's promise to increase daily output by an extra 200,000 barrels a day from July

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[Titsy]

Quoting: F Body

I'm old and senile what's your excuse

Young and impatient...

[F Body]

Quoting: Titsy

Young and impotent...

Have you tried Viagra