Fuel Consumption
The graph covers the car from new in June 2004 up
until recently, mid August 2008.
Fuel consumption is measured by recording the date,
quantity of fuel added and the car's odometer reading at
each visit to the filling station (when the fuel tank is
filled). This information is then entered into a
spreadsheet periodically to produce the graph. Because of
the inaccuracies of the method, instantaneous fuel
consumption calculations are unreliable and so an average
of the last 5 calculations are plotted.
Click one of the following links to download samples
of the spreadsheet I use.
Microsoft Excel
(61k) or Lotus Smartsuite 97
1-2-3 (44k)
| Mileage (Date) |
Description |
| 17 (Jun 2004) |
Car delivered at the start of summer 2004. Car covers approximately 500 miles per week. 350 of those miles being a return trip between Bedfordshire and Yorkshire on the M1 travelling at a cruise control regulated 70mph. The rest are relatively short journeys. Fillup with standard supermarket diesel. |
| 10,500 (Oct 2004) |
Fuel consumption is steadily increasing. This is probably down to the cooler weather. However it may also be due to me pretty much
abandoning the use of the climate control's ECON button. Click here for
more details. |
| |
Weekday commute changes to two 50 mile
motorway trips. Reduction in the number of short journeys from cold. Also, begin putting the car in the garage when a cold night/frost is expected. This results in a small improvement in fuel consumption. |
| 21,000 (Feb 2005) |
Reduced cruising speed on motorway from 70 mph to about 56 mph.
This had an immediate positive effect on fuel
consumption rising from approximately 52 mpg
to nearer 60 mpg. VW quote
just over 61 mpg for these kind of usage. |
| 50,000 (Jan 2006) |
Now in the middle of winter with ambient
temperatures at their lowest, this is where I see the poorest fuel consumption. There doesn't appear to be as much of a
difference between the summer highs and winter
lows as in my Peugeot
306. I wonder how much of this is down to
different engine design and how much down to the
fact that I'm now putting the car into the garage
every night during winter.
The car
has recently had a little repair (click
here for more details) which might have
affected fuel consumption. Because of this, from the 48,000 miles mark I've been filling up with branded
diesel rather than the cheaper supermarket stuff. Straight away the soot
which used to be ejected out of the exhaust
during heavy acceleration has mostly disappeared but I
can't say I've noticed any difference to engine
noise, performance or fuel consumption. |
62,200 (Jun 2006) |
Ambient temperatures are now
quiet high. Also, since the end of May I've
increased my preferred cruising speed from 56 to
60mph in the hope of improving fuel consumption
further as the engine is then running at peak
torque revs. To be honest this doesn't appear to
have made a massive improvement except reduced
journey times a little. |
72,000 (Nov 2006)
|
After the summer, fuel consumption is steadily increasing as is normal. However, in early August I installed a ScanGauge II device into my car. This gives me instant feedback as to how my driving style affects fuel consumption. With it I have slightly adjusted my driving technique and this does appear to have interupted the usual increase in fuel consumption. |
79,000 (Mar 2007) |
With the worst of the winter weather behind us, average fuel consumption is at its poorest at around 54mpg. This is worse than last year's poorest. This is probably because since about 77,000 miles (middle of January) my weekday commute has reduced to only 18 miles each way (still a 60mph cruise though). This appears to have resulted in increasing average fuel consumption by about 5 MPG. |
| 86,000 (Aug 2007) |
With the shorter commutes, summer fuel consumption doesn't appear much different to the winter average. 57mpg is pretty much matching up with what my ScanGauge II device is reporting for each tank. |
| 96,000 (Apr 2008) |
Since about 91,000 miles (last November) I am no longer commuting and so car usage has reduced to less than about 10,000 miles annually. I try to avoid using the car for short, one-off trips but obviously, fuel consumption is poorer than when doing mainly long distance cruises. |
| 99,000 (Aug 2008) |
MPG is probably near it's maximum now because of the warmer summer weather and its economical use. Does look like my manual-stop-start of the engine might be helping. |
For comparison, you may like to look at
the fuel consumption of my previous car, a 1995 Peugeot
306 XTdt. Click Here
|
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