ideas for saving fuel???

[legrandefromage]

I could get 74mpg from my Passat and mid 60s all day.a normally asperated diesel just doesn't feel safe trying to match traffic speeds on dual carriageways or motorways. Overtaking quickly and efficently doesn't work either. We sold our fiesta because cars and trucks were getting bigger and bigger and our poor little 1.1 was just not up to it..

 

[Neil]

I could get 74mpg from my Passat and mid 60s all day.a normally asperated diesel just doesn't feel safe trying to match traffic speeds on dual carriageways or motorways. Overtaking quickly and efficently doesn't work either. We sold our fiesta because cars and trucks were getting bigger and bigger and our poor little 1.1 was just not up to it..

A Passat is a helluva lot bigger and lardie-er (just made that up, s'how I roll...) than a Lupo.

A 65bhp diesel (naturally aspirated or otherwise) will compare reasonably favourably with the middle of the petrol range of engines for that model (guessing, but it's a pretty safe guess) - Lupos are pretty small, really.

Now true enough, NA diesels in larger cars - slower than a snail on mogadons, fair comment - but in a small-ish car, there's nothing wrong with them. They may be somewhat unrefined, they may be a lot less modern that some diesel lumps, but all the same they'll be reasonably powered, and generally quite robust.

 

[t-stoff]

Engine braking is great. Whilst reading up on Bosch injection systems, they cut the fuel when not accelerating or when engine braking/ overrun etc.

As for driving. I have to gain as much mpg as possible to make my job worthwhile so adjusted driving accordingly

yeap, but doesn't apply to carburetor engines.. this in the debate neutral or high gear when going down hill with no throttle.

I happen to change a lot from 3rd directly to 5th, avoiding one gear but easing on the throttle, course.
Fuel is saved if you change gears between 1500and 2000 rpm on a diesel engine. Turn off the car (if it doesn't have start/stop) after more than 1 min on idle (in a queue ex.).
having the instant consumption on the OBC helps.
AC off too.
Proper tyre pressure. The special diesel (expensive one with more additions) like BP Diesel ultimate, are better in terms of fuel economy. The thing is, sometimes you prefer having more than to have better, but from my experience, I get more with less fuel. And it does better to your engine.

 

[legrandefromage]

some stuff

more stuff

I'm sorry but thats pretty ill informed tosh. Vauxhall released models not that long ago that were normally aspirated, diesel and actually slower and more thirsty than their petrol equivalents. Older diesel Audis and VWs were laughed at because they were so damn slow. It was only in the mid 90's that VAG caught up with the French and made better engines. (anyone for a Peugeot 205 STRDT?).

Up until recently, smaller petrol models were better than their diesel equivalents. Those diesels were heavier (thats the same 1.9 lump in the Seat as found in the rest of the VAG group in all their guises *EDIT _ its not, but 60 bhp?!!), more expensive to buy and now more expensive to run due to the rise in fuel costs.

OK so less moving parts but why give yourself so much grief out on the roads? Merging into traffic is a nightmare as it is in rush hour, dozy drivers in the morning, frustrated drivers at night. Then theres the trucks who will not give up that 58mph or pull out into 70 - 80mph traffic. You want to get to that magic 60mph as fast as possible. A Citroen C1 or Kia Picanto is going to do that quicker than an out of puff non turbo diesel.

Then theres road tax, small petrols under 1.5l pay a smaller amount (*EDIT pre March 2001). Add that to the slightly cheaper petrol costs and you've again got to ask yourself why?

Theres some good workhorses out there that will return good MPG and reasonable running costs. Early MK3 Mondeo TDDI are not as highly strung as the later TDCI and qualify for cheaper road tax. 6 airbags as standard is a pretty good argument too as well a cam chain! Aha! No more bloody worrying about a random engine destruction because of a belt. Even the petrol equivalents achieve high 40's mpg which is very good on such a big car.

Having 'suffered' the slow noisy non turbo diesel method of travel for some 5 years in the past, I could not go back no matter what, except, maybe a 300SDL or 350SDL...

 

[legrandefromage]

Then theres 'brimming' - Why on earth do that? It makes your car much heavier, almost like carrying a passenger all of the time in a car with say, a 90 litre tank.

As for the 420 mile Seat, I work that out at 61mpg if theres 4.4 litres to a gallon and if the internet is to be believed.

Which it often isnt...

1.4 TDi 3d
11.7 secs
106 mph
73 bhp
64 mpg
119 g/km

1.7 SDi 3d
16.3 secs
97 mph
60 bhp
64 mpg
119 g/km

 

[Neil]

some stuff

more stuff

I'm sorry but thats pretty ill informed tosh. Vauxhall released models not that long ago that were normally aspirated, diesel and actually slower and more thirsty than their petrol equivalents.

So?

So what?

What have Vauxhall NA diesel engines got to do with the VW SDI engine? Feck all.

Even less, when you're slagging it off because it's probably underpowered in bigger cars - well that's probably true - but totally bloody irrelevant when you're talking about it in a Lupo.

Older diesel Audis and VWs were laughed at because they were so damn slow. It was only in the mid 90's that VAG caught up with the French and made better engines. (anyone for a Peugeot 205 STRDT?).

Up until recently, smaller petrol models were better than their diesel equivalents. Those diesels were heavier (thats the same 1.9 lump in the Seat as found in the rest of the VAG group in all their guises *EDIT _ its not, but 60 bhp?!!), more expensive to buy and now more expensive to run due to the rise in fuel costs.

OK so less moving parts but why give yourself so much grief out on the roads? Merging into traffic is a nightmare as it is in rush hour, dozy drivers in the morning, frustrated drivers at night. Then theres the trucks who will not give up that 58mph or pull out into 70 - 80mph traffic. You want to get to that magic 60mph as fast as possible. A Citroen C1 or Kia Picanto is going to do that quicker than an out of puff non turbo diesel.

Then theres road tax, small petrols under 1.5l pay a smaller amount (*EDIT pre March 2001). Add that to the slightly cheaper petrol costs and you've again got to ask yourself why?

Theres some good workhorses out there that will return good MPG and reasonable running costs. Early MK3 Mondeo TDDI are not as highly strung as the later TDCI and qualify for cheaper road tax. 6 airbags as standard is a pretty good argument too as well a cam chain! Aha! No more bloody worrying about a random engine destruction because of a belt. Even the petrol equivalents achieve high 40's mpg which is very good on such a big car.

Having 'suffered' the slow noisy non turbo diesel method of travel for some 5 years in the past, I could not go back no matter what, except, maybe a 300SDL or 350SDL...

It's not uninformed tosh at all.

I've driven an SDI engined smaller car (a Polo) for quite some miles - and in smaller cars there's nothing wrong with it.

Now true enough, when it was used in the Octavia (?) and if in other bigger cars, it may have been a slug - but in a small car, it's fine - perfectly drivable, performance wise, in comparison to the petrol engined variants of the same small cars (I drove plenty of those too).

I'll repeat, the SDI was fine - may not have been as economical or as punchy as some of VWs TDIs (yes, even the smaller ones) that they used later on, but in say a Polo or Lupo was perfectly fine from a power / acceleration perspective, and quite reasonable, economically.

Just 'cos you wrote a load of stuff, as you put it, about driving that engine in a bigger, heavier car, has precisely feck all to do with how it coped in the small cars.

Now I'm not saying it's brilliant - it's not - but a perfectly reasonable amount of power for a small car, in context of either the car's weight, or power output of the petrol models of that time.

You make the mistake of my posts defending it, as advocacy of the bloody lump - but it's no such thing - it's just rejection of your total and utter guff that just because you found it slower than slow thing in a big-ish car, means that it's awful in a small car. It's not - it's not the last word in anything - speed, economy, refinement - but it produces a reasonable amount of power for a small car to get around adequately and still produce decent fuel economy.

 

[legrandefromage]

So you totally ignored the second post with the 0 - 60 times where the 1.7d is a good 5 seconds slower than the 1.4tdi - and the gain from a normally aspirated Diesel is what...?

You missed the point that I was making about normally aspirated Diesels in general - they are crap whether they are the small cars you seem to be obsessing about or in Golf/ Bora sized cars such as the Octavia or even a Golf estate.

There is no gain from buying a non turbo diesel over a tdi, its simple economics. There is no valid reason for buying one anymore either, thats all I'm trying to get across, if you want to see it as guff, fine - ''a reasonable amount of power for a small car to get around adequately and still produce decent fuel economy'' doesnt cut it in the real world anymore.

I do about 1000 miles every 5 days - I am sick of driving, if everyone tried to drive just a little bit more economically, the government would probably go bust from lack of fuel receipts.

 

[Neil]

So you totally ignored the second post with the 0 - 60 times where the 1.7d is a good 5 seconds slower than the 1.4tdi

I didn't so much ignore it, as treat it with the contempt it deserved.

and the gain from a normally aspirated Diesel is what...?

Eh?

Have you had a bump on the head, recently? Who's suggesting there's any gain - that NA diesels are in any way particularly preferable? Where did that strawman come from?

All I did was reject the bollocks that just because they're underpowered in big cars, means that they're crap in small cars.

Words mean something, not just what you'd like to pretend is there, then argue against it.

You missed the point that I was making about normally aspirated Diesels in general - they are crap whether they are the small cars you seem to be obsessing about or in Golf/ Bora sized cars such as the Octavia or even a Golf estate.

1. I'm not obsessing about anything
2. When the NA 1.9s that VW used were first used in the Polo, VAG had no small TDI lumps, then.

There is no gain from buying a non turbo diesel over a tdi, its simple economics.

So precisely where, then, was there ANY suggestion that people should buy a NA diesel in preference of a TD?

All I did was reject the bollocks - quite rightly so - that just because they were turbo slug in bigger cars, means they must be crap in Lupo size cars.

There is no valid reason for buying one anymore either, thats all I'm trying to get across,

And again, who is suggesting people buy such cars? The only mention of it, that I can see, is here from you.

if you want to see it as guff, fine - ''a reasonable amount of power for a small car to get around adequately and still produce decent fuel economy'' doesnt cut it in the real world anymore.

The guff is: underpowered in a big car, means automatically crap in a small car.

And nobody seems to be suggesting that people rush out and search out some older cars with SDI engines - that's entirely your invention, because you seem determined to bicker incessantly about this, because you've taken offence to somebody correctly pointing out (and with experience of the engine in a small car) that just because you found an SDI engined bigger car sluggish, then it'd be crap in a small car.

Of it's time, entry level Polos would have had a 1.0l engine, with either 45, or a little bit later 50 bhp. The next size petrol engine up was a 1.4, with 60 bhp, a 1.6 with 75 bhp and 1.4 16v with 100. So it hardly makes the SDI of it's time out of place.

 

[weeman_mtb]

I have a golf estate 1.9SDI that I've owned for the last six and a half years. To be totally honest I don't find it too bad, goes well on the motorway at around 80/85mph (even up the hills) and plods around town in 5th gear no problems.

I honestly prefer driving this to my wife's TDI which IMO is overgeared for town driving. This means you're constantly dropping to fourth and even third to keep the car going and fuel economy isn't as good as it should be.

I love the extra power when you need it with the TDI but if I had to choose, based on economy, lower insurance, less moving parts and town friendly gearbox, the SDI wins hands down for me.

I realise my view on the SDI is in the minority but it's based on my experience over the past few years, nothing else.

 

[highlandsflyer]

I drive without the turbo most of the time in my 4x4, it is dreadnought slow until you climb up into the turbo zone, where it is just slow.

I totally agree with LGF about safety regarding joining roads, etc.. I actually have to use my hazards and pray to god when joining a faster road.

Driven many cars over the years, and many vans and HGVs. (I will ignore bikes, even the slow ones are safely fast and fairly economical.)

The difference between a normally aspirated diesel and turbo diesel is night and day. The LDV van I bought as a stop gap while I welded and did the head on my Sprinter was a total dog. Screaming its guts out to reach seventy and doing 22/24mpg at that, when my Sprinter does 35mpg plus and accelerates like a car.

Night and day.

That really is the point, and I think all LGF is pointing out is that the engines are dogs regardless of the vehicle they are in.

Hardly contentious.