Really boring thread but looking for some advice. I’m wondering whether it would be worth the hassle of changing my car for something more efficient as I’m spending so much on petrol just to get to/from work. I’m currently driving a fiesta zetec s which apparently is getting around 39 mpg. I spend about £45 on petrol every 5 days, doing around 300 miles. Would something getting about 50 mpg save me much money in the long term, and if so any suggestions?

Cost of a new car, depreciation, any extra servicing etc needs to be factored in – and the usual answer is to have a less heavy right foot, empty the car of any crap you can, inflate tyres to max suggested pressure etc.

Lady with a C1 across the road claims she is seeing 80mpg. But she only does 30 miles a day.

Get yourself on a spreadsheet, multiply cost per litre by 4.55 and that gives you cost per gallon. See what mpg you’re doing in your current motor and get a realistic figure (different from claimed) for the car you may want to buy. I run old cars with big engines. They don’t lose any more money and they’re before a “Y” reg so I don’t get destroyed on VED. I just have to remember this when I fill up – cost of depreciation is massive and I never understand it when people buy new or fairly new to gain 10mpg!

The spreadsheet will give you the answers.

+1 flyingfox

Me too, 1998 535i here.

Mrs Gti drives a C1 diesel and gets around 65 mpg.

I have just changed from a B6 Passat estate to a new B7 and the fuel consumption is about 10% better, I’m now getting 46mpg on the daily thrash and 50 mpg easily achieved on long runs. Plus my company car tax has reduced by £140 a month, so I got a new car and a pay rise.

If you get a car that does 50mpg you’ll only save 6 pounds a week.

I’ve been looking into this recently and there seems to be a lot of people complaining they don’t get anything like the quoted mpg figures. Even the bluemotion polo seems to be more like 60mpg than the quoted 80mpg.

C1 won this test..
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/grouptests/211479/volkswagen_polo_bluemotion_vs_rivals.html

39mpg isn’t that bad to be honest. I’m currently driving a Citroen C4 1.6 petrol on a 56 plate, getting at best 36mpg, quite a lot less through town.
My last 2 cars were diesel estates & at best I got 42mpg over a week. My daily journey is about 30 miles each way but about half of that is urban.

When on the motorway, tootle along at 55 in lane 1 & see if it improves your mpg

I get 49 out of a Mondeo estate, so 39 from a fiesta sounds poor…

Yeah it’s 1.6 petrol so not the most efficient, it did about 35 mpg before I started accelerating slower etc

55-60 mph in Lane 1 made a massive difference for me.

Went from 44mpg to 50mpg and hardly slowed my commute at all really.

(2.5tdi T4 Multivan)

Zetec s is a sporty little thing isn’t it? Sounds pretty good to me. According to the on-board computer, my Leon fr petrol with DSG box is doing about 28.9 mpg average, although I picks up a bit on the motorway. Dropping speed improves things significantly

When was it last serviced ?

My m plate 1.6 zetec escort returned a steady 39-42 calculated from brim to brim

Last service was July 2011. I’m just taking my mpg figure from the on board computer, not sure how accurate they are. I may try a slower drive this week to see how that affects things. Pretty much the whole route is dual carriageway so 55-60 should be easy for most of it

How many miles since then. ?

Ah on board …… Might as well just have a guess

Brim your tank

Reset trip odo

DrivE till quarter tank

Rebrim and note milage and litres to full

A quick google suggests 28 urban and 42 for extra urban so 39 isnt so bad but i struggle to see why such a small car uses so much fuel …..

Getting 40-42mpg from a 1.6 Tigra driving like an old woman, so its about right I’d say.

get your cars cousin, 1.6tdci, wife gets early 60’s mpg, 30quid tax, easy to service. 1.6 better mpg than my 1.4tdci but like rockin horse poo

surprised you get such good figures nealglover.

My 03 2.5Tdi T4 peaks at 40 mpg when driving like a little girl, at 55-60mph on the autoroute non-stop for 400 miles without touching another pedal. On short thrashes I reckon it’s closer to 30mpg.

So for the 6-8 journeys a week I do that make up the 100 miles or so I do a week, Ive bought a Honda PCX 125. CBT coming up on Friday, pick it up on Saturday. It will do c.100 mph, so 6.5p per mile as opposed to 22p.

Extra fixed costs of insurance and deprec of, say, £500 a year might add 10p per mile, but I’ll save a little bit on the T4 depreciation too.

If you get 40mpg probably not worth changing.
My 1.6 Audi A2 gets 48mpg, but it weighs nuffin and has a mega lean burn engine….oh and people think you are a shopping mum and try to overtake irrespective of speed I drive it.

So 60 miles a day, presumably per working day * 250 (average days worked once holidays, etc taken into account) = 15k a year, plus whatever you use on weekends. Let’s say 3k a year.

Average petrol price is 1.32/litre, so that will cost you £2769.56 a year.

Switching to a 50mpg diesel (average price 1.406/litre) will cost you £2301 a year. So £468/year saving, or £39 a month.

The diesel will cost more to service, but maybe less in insurance and probably less to tax. You’ll almost certainly have to spend more to get an equivalent (age, mileage, spec) diesel car, especially if you buy at a dealer and trade in. Modern diesels have a lot of potentially expensive failure points too (injectors, dual-mass flywheels, etc) which can make running one out of warranty a bit of a gamble.

If the car is otherwise sound, I’d say you’re better off keeping it – 39mpg is fine, and with the petrol/diesel price gap (which is only going up) it makes less of a difference anyway.

Nick – Member

I get 49 out of a Mondeo estate, so 39 from a fiesta sounds poor…

Please tell me what I’m doing wrong, my Mondeo 1.8 petrol does about 48mpg if I take it very easy on the motorway and 28mpg aroung town which seems to be about what Ford reckon:

http://www.whatmpg.co.uk/Ford%20MPG%20information.html

Mines a 2.0 Diesel, 48 from a 1.8 petrol is probably quite good.

I have to drive like my dad though to do it

Thanks for that in depth reply Simon 🙂 probably not worth it then, and yeah the car is spot on apart from the petrol and an occasional problem with starting up every now and then.