Owning a small highly fuel efficient car as your main, or second car must be a prudent move in today's climate of high fuel costs, for some the ‘mortgage’ or a ‘loan’, pressure on expenses in general and our faith in a continuously uninterrupted. fuel supply being misplaced.

The purpose of the following tables is to aid consumers in making an informed choice when buying a new, or a recently made second hand small car.

* Range calculated on the basis of a 50mile reserve

Copyright Polynous International.

The first five columns in the above and subsequent tables are based on the government’s web-site www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk. where Trans means the type of transmission fitted to the vehicle tested; Fuel is either petrol - diesel - electric or a combination; CO2 is the emissions in gm/km and mpg Combined is the Imperial Combined Fuel consumption as defined below

Fuel Tank   Is the standard fuel tank normally fitted to the model of car tested, in gallons or litres.

UC Range   Is the distance that the car tested could have been expected to travel, on a tank full of fuel, in miles, allowing for a reserve of 50 miles, and run in accordance with the urban (cold) test cycle as explained below.

The EU Range   Is the further distance it would travel, on the same quantity of fuel, when run according to the extra urban test cycle, again with a 50 mile reserve. 

Both cycles in practice could be better or worse; even so the difference between the columns is startling.

The next column is the overall length of the car. This may be important in the future as some local authorities are beginning to adjust the cost of resident parking badges to reflect the length of the car. The final column is the current ‘list’ price.

List Price from is, obviously, subject to change, negotiation, cashback, etc, ie, and is just a guide for comparison.

The car you buy, or currently own, may well have an electronic fuel consumption indication on the speedometer. Even so physically checking the cars fuel consumption is relatively easy.

Next time the car needs fuel, fill it up to the point were the nozzle trigger ‘clicks’ off. Stop at this point, do not put any more fuel in. Before you drive off set the milage trip to zero. Next time it needs fuel, again fill it up in the same way noting the milage from the speedometer and write this on the fuel payment slip. Then again, before driving off, reset the milage trip back to zero; repeat for as many refuellings as you wish.

It is then a simple step from the quantity of fuel purchased, the consumption, and milage covered to calculate the mpg achieved. There will of course be variations between fill ups. Forecourt fuel pumps do not meter the fuel delivered to the ‘drop’, and there is a tolerance on the pump metering gauges. The fuel may be aerated and various other factors need to be taken into account, but this system will tell you very clearly if the engine has gone out of tune, or someone else has driven the car in a different way to yourself.

To get the approximate miles per gallon from miles per litre, divide by 0.22.

FUEL CONSUMPTION TESTS (what they mean)

The fuel consumption figures (mpg) given in the preceding and following tables have been provided by the VCA (An Executive Agency of the Department for Transport) at www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk. and are intended to give car buyers comparative information about the fuel consumption of different models in standard tests.

The tests have been agreed internationally and provide results that are more representative of actual average on-road fuel consumption than previous tests. There are two parts to the tests: urban(cold) and an extra-urban cycle, as referred to above.

All cars tested have to be run in and must have been driven for at least 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometres) before testing.

Urban (cold) cycle

The  test cycle is carried out in a laboratory at an ambient temperature of 20°C to 30°C on a rolling road from a cold start, i.e. the engine has not run for several hours. The cycle consists of a series of accelerations, steady speeds, decelerations and idling. Maximum speed is 31 mph (50 km/h), average speed 12 mph (19 km/h) and the distance covered is 2.5 miles (4 km).

Extra-urban cycle

This cycle is conducted immediately following the urban (cold) cycle and consists of roughly half steady-speed driving and the remainder accelerations, decelerations, and some idling. Maximum speed is 75 mph (120 km/h), average speed is 39 mph (63 km/h) and the distance covered is 4.3 miles (7 km).

Combined Fuel Consumption Figure

The combined figure presented is for the urban(cold) and the extra-urban cycle together. It is therefore an average of the two parts of the test, weighted by the distances covered in each part. If it were shown in the tables it would be roughly midway between the UC and EU Ranges.

REAL LIFE DRIVING

Because of the need to maintain strict comparability of results, achieved by the standard tests, they cannot be fully representative of real life driving conditions. Firstly, it is obviously not practicable to test each individual new car, thus only one production car is tested as being representative of the model and may therefore produce a better or worse result than another similar vehicle. Secondly, there are infinite variations in driving styles and in road, car and weather conditions, all of which can have a bearing on the results achieved. For these reasons the fuel consumption achieved on the road is unlikely to be the same as the official test results. It can be better, or worse.

The urban(cold) cycle can be seen as roughly representing a short-ish journey to work in the morning, and return in the evening, the first part of a shopping trip, or a trip to the pub.

The Extra-urban cycle represents a slightly longer journey, but note: less than 10% is at 70 mph

BENEFITS

From the tables, the difference between the UC and the EU Ranges can be as much, if not more than, 150 miles, per tank full, i.e. 75 miles either side of the mean point. If the mean point represents the way you currently drive then adopting some of the driving techniques as explained by Rod Kirkby later, under the Driving heading,  could mean you could seriously be thinking of getting up to another 75 miles of motoring from the same cost of a tank full of fuel. i.e. 75 miles extra for the same fuel cost.

Makes getting  20 miles of motoring for free   seem easy.*

*    Similarly, improving your existing fuel economy from 42 mpg to 44 mpg over 10 gallons of fuel consumed, gives 20 miles of motoring for free

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