Drive it hard and save fuel! - Ford Forums - Mustang Forum, Ford Trucks, Ford Focus and Ford Cars

Venom XR · 06-29-2001, 01:37

I was watching a UK equivalent of our 'Drive' TV show, called Top Gear. Besides reviewing cars (Vauxhall Astra 'convertible', some god ugly Renault MPV and a Hyundai Sonata-based Kia saloon) they had stories on various motoring bits of pieces. One was speed cameras, seems the issue of revenue raising vs saving lives is big here also.

But the one that caught my interest was a quick tip to save fuel. According to the Euros, gunning your car may actually help you save a lot of juice! Ok, by gunning they didn't mean wind the bugger up to redline every time, but they did say that if you accelerate at roughly 3/4 of the cars potential, and change gears around 2.5/3.0 you will burn less fuel than if you feather the gas pedal and crawl up the gears.

Assuming you do a reasonable amount of city driving, try this and see if it helps any. Be interesting to see how others go with this (if you do't already drive this way.)

XR_Strider_GuY · 06-29-2001, 05:32

Venom S,

I believe that this might be true if your driving a Ford Fiesta as there is noooooo torque below 2500rpm anyway, :p :p :p but i bet on a falcon shifting like 1500rpm would delivery better economy that 2500rpm. Infact with manuals to save fuel the book says to change either from 2nd to 4th or 3rd to 5th, theres enough torque to pull the car with out labouring.

I have to compensate at times as i do open it up at times and i like the sound of induction roar, unfortunatly thats when the dual runners open up and thats at 3800rpm + don't think the motoring journos would say thats fuel economy :D :D :D :D

Good to see your up and well in the UK.

jaytyn · 06-29-2001, 06:00

TRUE!!!

I find wen i drive my AU2 like a granny (1000-2000rpm no higher at any time!) the fuel consumption IS BAD! REAL BAD

When i drive it "a little harder" (2000-3000rpm) the fuel consumption is better by about 70 kms a tank

ive also found that going to optimax from 2 - 3 tanks of regular gves a good result!

But when you go back to regular from optimax, the consumption is high for a tank or two.. until it settles back to normal.

FM · 06-29-2001, 18:14

Quote:

Originally posted by jaytyn
When i drive it "a little harder" (2000-3000rpm) the fuel consumption is better by about 70 kms a tank

My fuel consumption should be pretty good (it's not too bad actually).. I don't change below 4000rpm..

I love fleet cars!!.. :D

06-29-2001, 18:19

that dont work on my cusso....I burned half a tank going from hurstville to brighton le sands and back, a distance of about 20ks. mind you I did flog the guts out of it. nothing like the sound of a clevo snapping the necks of perverts in commodores.

Prud · 07-12-2003, 07:41

Hey,

There may be some truth in that - I always get 50-100kays further on a tank than the oldies when I drive the sixes (better fuel consumption will never compensate for that loverly V8 grumble tho...). And I do boot it off the line more than they do - again, trying to compensate for the lack of cylinders.

L8a,
Prud

bossxr8 · 07-12-2003, 18:52

Getting up to speed as quick as possible without using too many revs allows the ECU to lean off the mixture once you hit cruising speed, which will improve the economy.

mongrelEB · 07-12-2003, 20:47

Excellent...now I have an excuse!

CATman · 07-13-2003, 01:10

i drive one of "those"4 cylinders at the moment, and i must say, i tried putting around to see if i could get better fuel ecconmy, but it didn't work, so i agree, by reving it more i got about 50kms more per tank then i do wif being a granny.

Aussiblue · 07-13-2003, 01:19

Mercedes did some research about 12 years ago that was reported in Road and Track showing that better economy was achieved by briskly accelerating to your intended cruise speed. It is a matter of using more fuel over a lesser time if you know what I mean i.e slower acceleration may use less fuel in any second during that acceleration but you will be using more fuel than at cruising speed and for a longer time than if you gunned it.