driving economically
 

alreet lads,had my car for a few days now and it sems to use more juice driving normally!! (ie changing gear @2000rpm so no turbo being used!! any ideas?? ir am i just going mad!!

more juice than what?

booted it home the other night and the needle hardly moved (about 10 miles) same distance to the mother in laws and back and drove keeping below 2000rmp (not using the turbo) and it used loads!!

you'll never get an accurate reading like that.
You need to go to a petrol station, brim it to the first click.......do your journey booting it from the get go and back....go back to the same station, same pump (inclines ETC) fill it to the first click again and note how many litres to fill.....then do it again but not booting it and see which uses less.

I can't see you using MORE fuel when not using the turbo unless your going up the gears too quick and the engine is struggling IE up hill in 5th at 20mph for argument sake

my needle sits at quarter of a tankfor ages can drive to work and back 14mile round trip then go out an hour later and the needle is at empty

Dont own one if your going to worry about fuel...

just seems odd,tecnically its a 2l car if you dont use the turbo

am not worried jsut thought something might be wrong!!! :razz:

Im sorry and don’t want to get into another one of these discussions, but I am really becoming more and more pi$$ed off with this kind of attitude…

Just because something has a consequence shouldn’t stop you wanting it…

I know my missis is going to do my head in every day, doesn’t want me still wanting her around.
Is it not ok to want a classic car and still worry about it breaking down,
Is it not ok to want a child, but worry about them becoming ill.
Is it not ok to buy some expensive jewellery only to worry about it being stolen.

It is ok to have something and still worry about it… if you save up and eventually managed to buy your dream car, and drive it in a way that saves you running costs then where is the problem, in an ideal world we would all be lottery winners but were not, so we try to have nice things in life and make the best of it as well as we can.

well said dave!! i have only had it a few days and its new to me so i look to people like youz as guidence most people have been really helpful but i am sorry but that just makes you wanna go elsewhere!!

my petrol gauge used to tell me porkies all the time. I would park it up on the drive with half a tank of petrol go back to it the next morning with only quarter lol. I did a test on how many miles i would get as a few people on here were saying they were getting over 300miles per full tank normal driving. i could never get these sort of miles. on a full tank which would cost approx £67 from petrol light coming on driving it off boast at most i got 250miles but when booting it that reduced to 180miles hahahaha happy days its all about smiles per miles lol

fuel gagues in these cars seem weird, from a full tank to 75% on gauge is 14miles normally driving, then from there to 25% is about another 150 miles at a decent pace. Just seems calibrated wrong but seems every1 says the same. Iam on a 06 hawk sti if that makes any diff

Excellent post Dave. As said just 'cos Scoobs aren't exactly economical doesn't mean to say you shouldn't watch out for a sudden drop in MPG for say a possible engine fault (as an example). But nah, Scoobs are uneconomical so fcuk it, it'll be alright :lol1::cuckoo:

ha,well said its all down to the smile on your face!! i don't really care about the petrol but i was concerned about something being wrong with it,i used to own a fiat coupe running over 300bhp and that was great with the turbo turned off but its the same old story...pull up at the lights and someone would pull up beside my so right away i would turn it back on!!

the subaru seems to be more economical than my st220 and my vectra sri (that WAS fooked though)

good post this and always good to get info from other drivers, as better to get the benefit of doubt

my cupra r does about 150 mile off £40 when drivin to work and locally, then put £60 in other week, drove to sheffield and back plus a few other places and got double the mileage off an extra £20

i was speakin to my mate the other day about getting a scooby and he said "wont it cost you loads more in petrol" and laughing, i said "yeah"

as long as they make you smile and you can afford the petrol, everyone's a winner

on a plus note i am gonna take her for a bath and find somewhere nice to take some pics of her to show all you nice people....wash=£5...finding somewhere nice....£20!! (and a few dirty marks!!) but worth it!!!

As mentioned earlier
Brim it and reset your trip meter and compare 2/3 full tankfulls
My classic which I have had for over 11 years now gets 250 to the tank about 25 mpg
My WRXD gets 480-500 to the tank and hasn't really varied over 2years

Short city drives is the worst thought for consumption ,get your self round keilder or Alston and it will settle down to a sensible level and average out your tank full

2 quick points.... 1st of all its a bit of doom and gloom... if fuel keeps going up at the rate it has been over the last 2 years who of us will be able to run their cars once it reaches £2 p/ltr, then of course if it hits 2 quid it wont stop there, £2.50 / £3.00 p/ltr.. !!!!!!!!!!! i for one would have to sell up once it gets near 2 quid, or go lpg!:wonder:

secondly... i noticed that my car from a full tank used to hit the 3/4 mark after 90 miles, then about 150 @ half way then the last half would only give about 60 miles..:mad: BUT since i had a new fuel pump fitted its (shouldnt say this as im bound to jinx it) i now get more or less 50 mile per qtr.... strange, dont know why, all i do know is this is how it should be. I never trust the guage tbh, i always set the trip, so i know how many miles left in the tank, the guage is just a rough guide.

not quite true matey, although I see where you are coming from. a 2ltr turbo car, driving off boost, will on average always be less fuel efficient than a 2ltr non turbo driven at low revs.

how bad is your mpg? I fill my WR1 up (60 ltr tank), and most I get out of it is 280 miles doing motorways. 250 miles is average for a tank.

All i know is that when the fuel light comes on, its time for Mr. Shell to take 8000 more of my hard earned pennies...

i have not filled it up yet,just keep sticking £20 in,done around 160 miles since i got it and put in £80

i know the car has been modified as the last owner wrote a list of all the mods on it but i left it at the garage and need to go and collect it,the other thing is when i bought it the needle was way past the empty line (pretty much down by the letter 'E') now as soon as the light comes on i stick some more in

when i think about it one of my last cars was a merc A170cdi that did 100 miles for £10 and this is run on the good stuff so you only get 12-13 litres from £20

is the car ppp'd?

Ouch!!!! like the guys have said you need to check this from full m8,
ive just filled up this morning, cost £65 to full and did 170 miles for that (comuting), so roughly 17mpg:cry: oh well, happy days!!!

Thats because the fuel tank isn't sqaure...its kidney shaped, so the upper half of the tank holds more fuel than the bottom half (or halves, to be precise) with two basic senders to guage how much is in each of the lower "halves" once the fuel level has fell below that of conjoining sections of the tank.

As such, the guage will never be accurate as its only calibrated to be a rough guide to indicate when its empty, full, or somewhere inbetween. If it were calibrated it would say the exact amount of fuel in numbers: Like 50litres, 25litres, 10litres, 5 litres etc. or the car would have a trip computer telling you how much range you have left before it runs out of fuel.

Other cars such as VAGs and BMWs have more accurate fuel senders to allow the trip computer to give an aproximated range (although still not 100% accurate), but were's talking about old Subarus here, which aren't that clever or complex.

Incorrect assumption; its a 2.0 litre engine with 8.0:1 compression - very low and too low for good volumetric efficiency to make decent economy when the inlet manifold is under vacuum conditions (lamen translation; not enough squish=less boom). Of which is made worse as gas flow is restricted by having to spin a turbo which is just blowing against a nearly-closed throttle plate so you have lots of exhaust port back-pressure combined with poor port scavenging at the inlet ports which are better designed for high RPM gas flow rather than low-rpm efficiency. Although, strictly speaking, that could have been put to benefit by keeping more exhaust gases in the combustion chamber - like EGR, which means less fuel need be injected (because there is less oxygen), but this would require variable timing on both inlet and exhaust cams to work properly (like BMW's M54 engine - these use internal EGR).

This is why you will never get the same economy of a same capacity n/a engine.

The exception, and what makes it more confusing is engines that uses light-pressure turbo/super charging whoose prime purpose to to help scavenging, emissions and economy rather than restrict it. However these engines run at higher compressions and use smaller more efficient turbos that typically work from 1500rpm or less (VAG, Fiat, BMW etc.), unlike a scoob which won't wake up properly until 3000rpm.





Anyhoo, fuel economy tip: drive around as if your brakes have failed. In other words don't use the brakes at all - see a red taffic light 400yards down the road back off and use the engine braking to slow and time the lights so you don't need to stop, do teh same with traffic and junctions/roundabouts - time it so that by the time you arive its clear to pull away without stopping. You gain two things here, one you will improve your MPG and two, your brakes pads/discs will last longer :D Try not to hit the car infront though :o

Ali

Bein new to scooby ownership, that post alone has answered a lot of questions that i was just too reluctant to ask for the fear of gettin ribbed!!! (which happened to the thread starting user!)

Appreciated

Craig

yes it is ppp'd,just done the 'mother in law' run again and gave it some there and back and it was better again.....oh well....roll on the points!!!

I`m on my 5th Scooby now.. All being Classics in Various Trim.. Sport, UK Turbo, WRX, STi and now my V1 Type-RA....

I`ve never kidded myself that I was ever going to get good MPG in any of them. It was really low on my agenda when buying...

However, I too think about trying to get better Fuel Economy, especially when I travel from Aberdeenshire to Rotherham to see my kids (Round trip of 900 miles)....

Mine is now running 370bhp after it`s recent remap @ Andy Forrest. I have an Apexi AVCr with 3 Maps - Off (0.5Bar), Setting `A`(1.0Bar) and Setting `B` (1.4Bar).

On my last trip down I brimmed my tank, AVCr Set @ Off. Never went over 70mph. Engine breaking most of the time. Acceleration keeping my boost guage just below 0 and out of The Turbo winding up...

Managed to get to the Shell garage @ Ripon on the A1 (360miles into my journey) where I filled up again. Fuel gauge was just above before Red light comes on, so probably would have got another 20miles ish. (I`ve always got 2 Full fuel cans in my boot on long journeys, just in case).

But this kind of driving doesn`t leave any kind of smile on your face... And you really do have to let everything zoom by you (Including tosser corsa drivers with baseball caps flicking you the bird as the go by.. LoL

So, it is possible to drive econmical, even in a Scooby.... But it does take all the fun of the reason why you`ve bought it in the first place.. LoL

It's a 2l car with a very low compression ratio, which results in very poor thermodynamic efficiency - hence it burns a lot more fuel for a given output than an engine with a higher compression ratio which would start to knock easily if fed through a turbocharger.

My STi 2.5 averaged about 16.5mpg of mixed town/dual carriage way work.

However a quick pulling of the Learning View screen did indicate the MAF needs setting up as the ECU was adding about 5% of fuel all through the open loop map which to my limited capability brain/knowledge already looked quite rich for a standard power car...

ppp is notoriously bad for economy, they basicly up the boost slightly and throw fuel at it.

I'm getting around 350 per fill up, would prob get 400 but don't want to be sucking up the dregs so I fill up just before the light comes on. I'm using 97 octane as I get better mpg than with 95. Found myself stuck behind a lorry on the m6 yesterday and stayed behind it for about 30miles, was boring as hell but without the extra wind resistance I did 30miles without the needle moving.

To all these ppl with the view that you shouldn't have a subaru if you moan about petrol I find you ppl highly annoying. Like ppl have said in this thread, we have all saved up for our dream cars knowing they are expensive to run. There are two types of drivers, those that just want to get from a to b and those that love their cars. Not one of us on here are the a to b type, if we were we'd all be on the Nissan micra forum (if one exists ha). With the economy so bad and petrol prices so high why shouldn't we discuss our running costs?