Fuel consumption

[ColinX-5]

Thanks for all those facts and figures  but I am going to forget  them as soon as possible  I love my car and love to drive so I don't want to be thinking about the cost. 

[Caldean]

If you do more than 15k a year, diesel can make sense but for me, at 8k a year, it wold take me 7 years just to break even on the cost of a diesel.  Throw in the repair for a clogged dpf and it's a lot longer. We get average of 37mpg over 2500 miles, with the best being 49mpg at steady 60 from Perth  to Inverness. Town driving is around 35mpg.  .... OK that's the wife driving but even so, if torque isn't a requirement,  petrol has to be the way to go.

[Willpower]

I filled up only last week Thursday, I haven't done a long drive except 15-20 miles max around town over 5 days, mostly at a speed of 40-60mph. I'm already more than quarter tank down. 

I have to agree with.
 

If you do more than 15k a year, diesel can make sense but for me, at 8k a year, it wold take me 7 years just to break even on the cost of a diesel.  Throw in the repair for a clogged dpf and it's a lot longer. We get average of 37mpg over 2500 miles, with the best being 49mpg at steady 60 from Perth  to Inverness. Town driving is around 35mpg.  .... OK that's the wife driving but even so, if torque isn't a requirement,  petrol has to be the way to go.

Perhaps a 2.2 Diesel might not be the best choice doing low mileages in Milton Keynes.

[Deeps]

Out of interest, what do you guys in the UK pay for a gallon of diesel? Here in Germany at the moment it's €1.15/litre (or €5.22 for 4.54 litres) which equates I guess to £3.67/gallon.

Diesel historically has always been cheaper than petrol which I suppose is one of the reasons that more CX-5 diesels (and other SUV makes also) are sold over and above petrol.

[Caldean]

It's about £1.09 a litre just now, depending where you go.

[skippa]

Hi Everyone,

I monitor my fuel consumption with a free Android app - Fuel Buddy. A really good app based on your mileage and how much fuel you add over a period of time. I have a 2.2D 150 (facelift) and the app says I average 49mpg, whilst the on-board display says 51mpg. Maybe my right foot isn't quite as heavy as others - but I'm retired and I'm never in much of a hurry to get anywhere Since getting the car late March I've covered around 8000 miles.

Skippa.

[xtrailman]

Auto is so far very poor IMO, only showing 36mpg over the first 100 miles. 7 mpg down on my last car.

[Deeps]

This is my first AT and so have nothing to compare it to but that said, I've been brought up to understand that an automatic will always use more fuel as a result of the full range of any gear being utilised whereas this is seldom the case with a manual box.

[renstar]

So, having just got in from a drive this evening down the A421 from MK to Buckingham and back again (22mile round trip) I averaged 47.4mpg doing around 50-60mph on the journey (see pic if the attachment has worked).  The main difference was the lack of roundabouts on the A421, just a lovely long stretch of road with hardly any stopping and starting. It would appear from this that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the car, it just doesn't seem to like being driven around MK A roads with its multitude of roundabouts!

My average mileage is normally 10-12k miles a year so I don't think I made a poor choice getting diesel actually. I just need to drive it more which is no big deal really, I like driving the car. I will just have to do more trips to various friends and the parents/in laws every other week perhaps. Who knows, I might get a few free meals chucked in, win-win  . My faith in the car has been restored.

[xtrailman]

This is my first AT and so have nothing to compare it to but that said, I've been brought up to understand that an automatic will always use more fuel as a result of the full range of any gear being utilised whereas this is seldom the case with a manual box.

Yes it defiantly takes the revs higher before changing, unlike the manual, with the manual the gear change indicator often come on well before 2K revs.

IMO this is one reason why the auto uses more fuel, it takes much longer to get into 6 speed.
The 8 speed ZF used in the Bmw will often match the manual car with economy figures and emissions.

But a X1 costs a lot more to kit out to the sport standard.

[xtrailman]

So, having just got in from a drive this evening down the A421 from MK to Buckingham and back again (22mile round trip) I averaged 47.4mpg doing around 50-60mph on the journey (see pic if the attachment has worked).  The main difference was the lack of roundabouts on the A421, just a lovely long stretch of road with hardly any stopping and starting. It would appear from this that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the car, it just doesn't seem to like being driven around MK A roads with its multitude of roundabouts!

My average mileage is normally 10-12k miles a year so I don't think I made a poor choice getting diesel actually. I just need to drive it more which is no big deal really, I like driving the car. I will just have to do more trips to various friends and the parents/in laws every other week perhaps. Who knows, I might get a few free meals chucked in, win-win  . My faith in the car has been restored.

No need for photographic evidence, I believe you, having had 55mpg twice with the last car.
Thing is I would reset the average before the trip, and providing there was NO pdf burn, the average could easily reach high figures.

But it's the average over a full tank that reveals the true mpg, which for my 175ps manual was 41-43mpg all on supermarket fuel, and that's the average reading.

I'm doing a brim to brim test with the new car, just out of interest to check its accuracy, I didn't with the old car because a owner did and found it only around 1mpg out, reading too high.

[Deeps]

IMO this is one reason why the auto uses more fuel, it takes much longer to get into 6 speed.

What drags my consumption figures down is the fact that for 99% of my journey's I have to turn left when leaving the house. There follows a 3km stretch of road that is goes very slightly uphill and is broken every 300m or so by a roundabout. Bit like MK I suppose without the flat stretches.  To compound the issue the speed limit is 40km/h enforced by two speed cameras along the stretch. What I'm leading up to say is that with the auto box I find at this speed it tends to hang between gears - too high a speed to shift down and too low a speed to shift up. When I check the consumption at this stage it's alarming - well into double figures with the first one starting with a 2. 

As speeding fines are not all that severe over here I think in future that I'll put the foot down a bit more and accept the speeding fine which for sure is going to work out cheaper than the fuel I'm burning. Only joking of course. 

[Caldean]

You'll find the speedo will read about 4mph than your actual speed. I've tested this against speed signs and my sat nav and the resultt is consistently the same - 3 to 4 mph higher on the speedo  It's not just the mazda - it's the same difference on my golf and jaguar  too. ...

[Willpower]

You'll find the speedo will read about 4mph than your actual speed. I've tested this against speed signs and my sat nav and the result is consistently the same - 3 to 4 mph higher on the speedo  It's not just the mazda - it's the same difference on my golf and jaguar  too. ...

It is generally the same for EVERY car, no matter what make. Some say it is purposely done to keep you at a lower speed than is actually indicated, with a view to trying to keep you under the imposed speed limit whatever that may be. This of course relies upon your own conscience.
Others will say it's just a function of the mechanical connection (Speedo cable) between gearbox and speedo head.   

Whatever the reasoning, as you say this can be compared to a GPS speed display on your Sat Nav.

I've never tried with an electronic display. It would be interesting to see if that too is "purposely" inaccurate.

However as has been remarked several times before, any automatic method of registering fuel consumption, as in an OCB,  is going to be notoriously inaccurate.  There is no real substitute for brim to brim calculations.

[xtrailman]

You'll find the speedo will read about 4mph than your actual speed. I've tested this against speed signs and my sat nav and the resultt is consistently the same - 3 to 4 mph higher on the speedo  It's not just the mazda - it's the same difference on my golf and jaguar  too. ...

My last car was showing 2mph higher than the sat nav speed, to set CC at 50mph I had to select 52.
I do miss the nav speed reading because I use to drive to that through the average camera stretches.

It did get more inaccurate above that, but 90% of my driving is below 50mph.

With my present car I don't have that facility, but I've set up the car so a nice lady tells to I'm over the limit.

Last time I checked the average reading against a brim to brim was back in 2000 with a Audi A4, the average was only about 1mpg higher than the true mpg, so I haven't bother since, until now.