Fuel economy advice

[BanHien]

I think the biggest factor affecting our fuel economy has got to be where we live. It is suburban Sydney and my wife has to drive about 6 suburbs down. So truly city driving with no freeways to stretch the car's legs.

I do feel that the info about he car having to wear in is a bit wrong given that you've had such great fuel economy from the beginning. By the way the 1000km service is just an inspection. They don't change anything including the oil.

I'll have to find some time to take the car into the dealership.

Hi,

My wife drives her car with her foot on the break pedal most of the time and on many short trips, she can only manage 12.2l/100km (best) for her 2l BMW which I used to drive everyday and never got over 9.2l/100km.

My Presara first service was at around 1,600k mark and they did a good job - including oil change, car wash & vaccum ..... The only thing they did not do: I asked them to disconnect the back centre stop light but they did not do because they did not see it (my wife covered it with a black material - their service card says: "Already disconnected") I will ask them do again next time because I don't need 2 centre stop lights at the back (one is with the spoiler).

BH

[saintly]

had the 15k service on saturday..

the service centres used shell helix plus for the oil change.

they didn't perform a ECU reset because they said the aurion self-adapts?? I guess I'll have to dig up the manual and do it myself :/

thoughts?

[Soloman]

To reset the ECU just disconnect the battry for 20 mins..

[Stephen 1999]

I know there have been a few other threads about fuel economy in the Aurion.

My situation is that the car (an ATX) now has about 4000 km and is 6 months old. It is driven by my other half to work in normal city traffic 20 mins each way and also for shopping trips on the weekend. By no means bumper to bumper traffic. The car is driven fairly sedately, and we aren't racing from the lights. Rarely gets above 3000rpm.

Bear in mind that the advertised fuel economy is 9.9L per 100km.

The last tank calculation has been 44.5 litres for 270 km which equates to 16.5 L/100km.

Now when the car was new, I accepted that maybe it was related to the car being in its first 1000km but this has been the way it has been since the beginning. Fuel economy of 15L/100km or slightly worse.

Best we have had is about 12.5 L/100km on a weekend trip that had a bit of freeway and twisty moutain driving.

Now I rang up our toyota dealer to discuss this and whether a bit of a look to see if the engine was in tune was warranted, and they said well, 16L /100km is not far off what they'd expect ( I'd love them to say this to a new car buyer) for a car before its first 12 month/15000 km service. He said then there will be an oil change and we should get better.

However from reading the other threads with people getting sub 10 readings (granted often on the highway), I'm starting to wonder if everything is OK with our car?

Does anyone out there own an Aurion for which they are driving mainly in the city without much freeway driving with whom we can compare. What do people think? Is this within the norm and we should just put up with it until 12 months service???

[Stephen 1999]

Hi, took my Aurion to the dealer today to check fuel economy and Tappet noise at 1400-16600 rpm on light acceleration. I am getting 12.1 to 12.6 l/100 All short trips. The best on a run was 8.9 at 100 kph. Has anyone else had a problem with engine noise is this normal. Was told it was piston slap secondardary to short skirts on the pistons. It goes as soon as it warms up. Performs very well.

[dave262]

Hi, took my Aurion to the dealer today to check fuel economy and Tappet noise at 1400-16600 rpm on light acceleration. I am getting 12.1 to 12.6 l/100 All short trips. The best on a run was 8.9 at 100 kph. Has anyone else had a problem with engine noise is this normal. Was told it was piston slap secondardary to short skirts on the pistons. It goes as soon as it warms up. Performs very well.

If it was piston slap, I would be extremely worried about the condition of the engine! I'd say tappet noise would just be something that can be fixed by getting the tappets readjusted.

Fuel economy wise, that's not excessively bad, but still could be a bit better. How do you drive the car? If you drive it fairly hard from take-off I would expect to see the economy get fairly poor though...

[teebee]

Hi, took my Aurion to the dealer today to check fuel economy and Tappet noise at 1400-16600 rpm on light acceleration. I am getting 12.1 to 12.6 l/100 All short trips. The best on a run was 8.9 at 100 kph. Has anyone else had a problem with engine noise is this normal. Was told it was piston slap secondardary to short skirts on the pistons. It goes as soon as it warms up. Performs very well.

If it was piston slap, I would be extremely worried about the condition of the engine! I'd say tappet noise would just be something that can be fixed by getting the tappets readjusted.

Fuel economy wise, that's not excessively bad, but still could be a bit better. How do you drive the car? If you drive it fairly hard from take-off I would expect to see the economy get fairly poor though...

[teebee]

Hi, took my Aurion to the dealer today to check fuel economy and Tappet noise at 1400-16600 rpm on light acceleration. I am getting 12.1 to 12.6 l/100 All short trips. The best on a run was 8.9 at 100 kph. Has anyone else had a problem with engine noise is this normal. Was told it was piston slap secondardary to short skirts on the pistons. It goes as soon as it warms up. Performs very well.

If it was piston slap, I would be extremely worried about the condition of the engine! I'd say tappet noise would just be something that can be fixed by getting the tappets readjusted.

Fuel economy wise, that's not excessively bad, but still could be a bit better. How do you drive the car? If you drive it fairly hard from take-off I would expect to see the economy get fairly poor though...

First post here. Some of these numbers seem a bit high here. Have an Aurion Prodigy and have rarely had it above 10.5 city or otherwise. Have had the computer indicating an average of 7.3 between Canberra and Sydney. However when I first got it I thought it was a little thirsty, so had it checked - turns out #1 spark plug was a dud and had it replaced - economy improved. Only way to tell was by plugging the car into the electronic servicing gizmo. Sure the computer 'compensates' for this problem, but unless it is picked up properly like mine was, you cannot tell, such is the greatness of the engine/transmission..

[saintly]

Have an Aurion Prodigy and have rarely had it above 10.5 city or otherwise. Have had the computer indicating an average of 7.3 between Canberra and Sydney. However when I first got it I thought it was a little thirsty, so had it checked - turns out #1 spark plug was a dud and had it replaced - economy improved. Only way to tell was by plugging the car into the electronic servicing gizmo. Sure the computer 'compensates' for this problem, but unless it is picked up properly like mine was, you cannot tell, such is the greatness of the engine/transmission..

how could a spark plug effect the fuel economy?

[beaves]

The engine will have to rev higher to reach the speeds at which you want to drive at if has a unserviceable spark plug in a cylinder I suppose, just a theory.

[insi]

@ Dave,

Where is the location of service that you recommend in Victoria?

Thanks.

[riftime]

I have a Presara (~1,700 kms), refilled today with 56L for 535kms travelled. That works out to just under 10.5L/100kms. Some of it is freeway, some on 80 km/h road, some hard sports-mode driving and 60 zones with traffic & lights.

Just after refilling (with Shell Unleaded-95), I went into city and back. On the freeway it averaged 7.0 L, and it wasn't all just 100 easy crusing. After city traffic (and return trip), average was 10.0L/100.

... pretty happy with that.

[SydGunner]

Would the use of climate control add to the fuel consumption?

[Adrian]

yes, degree of added load would depend on the type of driving that you were doing. A lot of stop/starts there would be a noticable diff.

[riftime]

Would the use of climate control add to the fuel consumption?

Yes, marginally, but not sure if noticeable. I always have mine on, so the figures I got were WITH A/C on.

[insi]

Questions:

1. if you drive around 20mins in 100km and 10mins in 80km continuously, what the average fuel consumption do you get? from and to? for example from 11l to 9.5l on the display

2. For those people who reset the ECU by disconnecting the battery for at least 20mins, do you get this fuel consumption better?

Please let me know. Thanks.

[Rossane]

16L/100km?! that's scary.... I would take it back to the dealer...

Edited February 15, 2008 by Rossane

[MASH]

CEO I am very envious.

On a slight tangent, has anyone else thought that the manual mode on the transmission is a bit of a disappointment because when you put in in 4, it is not like a true manual because it won't hold that gear. Instead you are simply limiting it to the 4 lowest gears. You can't try to change to a higher gear quicker.

Yes I agree Blinkybill, but I think this is pretty much the case with alot of cars who have sports mode or "tip-tronic" transmission.

Ive seen alot of Honda's do this aswell. Because when you think about it, its not a 100% Manual transmission. I don't play around too much with the sports mode.. Have you noticed if this happens with other lower gears aswell?

[beaves]

the 'S' isn't sports mode, it's "SEQUENTIAL" or so I am led to believe.

[Blinkybill]

16L/100km?! that's scary.... I would take it back to the dealer...

I did. They said they checked everything and did an ECU reset.

The fuel economy is much the same in the city. 14-15L/100km.

We did take it on the freeway and on freeway only driving managed to get 8.6L/100km.

So don't really know whether it's just something we have to accept.

I will get them to check to make sure no spark plug problems at the next service, but that may be 4 months away.

[v8toy]

ive had my sx6 aurion since bout the 3rd of jan 08 and it was a demo with 4400 kms on it ive drove it from bunbury in wa to karratha in the wa pilbara with a 8x4 trailer and quad bike in it granted it was loaded etc but most of the 1700km trip it was only get just short of 400km per tank about 16l/100km and in some spots 18-19l/100km it never missed a beat the whole trip.

yes i thought it was high considering the type of highway i was on and being in the middle of the night in the nice cool air so i decided to drive it from karratha to port hedland (unloaded no trailer etc) which is 230kms no stop straight nearly flat dessert road i managed to get it down to 9.8l/100km and thats the lowest ive seen it

since then i have now driven the car to darwin from karratha which is bout 2700kms of the same near flat highway with trailer and bike in tow. i only drove in the daytime (cause of the massive size cows/bulls etc) which had temps of around 32 to 43 degrees on acouple of days and the economy was no better or worse from when i drove it from bunno to karratha in one spot (and i got photo evidence) i nearly ran outa fuel in a 270km stretch (yes it had one or 2 hills but stuff all) from kunnunara to timber creek the fuel gauge was well below empty and the digital display said i was out fuel range i then drove another 15kms b4 i got to the roadhouse and it took on 65l's to the top of the neck. u could say i was a little cautious after this. the whole time i did mainly 110 - 120 kmh cause of trailer.

the car has just gone in for its 15000km service (yep done 10,000kms in a month) asked them to check for any probs on ecu etc, nothin wrong aparantly

so if anyone can shed any light on my car that be great but as i say it runs/starts and stops perfectly fine havent had any probs yet

[beaves]

you will find the 120-115km/h zone and above is pretty fuel thirsty, about 80-90km/h is the most economical, you would have been probably sitting around or maybe even above (considering you had a trailer) 2500RPM, when you are doing 80-90km/h, she tends to be around 1500RPM, it's pretty big difference, she seems to love that speed. I notice even having the car with 4 other blokes in it, the consumption goes up big time, so having a trailer attatched on the back, it wouldn't have helped.

[v8toy]

yeah thats what i pretty much figured so wasnt to concerned about the trailer/weight factor but i did even try and slip into squential mode and keep those revs around 2500 so it wasnt so loaded up. one thing i did find which is sort of obvious that when its on cruise control coming up a hill it wont backchange a gear until really low in the revs therefore when it does finally do it, it revs its guts out in the lower gear ,again this cant help so even started to drive it without cruise and again keep the revs the best i could

i spose i just experiment a bit more with it and see but would be great to get some of these low fuel consumption figures (eg 8l/100km) like some of these fellas are gettin but i dont think i can see it possible whether i drive it like a nanna or drive it reasonably hard.

but all things aside i love mine i goes hard and suprises alot of fellas at the lights and even on the highway ( i like how late the speed limiter is dunny doors and palcons cant keep up lol) all in all a great car next stop would be a trd one i reckon

im actually thinkin if its got more to do with the accuracy of the digital display rather than a problem with the engine etc itself, seen as though it did read zero fuel and zero range for like 15km, i wouldve thought it be a little more accurate than that

Edited February 20, 2008 by v8toy

[insi]

I just service my car 1500km...and the tech service said it is normal around 12l/100km for 20mins driving for one way everyday between 60-80km.

Need adjustment a bit longer and see what happen.

[riftime]

16L is damn thirsty - that's going near hummer territory... My father's 12-cylinder 750 BMW drinks that!

On a different note, I took my wife's car (Ford Fairmont) today for a drive. Trip computer was telling me that I had another 40kms left before running out of fuel. Pulled into a Caltex and filled up. 72L later the pump stopped. After paying, I realised that it was a rather large amount of fuel that went in. Had a look at the owners manual, capacity of tank is 68L.

... So given that I had some petrol left in the tank, and the tank capacity is 68L, how could I have just purchased 72L of fuel? I did not miss I spoke with the sales person who advised me that all pumps are "calibrated". Does anyone have any logic for this, or is that Caltex ripping people off ?