Fuel economy advice

[alpappy]

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???

I get the same as you! even with 98 RON

[apg39]

After 3 tanks of fuel, my readouts been 13.7 - 14.5 with my normal around town driving ( Property Manager so Im driving everywhere stop start etc)

Went up to Sydney last weekend - got to 9.1 and dropped to 8.3 at one stage!

[Speedz]

Mate... fill in a tank of E10 Shell last week, and saw my fuel average jump up to max 9.6L/100km (80% highway) and then slowly drop back down to 9.2L/100km...

This week i fill her up with normal 95 unlead and see the car back to his normal territory of 8.5L/100km for the week...

Cheers

[SecaBoy]

woot... finally cracked the 8's last night....

very excited... :lol:

Edited July 6, 2008 by SecaBoy

[BanHien]

My Presara is one year old this week with 22,500 kms on its ODO - I have posted my usage for the first 5 months (can't find the post): average 10.2l/100 using V_Power from home to work and shopping on weekends. For the last 7 months, I've been using it only from home to a railway station (that means all short trips) and going out on weekends (normally around 250 kms each trip). My average now is 10.8l/100.

I believe this is very normal, no one can run close to the factory's number which is AS using controlled test environment. Note: I did test petrol type for the first few tanks, and now only use V_Power.

BH

[Jack Moon]

My Presara averages 11.5 in mixed city/freeway driving and I am easy on the foot.

[DJKOR]

... I have posted my usage for the first 5 months (can't find the post)

- Best fuel for our Aurion(s)

[DJKOR]

I thought I would post some updated figures. My last calculation shown at "City driving only economy" showed that I was getting 10.4l/100km. 4375km later, I have done another average calculation. So far on an average over 8385km, my Aurion has given me a fuel economy of 10.8l/100km. That is still with 70% city driving (50% bumper to bumper, 20% no traffic). It is a bit higher than my last calculation, but I have always like to put my foot down (which is just so hard not to do in this car) so I'm not disappointed at all.

[AUSTSE]

Have now done 3,000 km in Touring Series Aurion - mostly highway travel achieving 7.6 to 8.5 l/100 km last couple of tanks. City driving has seen consumption of about 9.5 to 11.5 l/100 km. (On one occasion when stuck in snail pace traffic jam for 70 minutes, the display showed 15.5 l/100 km for a fair length of time, at several points I turned the engine off for 5 or 6 min). All readings are from the display - I will manually calculate consumption one of these days. Most of of my highway travel is at 10 to 15 km/h below the posted limit, this only adds about 10 minutes or so to a 150km trip, I figure this saves a couple of lites of fuel and increases the life of the engine and other mechanical parts; even the environment benefits in a small way.

[tekkyy]

DJKOR thats really good figures for city driving

I look forward to better figures as my engine run-in

but I can't help but be suspicious of errors in your calculation

if 70% city driving gives 10.8L/100km then how did they end up with a combined figure of 9.9L/100km?

so Europe quotes separate figures

in the August Open Road magazine I saw figures of highway/city such as Audi A4 1.8T 5.5/9.9, Peugeot 207XT 5.5/9.8, VW Golf GT 5.7/9.5

actually, what do you mean by city driving?

for me the average speed was 25km/h according to the logging function on my GPS

then again maybe Toyota was being conversative with the figure of 9.9L/100km

like how they were conversative with their 0-100 figure of 7.4s (road tested to be 6.9-7.5s from the 3 Aussie magazines)

[tekkyy]

AUSTSE you mentioned you travel 10-15 km/h below highway speed limit and saved fuel

thats interesting, how does that work?

I understand how torque converter makes low speed travel less efficient under automatic transmission (while all else being equal, which they aren't...my opinion is that manual saves petrol only if you shift prefectly but most people are lazy and rarely prefectionist)

and then we have the low speed lock-up torque converter in the Aurion (which I failed to find information on the web and asked here a while back but no one seemed to know about it)

or maybe its Aurion's aerodynamics above "10-15 km/h below highway speed"?

I was under the impression 100km/h uses less fuel than 80km/h

[DJKOR]

I should have been more specific. I define city driving as driving in built up areas where the speed limit is less than 60km/h and involves quite a few traffic lights. This is usually to and from work around the Brisbane city area. My GPS has logged an average speed of 31km/h. Also, when driving on the highway I do at least 10km/h above... I mean below the speed limit; I'll let you guess. As well, if I'm at the front at a red light, nearly 100% precent of the time I will accelerate sharply. I'm definitely not light on the accelerator.

[Blinkybill]

AUSTSE you mentioned you travel 10-15 km/h below highway speed limit and saved fuel

thats interesting, how does that work?

I understand how torque converter makes low speed travel less efficient under automatic transmission (while all else being equal, which they aren't...my opinion is that manual saves petrol only if you shift prefectly but most people are lazy and rarely prefectionist)

and then we have the low speed lock-up torque converter in the Aurion (which I failed to find information on the web and asked here a while back but no one seemed to know about it)

or maybe its Aurion's aerodynamics above "10-15 km/h below highway speed"?

I was under the impression 100km/h uses less fuel than 80km/h

All cars are probably at their most efficient at about 80-90km/h. This is simply due to design and gearing. Having cars at their most efficient at 110km/hr would simply mean that you'd get worse economy at the 50-60km/hr that you normally drive.

The higher you go about 90km/hr the more fuel will get used.

[AUSTSE]

AUSTSE you mentioned you travel 10-15 km/h below highway speed limit and saved fuel

thats interesting, how does that work?

I understand how torque converter makes low speed travel less efficient under automatic transmission (while all else being equal, which they aren't...my opinion is that manual saves petrol only if you shift prefectly but most people are lazy and rarely prefectionist)

and then we have the low speed lock-up torque converter in the Aurion (which I failed to find information on the web and asked here a while back but no one seemed to know about it)

or maybe its Aurion's aerodynamics above "10-15 km/h below highway speed"?

I was under the impression 100km/h uses less fuel than 80km/h

Hi Tekkyy, not sure of the mechanical nitty-gritty, from my experience 100km/h definitely uses more fuel than 80km/h. Hope this helps.

[tekkyy]

DJKOR thats similar to my driving conditions

I'll keep my hopes up

Blinkybill, AUSTE

oh I see

cool I'll keep that in mind next time on the freeway

[Speedz]

Ideal crusing speed for Aurion is 100km/hr really... coz the rev will be sitting about 1800rpm...

Coz i wanna go home quickly usually i cruise about 120km/hr on a 110 zone but that still doesnt stop road rage... lol!!!

The faster you do the harder you need to push to achieve and maintain that speed, for an extreme example a Bugatti Veron fuel consumption when trying to achieve the speed of 407km/hr is 87L/100km and its tank will be empty in 12mins under those conditions... ;)

[ELEGNT]

coast and back twice this weekend and this is the result :D

[Speedz]

I'm sure you didnt/wasnt able to tamper that...

[Blinkybill]

coast and back twice this weekend and this is the result :D

I think you guys should really try to verify these trip computer results by manually calculating.

I know on my other car a Mazda 6, the car can give fuel economy figures after about 100-200km into a tank of 6.5-7.0L/100km that on verifying manually at the end of a tank is always more like 8.0L/100km.

Congratulations about achieving this result but beware, you may be being fooled.

Edited July 13, 2008 by Blinkybill

[Pumped]

It may not be 100% accurate, but it should at least be comparable to other figures given by the same computer.

allowing it to give a comparison of driving styles, rather then specific figures

Pretty impressive though! :)

I havent had a good run in mine yet, so the fuel economy is somewhat heavy :P

[ELEGNT]

keepin in mind that i filled up at the servo about 50m from the hiway and then didnt really get off it for the next 200km

still i dont no how accurate it is...city driving i get around the 10 or 11L/100

do youse find that if u p***y foot it for a wile that it doesnt go as hard when u put ur foot down? i know that the computer learns off the driver but i didnt know it was so server as some times when ive tried to hit it hard and i would only drop back 1 gear not even 2 or 3.

is anyone elses like this??

[AcoustiK]

keepin in mind that i filled up at the servo about 50m from the hiway and then didnt really get off it for the next 200km

still i dont no how accurate it is...city driving i get around the 10 or 11L/100

do youse find that if u p***y foot it for a wile that it doesnt go as hard when u put ur foot down? i know that the computer learns off the driver but i didnt know it was so server as some times when ive tried to hit it hard and i would only drop back 1 gear not even 2 or 3.

is anyone elses like this??

Yep get that, been complaining is some other thread, takes like 1-2sec before I get a response, shocking if you need to do a snap overtake and rather dangerous if you plan to overtake when the other lane is going faster... the car behind might just run into you..

[Freddo]

isnt the power lag a norm in the auto world?

for me in the auto turbo soobie i got used to it and learnt to plan ahead - offensive and defensive driving.

[DJKOR]

keepin in mind that i filled up at the servo about 50m from the hiway and then didnt really get off it for the next 200km

still i dont no how accurate it is...city driving i get around the 10 or 11L/100

do youse find that if u p***y foot it for a wile that it doesnt go as hard when u put ur foot down? i know that the computer learns off the driver but i didnt know it was so server as some times when ive tried to hit it hard and i would only drop back 1 gear not even 2 or 3.

is anyone elses like this??

Yep get that, been complaining is some other thread, takes like 1-2sec before I get a response, shocking if you need to do a snap overtake and rather dangerous if you plan to overtake when the other lane is going faster... the car behind might just run into you..

Yeah, that's my main complain about the delay. Such occasion is on the highway after merging and the left lane is slow and there is a break in the right so you start to change lanes then, put your foot down and the delay is shocking. If you're unlucky, you will put too much throttle and activate stability control... even more dangerous.

I just predict ahead wherever possible and put my foot down in advance. Just as dangerous but seems to do the job.

[DJKOR]

isnt the power lag a norm in the auto world?

for me in the auto turbo soobie i got used to it and learnt to plan ahead - offensive and defensive driving.

Yeah, planning ahead seems to help. As for the lag being universal, it all comes down to the design of the gearbox. I guess the Aurion is designed for smoothness. My old Camry, when you put your foot down, it dropped gears in an instant. It wasn't smooth at all, but it sure responded to your input.