It took me a while to decide in which community should I post this one because frankly, I couldn't fit it in any of the usual communities that I post to. Proof of brain seems to be the most suitable one. So, we're gonna talk about fuel economy today. Something I was quite bad at till like a couple of weeks ago...
You see, I drive a quite old Audi A4. It's a 2004 model sporting a 1.9 TDI engine(that's diesel ;), 130 PS, 320 NM of torque, and a stated by the manufacturer average consumption of 5.5 liters per 100 kilometers. According to Audi I could even get to 4.4 on the highway but I rarely get with it there, and in town, it should be something like 7.4.
I'm driving mostly in town and that's not quite good for diesel engines, but I'm also having short trips around it once in a while. So far I have managed to get a fuel consumption ranging from 6.2 liters up to 7.5 depending on the course, wheels, air conditioning usage, etc.
I have never ever gotten under 6 liters since I own this oldie, till recently. Even when I went to the sea and had about 300 km out of the total of 600 just open highway I couldn't do very good in this reagrd. I was a bad driver and this type doesn't do good when it comes to fuel economy.
For the past 400 kilometers I managed to score a "pump tested" fuel economy of 5.2 which is insanely good imo. It's even under the average consumption stated by the manufacturer. Have I driven it solely out of town to achieve that? Nope...
I have actually about 200 km of in-town driving and the rest was on national roads, nothing different from the usual driving that I had for the past few years since I moved back home. I have to say that for a couple of weeks I learned how to drive once again. I'm really pleased by that.
It's nothing extraordinary about getting a good fuel economy from your car, especially if you drive a manual and a diesel, like in my case.
What did I do differently?
I first changed the way I change gears which implies that I rarely go over 2,000 RPM and I only do that for the 1st and 2nd gear, from the third one upwards I'm changing gears as low as 1,500 to 1,800 RPM.
So, what else did it change? I have completely eliminated useless takeovers that I was such a fan of which were a hell of a diesel killer.
You don't achieve much by constantly overtaking... You're gonna still be trapped in traffic because traffic is highly congested almost everywhere and while not saving anything by doing that you also risk on deteriorating your engine even more than in usual driving conditions.
I put in on neutral when slidding down on a downhill. I know my dad used to do that many years ago and I found it odd, but it makes a lot of sense, the engine is idling instead of roaring at 2,000 or something RPM while the force of gravity drags the car down the road from the peak of the hill, and the engine running in lower rpm consumes less fuel.
What a genius am I :)).
So, what else should I mention? Oh yeah, we now have under 20 degrees Celsius almost all the time in here, thus airconditioner is off till next summer or something like that. I will use the heater once it's getting colder, but the air conditioner remains off for some good months.
One important thing to mention for the whole equation to make sense is also wheels and tires. I drive 17" wheels in summer and I just switched to my winter 15" ones. I guess this one is important, too, cuz bigger wheels are heavier and the engine needs more fuel to spin them.
However, if there would be only one tip that you should "take home" after reading this post this one should definitely be: "stay friendly with the gas pedal". That's where all the magic happens. That's about it for today, folks. I hope the post was usual in any way and see you tomorrow.
Thanks for your attention,
Adrian