Fuel Economy - What do you get out of a tank? (3rd gens only)

[Jakeys]

I swear most of you are either lying or drive like your grandma's grandma. Even then I don't see how people are claiming such high mileage in excess of 600km to a tank

I have a 98 model, everything standard. Car kept in awesome condition with constant services, engine bay is clean as a whistle. Tyres are good and overinflated at around 38psi. I even ran 2 tanks of injector cleaner through just to be 100% certain.
If I drive like an absolute granny, holding people up at the lights with bugger all acceleration and always, always using cruise control with very light brake use (coast to everything where possible) I can just pull 550km from full to reserve. Most of that is at 60-80kph. Most of that is highway at 80kph with some city driving

If I drive normally which is fast off the lights and pretty fast everywhere I get 400, maybe 450 if I really squeeze the stone. No way are any of you 500+ unless you drive slow enough to make a 1.3L ecobox look fast, and if you are getting that much. HOW!?

edit: running BP ultimate does nothing at all for my fuel economy, I squeezed out 420km from the last tank before it spluttered around a corner, 91/95 is normally about 450

I have a 2002 KJ GTV as per my signature, I use Unleaded 91 (I've tried 95/98 for a few tanks full, car doesn't perform noticeably better, if anything it's worse) and for an average weekly commute to and from work in a variety of traffic and 50/60/80 zones, I get mid to high 11L/100km which gives me somewhere between 550 and 600 kms to a tank if I drive responsibly. I'll get low 11L/100km and thus about 600kms if I did a more countryish run. Some days, I tend to have a slightly heavier foot sometimes to meet certain lights on the daily commute and just generally because I'm in my early 20's and don't mind driving a bit fast, and that will net me low 12's. Either way though it would be unusual for me to get less than 500km to a full tank. If I go full country/highway driving I can get below 9L/100km but that's out on the open road.

These numbers are all from the Average Fuel on the trip computer, I don't work these out myself, the car will do it better than I could. I assume it's very accurate, given that the distance travelled is obviously going to be accurate, and the Total Fuel number is always pretty much dead on to how much I can fill the tank with from the bowser. Simple maths for an ECU. I reset the numbers every tank refill, and I always run it to near empty and then fill to the brim unless fuel is particularly cheap mid tank. My car is newer than yours but it's the same engine, it's also heavier and it's the sports version, so you shouldn't be getting much worse figures than I do. I would trust these figures, I assure you I'm not making them up, they vary by a few decimals tank to tank but it's always in the ranges I listed above.

Also, using cruise actually uses more fuel. Better to control the accelerator yourself (the CC will keep supplying fuel in situations you already deem unnecessary).

Where did you read this? First I've heard of it, I would think having the car maintain the absolute minimum output to maintain your desired speed and sitting exactly on that marker instead of the inevitable tiny ups and downs from your own foot on the pedal would yield more efficiency.

[vlad]

From experience/experimentation with previous KS and the current car. Because a driver can monitor road condition and adjust throttle better than CC. On a straight flat highway with little traffic and inexperienced driver, than the CC will be better.

[macropod]

From experience/experimentation with previous KS and the current car. Because a driver can monitor road condition and adjust throttle better than CC. On a straight flat highway with little traffic and inexperienced driver, than the CC will be better.

In my experience, cruise control makes no difference to fuel economy compared to a carefully-driven car not using it under the same conditions. For most drivers, the real advantages of cruise control include: (a) more consistent speeds (except in hilly terrain); less risk of incurring speeding fines. Regarding (a), this could lead to either higher or lower fuel consumption, depending on what your average speed would be without cruise control and how often you deviate from that.