Honda Accord Coupe Fuel Consumption "MPG"

[Mazda Man]

Ha ha, more like wheels falling off oncoming lorries then bouncing down the road and hitting the windscreen causing a pile up!!  Or a lorry jack-knifing on a bend wiping out half a dozen cars in the process. 

[Laird_Scooby]

Sounds like the average day on the M25 really...........................

Of course, the big question is, just how did you get to searching youtube for "Russian dash cams" in the first place???

[Mazda Man]

Facebook Dave....there's always funny videos flying around and the url is always YouTube.  Then when you log into YouTube it remembers what you've viewed then recommends further 'dash cam' videos to watch.  I could watch them all day long. 

[Laird_Scooby]

He's swearing at me now, he used the "F" word!

[AhsyV6]

On 07/04/2016 at 0:02 AM, hughezee said:

The Pre CAT lambda had failed on the pre heater circuit and was slow flagging slow response on your car Ahsy (fault codes present) the one on project break was in much better health and the codes went without a reset, but I did a full reset anyway. 

That was the technical response 

 

On 10/04/2016 at 1:37 PM, AhsyV6 said:

I have just filled up again after fininishing the previous 59.75 litres and I completed........wait for it........ 235.8 miles......18.13 mpg!!! Now I would also like to say that I did drive my coupe VERY HARD a "few" times with this tank of petroleum. I kind of expected it to be low but not this low.

I have just filled up with 59.53 litres of Esso Supreme again but have decided to try my utmost to stay below 2000 rpm and 60mph(which takes me slightly over 2000rpm) on this tank and see what I get out of it. My only concern is that I want to install my cold air intake which may need some revving to appreciate the new dulcet tones. 

 

Another update....on my last full of 59.53litres I managed to squeeze 302 miles out of it meaning I managed 23.06 mpg. To get this i stuck to my plan of not exceeding 2500 rpm, slow and gradual starts, max 65mph, and used cruise when poss. In The last couple of days I sat in an hour and a half of traffic and just watched the needle go down. I reckon I could've got another 20miles out of her. I guess there is room for improvement and I do live in the centre of London surrounded with speed humps. 

This time I filled her with 60litres of BP Ultimate. 

[hughezee]

More promising result and I think another ATF change would help considerably, also to I would try sticking it in D3 one less gear to jump in out of at steady speeds, BP ultimate works great in the Shuttle which does all the stop start journeys each week.

Keep up the good work and I'm sure things will improve further and it will drive as good as it looks

[Laird_Scooby]

Hope i'm misunderstanding you here Ahsy but if not i think there's something wrong with your method of working out your consumption. If you brim the tank and zero the trip, the next fill will tell you how much you've used since zeroing the trip. It sounds as if however much you filled up with last time is the figure you've used to calculate the economy this time?

For example, on 1st April you filled the tank and zeroed the trip. On 15th April, you refilled with 60L and had covered 300 miles. Your economy for that period will be 300/60 x 4.5454 mpg. This works out about 22.5mpg using my brain cell and very rough mental arithmetic. Now let's say on 30th April you refilled with 45L but had only done 200 miles. This would work out to about 20mpg.

Using the method how i think you've described it, you would have filled up on 15th with 60L then travelled 200miles which would work out to something like 15mpg (200/60 x 4.5454)

Admittedly you seem to fill up with 59-60L each time so any error is likely to be small but could give you a false impression either of thirst or economy.

Does that make sense or have i finally plot the lost?

 

By the way, speed humps are an absolute killer for economy - slow down, crawl over hump, accelerate to a normal speed again, hammer the brakes on again for the next hump, crawl over, accelerate etc.

You spend all your time accelerating and braking which is the worst possible combination for economy.

[AhsyV6]

19 hours ago, Laird_Scooby said:

Hope i'm misunderstanding you here Ahsy but if not i think there's something wrong with your method of working out your consumption. If you brim the tank and zero the trip, the next fill will tell you how much you've used since zeroing the trip. It sounds as if however much you filled up with last time is the figure you've used to calculate the economy this time?

For example, on 1st April you filled the tank and zeroed the trip. On 15th April, you refilled with 60L and had covered 300 miles. Your economy for that period will be 300/60 x 4.5454 mpg. This works out about 22.5mpg using my brain cell and very rough mental arithmetic. Now let's say on 30th April you refilled with 45L but had only done 200 miles. This would work out to about 20mpg.

Using the method how i think you've described it, you would have filled up on 15th with 60L then travelled 200miles which would work out to something like 15mpg (200/60 x 4.5454)

Admittedly you seem to fill up with 59-60L each time so any error is likely to be small but could give you a false impression either of thirst or economy.

Does that make sense or have i finally plot the lost?

 

By the way, speed humps are an absolute killer for economy - slow down, crawl over hump, accelerate to a normal speed again, hammer the brakes on again for the next hump, crawl over, accelerate etc.

You spend all your time accelerating and braking which is the worst possible combination for economy.

 

Hello mate, this is the calculation I've made:

 

9/3/16 26.81 litres(5.873gl)

65,429(clock readings)-65,535=106m

18.03 mpg

 

 

13/3/16 57.39 litres(12.624 gl)

65,535-65,828=293m

23.20mpg

 

 

29/3/16 59.75 litres(13.14 gl)

65,828-66,064=236m

17.96mpg

 

 

10/4/16 59.53 litres(13.094 gl)

66,064-66,366=302m

23.06mpg

 

 

30/4/16 60 litres 66,366

 

 

I hope I've calculated this correctly?!

 

As for speed humps.....I'm very annoying and frustrating to be behind as I average 5mph over them with minimised braking. 

[Laird_Scooby]

Yeah, you have mate my mistake, sorry!

As for the speed humps, you're not alone! I do very similar. There's only one road in or out of where i live and on the main bit of it, there are at least 3 speed humps in a stretch of just over 1/4 mile. I go over each at 5-10mph and only speed up to about 15-20mph in between, much to the frustration of anyone following but they don't pay for my shock absorbers, drop links or any of the other components that can get easily damaged by speed humps.

[AhsyV6]

Thanks for confirming......I reckon I checked these figures at least 5 times before posting them as I didn't want to get embarrassed

ditto on the speed jumps! 

[Mazda Man]

Ahhh....speed humps.  We have some up the road from me and fortunately, they're the square ones placed strategically....one in the middle (to the left) of the centre line, one on the centre line then one in the middle to the right of the centre line.  If there are no cars coming in the opposite direction you can "miss" the humps completely by aiming your wheel between the humps without slowing down. 

You're right though, they're the bane of every driver I think.  Think os the wear and tear to the brakes, suspension, tyres etc too.

 

[Laird_Scooby]

Whoever invented them should be made to be a human speed hump - on the M25!

What really annoys me about speed humps is councils will happily spend money building new speed humps but they won't spend anything on pothole repair! Wrong priorities somewhere IMHO!!!

[Retro Rich]

Just as another bump to this topic, after using Shell V Power for most of this year and changing the engine oil regular as always, I have completed a 338 mile trip on just about 3/4 of a tank, mainly with motorway cruising and air conditioning on, not to mention having a bit of fun 

I feel spoiled that I have a 3L V6 Auto that returns up to 35 mpg. Without question, it is one of the most fuel efficient vehicles I've ever owned. 

 

[hughezee]

Most weasels struggle to get 40mpg with a DPF bolted on these days buddy, that Toyota Yaris 1.2l  was averaging 34mpg pmsl  welcome to my world of rewarding maintenance 

[Laird_Scooby]

That's good economy Rich and further proof (if it were needed ) that regular maintenance really does pay.

After "Diesel-Gate" i think diesels are struggling in general, not just on the economy front but then again, they always have. I don't know if i still have it but in a 1984 or 1985 edition of either Autocar, Motor or a similar magazine, they did a comparison between a Sierra 2.3LD, a Jaguar XJS-HE and another (i think it was the Cavalier 1.6L) and train and plane travel. I can't remember the exact details but in essence they were traveling from London to Edinburgh (i think) and comparing the costs, travel time, how much you'd earn while traveling if you were working instead and how much you'd save by not "wasting" time traveling slower to get improved economy.

It was quite an in-depth and complicated article but the bottom line was something similar to "the Sierra works out cheapest on fuel, but would you really want to sit in traffic on your day off for £1.50 an hour?". If memory serves correctly, that was in comparison to using the Jag instead and getting to your destination quicker, in more comfort and more relaxed (told you it was in depth - they had heart rate monitors to determine stress levels!) although the Cavalier was the hardest to beat as it was nearly as quick as the Jag for the "real world" driving part of the test and reasonably comfortable - also almost as economical in terms of mpg as the Sierra.

Of course that was over 30 years ago and things have moved on for diesels - but they've moved on for petrols as well. When you think about it, although that test was over 30 years ago, the principles still hold true today although the performance of diesels has improved. Allegedly the emissions have also improved but we all know different and even with a DPF, there are still millions of micro-particles that come out the back end of a diseasel to cause breathing problems, cancer and who knows what else.

All that begs the question if a 3.0 V6 petrol is returning 35mpg, why bother with a diseasel?

[Retro Rich]

Very interesting Dave. Another interesting point that Stu made yesterday was that Diesels can mask certain issues. Due to the sheer torque (which lets face it, is the whole point of having a diesel, i.e agricultural use) mechanical problems such as binding brakes often go by undetected, leading to a chain reaction of mechanical failures, resulting in high running costs. I know for certain now that any mechanical problems on my 3 L V6 will result in an instant noticeable drop in performance and fuel economy. I can put this right early on, resulting in reduced wear and tear and of course, this would be kinder on my pocket in the long run.

I also have an old magazine somewhere from the era of my Triumph Acclaim. In it, there's an article that discusses a butterfly conversion kit that was fraught with legalities. I can't remember the specific technicalities, but the so called conversion kit supposedly uses "lean burn" plasma technology, to effectively turn a 1 litre Metro into a fuel efficient machine boasting mpg's of up to 100mpg. I discussed it with Stu some time back and he thought it would be some sort of "pre- heater" arrangement, similar to that found on petrol cooking stoves. The manufacture's should really be using these kind of technologies, if they're that easy to implement.....

[Laird_Scooby]

To be honest Rich i never really considered the extra torque of a diseasel defeating binding brakes or similar.

I remember one butterfly conversion kit fraught with legalities that was marketed for diesels in the 80s, because diesels don't have throttle butterflies. This resulted in a lack of engine braking so these kits were marketed to give a throttle butterfly to a diesel to give engine braking. A similar system also went on the exhaust pipe for a similar result but both types caused serious emissions problems.

I don't remember seeing anything for petrol engines though but can see how the theory might have worked on a carburettor engine but only on certain types of carbs. I see where Stu is coming from with the pre-heater arrangement and it could also have been a pre-atomiser of some description. Like many other "toys" like this most have nominal gains on certain engines only and aren't a universal "magic answer" to the problem of fuel economy or lack of.

If it was that easy to get better economy and keep it with the performance people want these days then the likes of VAG, JLR etc would be doing it, instead of cheating the system to get low emissions results for certain engines by using different software and/or other dodges that the testing powers that be can't work out.

[hughezee]

I was referring to a fuel vaporizer (pre-heater)  , 100mpg from V8 trucks are common in the USA with basic home conversions, shell developed a 300+ mpg car which was mothballed in the 70's http://www.treehugger.com/cars/souped-down-1959-opel-t-1-gets-37659-mpg.html

VW trying there luck and failed like many other to introduce there 300mpg car http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2014/04/volkswagens-new-300-mpg-car-not-allowed-in-america-because-it-is-too-efficient.html

[Laird_Scooby]

Hmmmm, i've got a few vapourisers floating about! Wonder if i can get 100mpg out of my Jeep?

It's all interesting stuff and the bottom line is the oil companies are buying up the copyrights and/or blueprints to prevent these cars being marketed. It's another reason Browns Gas or HHO conversions haven't really taken off :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyhydrogen

http://www.hho4free.com/browns_gas.htm

There were a load of other websites about Browns Gas but i can't seem to find them now - in short it relies on electrolysis of water to produce oxyhydrogen or as i've sometimes heard it called, "Heavy Hydrogen". When this is burnt it combines with oxygen and produces .................. errrrrr.................H2O or water as we all know it!

Pioneers of this stuff claim up to 40% fuel economy improvement on petrol so a car currently giving 30mpg would easily achieve 42mpg and have cleaner emissions too as it "steam cleans" the engine from the inside out and cleans the cat (if so equipped) as well.

I looked into this option quite deeply a few years back but decided LPG had a better support network and i wouldn't fall foul of Customs and Excise by producing my own fuel.

[Mangoman]

Hi.

I actually forgot to mention this last week - apologies.

For New Years I went up to my B-in-L place on Rickman Hill, Coulsdon. The exact return distance is 168 miles according to my Odometer, door-to-door, so it included a bit of B-Road, a lot of A-Road, that being the A3. M25, M23 and some more B-Roads. It also included 3 cold starts.

After doing the sums I came up with a figure of 29.3 Miles Per Gallon. Is that acceptable?

Route: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Mallards+Rd,+Bursledon,+Southampton/Rickman+Hill,+Coulsdon+CR5+3DT/@51.2117546,-0.3282994,11.62z/data=!4m19!4m18!1m10!1m1!1s0x487471cbadf9c9d1:0xe524239e8ddcd5b8!2m2!1d-1.3225125!2d50.8831382!3m4!1m2!1d-0.147618!2d51.2658896!3s0x4875fc833bbe3a3b:0xe058699a84bbdb22!1m5!1m1!1s0x4875fd1a9629b529:0x326db3aa6372eba4!2m2!1d-0.152968!2d51.3150637!3e0?hl=en

 

[Laird_Scooby]

That's not bad going Bill. What sorts of speeds were you doing on those roads, did you have any extended periods of nose-to-tail (eg M25) and what fuel were you running on? Also i'm guessing the third cold start was because you used the car for a short journey while you were there? This would knock a big hole in the overall "long run economy" if so.

I know Coulsdon isn't exactly "city centre" but i've known a few nasty traffic jams there, were you stuck in any there too?

[hughezee]

I would say your are heading in the right direction Bill  as we've been using the coupe for almost a whole week solid as I 've been tinkering with the daily driver Odyssey and with plenty of town driving (school run) we have covered a respectable 233 miles before the fuel light came from the half a tank position, topped off back to just slightly above half a tank with 28.21L according to my receipt, so I'm very happy with my 37.5mpg average

[Mangoman]

Hi.

The third cold start was to go to the garage the next morning after we got back.

The traffic was pretty light both trips although there were a lot slowing down and speeding up, but no stationary stuff to speak of. Generally keeping within the speed limit.

Damn 37.5 is damn good..!! The best I ever got out of the 2.0 Rover V6 was 37.3.

So 29 is pretty crap as an average then... Another negative on the car.

 

 

[hughezee]

8 hours ago, Mangoman said:

So 29 is pretty crap as an average then... Another negative on the car.

I wouldn't be too downhearted on your MPG Bill, when I first got my coupe it was averaging 28-32mpg and some aren't even that good in all honesty and to say I've impeccably maintained my coupe is somewhat of an understatement. My last long run out was closer to 42mpg but the cooling system efficiency, engine & gearbox health, right engine oil and decent fuel all contribute, I've even recently replaced both lambdas and my MPG has gone up a little

[Laird_Scooby]

What Stu said ^^^^ Bill - the fuel is probably the easiest thing you can improve on depending what fuel you use at the moment. Also are you still waiting on those new plugs? They will make a difference too.

All cars vary between models, my Sterling has always been better than my Coupé on fuel (although the Coupé is catching up well now - after 3+ years of good maintenance and fettling!) and livelier as well.

What you're getting from yours is still very respectable, 29mpg from a 3.0 V6 auto isn't to be sniffed at. There may be room for improvement but that will almost certainly only show up with continued good maintenance. Something Stu didn't mention when he said about the right engine oil, fuel etc was the ATF but you've started your part-changes so with time that will be sorted too.