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| Thread ID: 89974 | 2008-05-18 13:04:00 | Minimizing Petrol usage in an Automatic & who controls gas prices | Chilling_Silence (9) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 670471 | 2008-05-19 09:21:00 | No dogs on my route to work only the occasional dodgy driver but I'm lucky most of my ride is on cycle ways off the road and it's all downhill in the morning great for waking up on these chilly mornings, although I guess you don't get them in Auckland. | gary67 (56) | ||
| 670472 | 2008-05-19 09:46:00 | BP is greedy. Actually most are pretty greedy. But thats business. Noone makes a stand so nothing gets done. |
rob_on_guitar (4196) | ||
| 670473 | 2008-05-19 10:11:00 | The government is greedy :( | Deathwish (143) | ||
| 670474 | 2008-05-19 10:21:00 | I am greedy, that's why I have so much Hard Drive space. Think about your pushbike. If you ride in too high a gear, are you more or less tired at the end of the trip? The correct gear is the one that involves the least effort for the speed you are doing; cars are the same. Around town overdrive should only be necessary if you have taken the regular wheels off and are running on very small diameter wheels. Well, maybe. I am not too sure about these computer controlled engines, but a lot of engines had their "sweet spot" for efficiency a little below the RPM that gave the maximum torque. |
R2x1 (4628) | ||
| 670475 | 2008-05-19 10:23:00 | Urine. Thats 3. |
Metla (12) | ||
| 670476 | 2008-05-19 10:31:00 | 7 to go and you can spam! | rob_on_guitar (4196) | ||
| 670477 | 2008-05-19 22:22:00 | Still not sure if its better to drive with Overdrive on or off :-/ overdrive makes no difference to acceleration from the lights. overdrive is just another gear. turning overdrive off just tells the gearbox to not use top gear. in city driving you probably will not use top gear anyway. generally just leave it on, turn it off when towing or going up/down hills. pwr/eco or ect button is different. that changes the way the box changes gears. that will make you accelerate faster but you use more gas. remember acceleration is the most gas hungry thing you can do. |
tweak'e (69) | ||
| 670478 | 2008-05-21 06:21:00 | Last Tuesday's Mythbusters had a great demo of the savings to be made form drafting behind a truck at 3m it saved about 93% I think from memory but any closer and the effect was worse 3m seemed to be the optimum, depends how much you value your life and car or have a deathwish. I saw the previous showing of this same program so I tried that out earlier this year while following a truck along some very long straights in Australia. I set the cruise control and checked the steady-state fuel consumption while about 50 metres back, then moved up closer to a safe following distance (but one that did nothing for the view) and realised a 10% reduction in fuel usage. I moved in a little closer to an "uncomfortable, but I can stop faster than he can" distance and the decrease in consumption was staggering. Then Mrs T belted me one so I passed him and that was that! If I'd been running out of gas I'd have stayed in the draft, or maybe not, she packs quite a punch. :wub Cheers Billy 8-{) Use overdrive, keep a light foot on the pedal, anticipate traffic stops so you don't have to accelerate up from a standstill. If you have a carbie, and if you have strong nerves, coast out of gear on long downhill runs, but if you have fuel injection, leave it in gear, the injectors shut down after about 5 seconds and you use zero gas. My consumption meter stays at around 1.5L/100km coasting out of gear, and goes to 0.0L coasting in gear. I get 700kM per tank around town and 850kM on trips before the orange light comes on. Fill is about 48-50 litres. Mazda 6, 2.3 litre manual. |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 670479 | 2008-05-21 19:09:00 | Leave modern automatics in OD for the Lock-Up converter option to work. That is the situation when the torque converter is not "converting" and is locked-up as a direct drive. It cuts down the heat generation as the converter is the high heat generator in the transmission. In most cases, the computer in the car will allow the transmission to protect itself from overheat ONLY IF the gear selector is in the highest range or OD or 4th gear. Heat losses factor in heavilly to fuel consumption...as heat lost is also fuel consummed and you don't need to be heating the outdoors with your dinosaur juice as you drive merrily down the road in less than Lock-Up and OD. Let the transmission perform it's job and leave it in OD..even if you suspect it is "busy" shifting...unless it gets too aggressive. Actually...the lower gears are for retrograde speed control anyway...use them to slow the vehicle down when you are going downhill and don't want to drag the brakes to hold the car back. It's hard on the brakes and wasteful of fuel too. |
SurferJoe46 (51) | ||
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