I'm a fuel economy junkie

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Originally Posted by SonofJoe
I'm still waiting for someone to step forward & properly challenge me & my little Suzuki Celerio.
I once, on a long motorway run, got 546 miles on 32 litres (8.45 US gallons) of standard UK unleaded


Are you SURE that's right???

That 64 Mpg.

We used to have a 1983 Chevrolet "Chevette" with a 1.8 liter Isuzu IDI engine that would get 58-60 mpg when not trying - just regular driving.

If I still had that car I would take your challenge. ... with a few tweaks and tricks (including a final gear swap) I know I could beat your number!
 
It really depends on how many miles you drive and the cost of a replacement battery after the warranty is up (assuming you will keep the car that long). In my case (I have a hybrid) I don't drive enough miles to make a battery replacement cost effective and they are estimating 4-5,000 to replace my batteries. You need around 150,000 miles for me to be cost effective on the savings of the fuel. When I purchased mine I thought gas would be $5//gal and it never happened. I ave around 44mpg city. The only manufacturer to offer a lifetime warranty on the battery to the original owner is Hyundai, all others vary and mine is 8 years. Further, if the manufacturer charges a premium for a hybrid over the gas model of the same vehicle that makes the break even point( just at time of purchase) between 2-3 years in some cases. So, again, IMO, unless you put a lot of miles on a hybrid there is no cost savings if you have to replace a battery.
 
Originally Posted by Linctex
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
I'm still waiting for someone to step forward & properly challenge me & my little Suzuki Celerio.
I once, on a long motorway run, got 546 miles on 32 litres (8.45 US gallons) of standard UK unleaded


Are you SURE that's right???

That 64 Mpg.

We used to have a 1983 Chevrolet "Chevette" with a 1.8 liter Isuzu IDI engine that would get 58-60 mpg when not trying - just regular driving.

If I still had that car I would take your challenge. ... with a few tweaks and tricks (including a final gear swap) I know I could beat your number!





I would believe him. The Celerio is a nice little car. Very popular in Asia. They are assembled in Thailand if I'm not mistaken. The engine is a 3 banger under one liter.
 
Originally Posted by Linctex
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
I'm still waiting for someone to step forward & properly challenge me & my little Suzuki Celerio.
I once, on a long motorway run, got 546 miles on 32 litres (8.45 US gallons) of standard UK unleaded


Are you SURE that's right???

That 64 Mpg.

We used to have a 1983 Chevrolet "Chevette" with a 1.8 liter Isuzu IDI engine that would get 58-60 mpg when not trying - just regular driving.

If I still had that car I would take your challenge. ... with a few tweaks and tricks (including a final gear swap) I know I could beat your number!



I am 100%, absolutely, categorically sure! I'm a retired chemical engineer & oil man so I know how to do the maths properly. Before you ask, that figure was based on the odometer & tank fill number, not the trip computer (which currently reads 75.2 mpg as a long term average). If I knew how to upload photographs, you could see the photo of the trip computer miles I took because I knew people wouldn't believe me!

I can assure you it's no fluke either. My wife has exactly the same car as me and it too seems to run on fresh air. TBH, I get somewhat grumpy if I don't get 70 mpg (imperial) from each tankful which can happen if it's cold (ie less than 10°C) or if I do lot of pottering around town or if I have my son in the car (he insists I drive everywhere at 70 mpg).

As regards the Chevette (or 'Shove it' as it was affectionately called here) being a challenger, I would accuse it of cheating by virtue of the fact it uses diesel. Hydrocarbon energy content is weight, not volume specific so a gallon of diesel (density 0.85-ish) contains more raw energy than a gallon of gas (density 0.73-ish).

To those that say the tree-hugging Celerio isn't a 'real car', all I can say is that I hope you have the good grace to die in a 'real' forest fire, get flattened by a 'real' hurricane or get buried under 30' of 'real' snow because these are the things that 'real cars' do to the environment.
 
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Originally Posted by Danno
SUVs and Pickups on the road the past 10 years have become very popular, in Canada those categories are 71% of the new vehicle market.
All the 3,000 lb vehicles discussed here would not fair well in a crash vs a 6,000lb SUV or pickup.
And great driving skills take you only so far, just look at the car cam videos that hit the internet everyday.


Yep, one of the "cute cubes" got totaled out by an F350 … get this, in a large parking lot … nobody hurt …
 
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
I'm still waiting for someone to step forward & properly challenge me & my little Suzuki Celerio.

I once, on a long motorway run, got 546 miles on 32 litres (8.45 US gallons) of standard UK unleaded. Compared to any hybrid, the Celerio is laughably low-tech (& dirt cheap to buy) but it does demonstrate just what you can do with low weight, a 1.0 L 3 pot NA engine, a relatively high compression ratio, good gearing, 0W20 & a light left foot.


I agree. Light weight combined with an efficient low-cal engine as well as an efficient gearbox will yield very good fuel economy.
Do you think your little guy could meet US safety standards? The Spark does and it isn't a whole lot more car than your Suzi.
We have a woman at work who drives a Spark on her fifty or so mile each way commute and she's been pleased with it.
We had a couple of guys who drove Metros back in the day on commutes of similar length and both got past 200K with these wee beasties.
I drove a Metro once, a ragtop I was considering buying. Everything about the car seemed lightweight and cheap, enough so that I only needed a short test drive with the wife riding shotgun to give up any serious consideration of the car.
I have no doubt that your Celerio is a far more refined and pleasant car to drive.
 
Originally Posted by fdcg27
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
I'm still waiting for someone to step forward & properly challenge me & my little Suzuki Celerio.

I once, on a long motorway run, got 546 miles on 32 litres (8.45 US gallons) of standard UK unleaded. Compared to any hybrid, the Celerio is laughably low-tech (& dirt cheap to buy) but it does demonstrate just what you can do with low weight, a 1.0 L 3 pot NA engine, a relatively high compression ratio, good gearing, 0W20 & a light left foot.


I agree. Light weight combined with an efficient low-cal engine as well as an efficient gearbox will yield very good fuel economy.
Do you think your little guy could meet US safety standards? The Spark does and it isn't a whole lot more car than your Suzi.
We have a woman at work who drives a Spark on her fifty or so mile each way commute and she's been pleased with it.
We had a couple of guys who drove Metros back in the day on commutes of similar length and both got past 200K with these wee beasties.
I drove a Metro once, a ragtop I was considering buying. Everything about the car seemed lightweight and cheap, enough so that I only needed a short test drive with the wife riding shotgun to give up any serious consideration of the car.
I have no doubt that your Celerio is a far more refined and pleasant car to drive.


Suzuki pulled out of the US several years ago but mine's got a 4-star Euro NCAP safety rating which might equate to a US safety standard.

Here's a fair review of the Celerio of you want to see what you're missing...

https://youtu.be/trSP8pDoMTc
 
I'm getting low 40s' around town on the new VW1.4 TSI and that's in a 3000 lb+ car. I would guess if I kept back peddling the throttle in 6th double OD gear - and kept passing down to a minimum - I would do over 50 on the highway at 65-70MPH on a trip in the Interstate

These DIC figures have not been verified by hand calculation records. I do only gas up twice a month and its under 9 gallons each fill. NO topping off.

This is better than anything we've owned other than a very low power 86 Dodge Colt with a little mitsubishi 4cly stratified charge engine and a 4M OD. That was a 2000 lb sub compact 3 door. IIRC. I recall being disappointed in my 95 Accent 3 door 5M that only averaged around 28.
 
2015 VW Mk7 2 door Launch Edition with Maverik clear gas (87) the Average MPG (Extended Period) 48.3 MPG on WM 0W-20 SN Plus Super-Tech with 2oz of Hyper-Lube and LubeGard per oil change (every 5K miles) on lightweight aftermarket 15x7 wheels with AltimaxRT43 195x55 R15 @40PSI. Couple times a month I go to Reno (Whole Foods) from Carson City on new 580 Freeway and the highest I got was 53.1 MPG per trip.
 
Originally Posted by ARCOgraphite
js1956:

Is that the gen1 1.4L tsi engine?

Gen3 EA888 1.8-liter TSI
 
Originally Posted by js1956
2015 VW Mk7 2 door Launch Edition with Maverik clear gas (87) the Average MPG (Extended Period) 48.3 MPG on WM 0W-20 SN Plus Super-Tech with 2oz of Hyper-Lube and LubeGard per oil change (every 5K miles) on lightweight aftermarket 15x7 wheels with AltimaxRT43 195x55 R15 @40PSI. Couple times a month I go to Reno (Whole Foods) from Carson City on new 580 Freeway and the highest I got was 53.1 MPG per trip.

I have the same tires on my Jetta , 40 psi would be a pretty bumpy ride on Michigan roads , The 1.8 gen 3 is certainly a gas sipper for the good pep it provides , I average 35-36 in town .
 
Originally Posted by Linctex
Originally Posted by Shannow

I agree, hybrid drivetrains are the ultimate in efficiency and utility.
The KONA should have 30KWh batteries, and a 20KW APU


It shouldn't take that much power for steady state, "Flat-terrain" driving.
I would think a 10KW APU should be enough to keep it at highway speed, and the battery would be used for hills.


64KWh takes you 450km, lets assume in 4.5hours....14.2 KW average draw rate.

10KW won't do it
 
I found out something interesting this morning about the Geo Metro xFi. It only had two piston rings! It had a top compression ring & an oil control ring. You can see a picture of the piston here...

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthr...emoving-compression-ring-mimic-7055.html

In terms of fuel economy, this is a smart thing to do as ring-to-bore friction saps a large percentage of the energy input to any internal combustion engine. Losing an entire ring will result in significantly less friction & directionally push fuel economy up. However, in terms of increasing piston blow-by, oil loss, piston deposits (especially with high Noack oils) & exhaust emissions, this is one of the dumbest things you could ever do to an engine! Somewhere in GM, there's a design engineer who must cringe every time this subject comes up because he did something he must have known at the time, was inherently wrong.
 
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Originally Posted by 4WD
Was there any engines that did not come from Suzuki ?


It would be interesting to know which company was responsible.

I found this...

https://metrompg.com/posts/xfi.htm

It looks like only 10% of the Geo Metros sold were xFi's. I may be wrong but it looks to me that the xFi engine was a crude, 'let's swap out a few parts' modification of the established Suzuki engine design. So you keep 95% of the basic engine the same, plop in three 'two-ring' pistons & a new camshaft plus a few ancillary changes (like dropping the AC), drop the rated horsepower to 49HP & market it hard on the single issue of fuel economy.

Call me racially biased but this sounds more like something that was dreamt up by GM than the conservative Japanese.
 
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Originally Posted by 4WD
Was there any engines that did not come from Suzuki ?


It would be interesting to know which company was responsible.

I found this...

https://metrompg.com/posts/xfi.htm

It looks like only 10% of the Geo Metros sold were xFi's. I may be wrong but it looks to me that the xFi engine was a crude, 'let's swap out a few parts' modification of the established Suzuki engine design. So you keep 95% of the basic engine the same, plop in three 'two-ring' pistons & a new camshaft plus a few ancillary changes (like dropping the AC), drop the rated horsepower to 49HP & market it hard on the single issue of fuel economy.
Call me racially biased but this sounds more like something that was dreamt up by GM than the conservative Japanese.


IIRC, Isuzu used a two piston ring design for the engine of the car it built that was sold as the Chevy Spectrum in the US. In those pre-Geo days, Suzuki's liter car was badged as the Chevy Sprint and there was even a NUMMI built Corolla badged as the Chevy Nova.
The old NUMMI facility now has a new user, as everyone here is well aware.
 
Originally Posted by fdcg27
Originally Posted by SonofJoe
Originally Posted by 4WD
Was there any engines that did not come from Suzuki ?


It would be interesting to know which company was responsible.

I found this...

https://metrompg.com/posts/xfi.htm

It looks like only 10% of the Geo Metros sold were xFi's. I may be wrong but it looks to me that the xFi engine was a crude, 'let's swap out a few parts' modification of the established Suzuki engine design. So you keep 95% of the basic engine the same, plop in three 'two-ring' pistons & a new camshaft plus a few ancillary changes (like dropping the AC), drop the rated horsepower to 49HP & market it hard on the single issue of fuel economy.
Call me racially biased but this sounds more like something that was dreamt up by GM than the conservative Japanese.


IIRC, Isuzu used a two piston ring design for the engine of the car it built that was sold as the Chevy Spectrum in the US. In those pre-Geo days, Suzuki's liter car was badged as the Chevy Sprint and there was even a NUMMI built Corolla badged as the Chevy Nova.
The old NUMMI facility now has a new user, as everyone here is well aware.


I guess you're never too old to learn something new!

Most of the 'old' pistons I had to deal with tended to have more rings rather than less. The single cylinder Cat 1MPC engine used in the old API CF spec had four rings, not three.

Given the ubiquitous nature of the three ring system, it never occurred to me that someone might go to a simple two ring system. Apparently they are popular in drag racing circles where you just want power & couldn't give a stuff about wear or emissions.

Nor had I ever heard of NUMMI. So that's where he makes his cars & gets properly stoned before logging into Twitter!!
 
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