Thread: Fuel Consumption

A few years ago I organised an economy run for the LROC (Sydney Branch). Following is part of the report from that 'trip'.
Figures for all participants were recorded and also reports from each category winner - didn't post all that here - thought it might be too long and not sure how a 'word' table would post. Will do so if requested.

Roger

4WD Economy Run – Trip Report

Saturday 14th June 2003


After a long buildup and much planning and preparation, for which I thank all those club members who so willingly volunteered their services and time, the 4WD Economy Run of 2003 is now over. Interesting results but a disappointing response from other invited 4WD clubs – maybe they knew what they were up against when faced with competing with Land Rovers!

Congratulations not only to the winners of each category but to all entrants for the fine results achieved. It just shows that those big 4WD’s aren’t the gas guzzling monsters that the majority of the public believe they are. To achieve figures of better than 9 litres/100kms (31MPG) from a 4WD weighing more than two tonne is surely an eye-opener to many.
Some interesting points, without further comment, noted from the Economy Run are:
1. The Tdi motor is more economical than the Td5
2. Andrew Hutton’s Td5 Defender was more economical than all the Td5 Discoveries – what’s your secret Andrew?
3. The highest consumption of the diesels was the Nissan Patrol
4. There is not much difference in economy between a 1949 Series I and a 1993 V8 Discovery
5. The gas powered Discoveries returned the highest consumption overall and both had to use petrol due to limited range on gas
6. The age of the vehicles appeared to have little bearing on their consumption
In all but one case the entrants followed the instructions and guidelines (which were formulated to reflect what economy could be achieved on a normal country drive or club trip) and that one case (I’ll let you figure out who it was) did at least show what can be achieved, even if driving the way he did and at the speeds reported is not at all feasible for a normal country drive or club trip. The instructions that each entrant was issued with contained detailed trip notes and other information including mandatory lunch and morning tea breaks. This allowed 6½ hours for the drive and 1½ hours for breaks – not 9 hours driving time G…g! Oh, and by the way, I’m still wondering what those techniques are that Greg can’t tell us about??? (see report below).
Some may think it strange that Neil’s Series I was in the same category as the V8 petrol Discovery’s. Well, I originally had a category for oldies (pre 1970 vehicles) but as there were no pre 1970 vehicles entered and Neil had entered in his 1993 200 Tdi Defender, the oldies category was not catered for. .Maybe next time we’ll get a few more of the Series Landys along so we can include a category for them. Anyway the old Series I gave some of the newer vehicles a bit of a worry, returning a credible 21.2MPG (you’ve got to talk the old money when talking about a 1949 vehicle).
Overall a good fun day with much socialising and camaraderie at the lunch stop and also at the presentation dinner at the end of the day. When is the next Economy Run to be held? Maybe next year ….or 2005.
Thanks also must go to the various companies and club members Steve Cope and Ian Cort who sponsored this event in various ways. Results of product tests which were conducted as part of the Economy Run will be published in future LROC News editions as exhaustive tests are completed and results become available.
Following are the overall results calculated on actual trip distance of 334km and reports from a number of the category winners outlining how they achieved their results.
Roger

Reading all this with interest.

My 90 did on average between 9.5-10 ltr / 100k on a trip with the camper trailer and loaded. was very happy with this and ****ed off alot of Toyota diesel drivers around aus with this

But we want a cheap family car for the wife to run around in , so thinking a 3.9 rangie. But we also need to pop over to Norseman , from Brisbane next christmas for a family thing. But as i have a Holden Ute s as a company car and the wife works in the city of Brisbane (so she cathces the bus) it will not be used during the week only at the weekend.But the 90 and the Ute are only 2 seaters so we want a 5 seater car, which will do Maybe 300k's a month if poss. The wife was talking about a diesel. Which means a Disco, as you did not have the classic rangie tdi here.
But i would have to get a 1995 onwards disco as the treance conran dash is ugly in my mind. Brown is liveable just , blue, well thats another matter

But we would have to pay 5-8000 $ more for a disco than a rangie which i like better anyway, just to save $800 when we pop over to Norseman.
So talked her into a Rangie again , so bring on the rangie. Maybe get the goverment to fit gas to it for nothing too . But not many gas places in the simpson or Alice though