A trip to Nottinghashire yesterday, up via M25, M1, return via M1, A42, M42, M40 & M25, then A320.

 

 

For me considering the traffic levels and the excruciating 20+ miles of roadworks on the M1 (hence the different route back), I didn't want to go out of my head with tedium... 😵‍💫🤪

That's pretty impressive - I normally get ~40-42mpg on long trips with an average of 32.5mpg (over 6,800 mixed miles). Lots of country lane & small town driving.

Since I installed a new exhaust I rarely see mpg over 30 😁

3 hours ago, Maxi24 said:

That's pretty impressive - I normally get ~40-42mpg on long trips with an average of 32.5mpg (over 6,800 mixed miles). Lots of country lane & small town driving.

 

That journey had just 5 stops Donnington Pk services, final destination, then bar traffic lights Beaconsfield services and home. 

 

The heat started to make me feel ill so made a dash for the A320 (hope I didn't trip a camera) as I had a brief pause near St Peters hospital as I thought I was going to be sick due to the heat.

 

But I'm just happy with the car, the gearbox still leaves something to be desired with it's hesitancy, but performance of and everything else is brilliant.

2 hours ago, TheWanderer said:

 

That journey had just 5 stops Donnington Pk services, final destination, then bar traffic lights Beaconsfield services and home. 

 

The heat started to make me feel ill so made a dash for the A320 (hope I didn't trip a camera) as I had a brief pause near St Peters hospital as I thought I was going to be sick due to the heat.

 

But I'm just happy with the car, the gearbox still leaves something to be desired with it's hesitancy, but performance of and everything else is brilliant.

Goodness, what temperatures were you experiencing, and please tell me you had your air-conditioning on and not suffering just for better consumption.

6 minutes ago, Gerrycan said:

Goodness, what temperatures were you experiencing, and please tell me you had your air-conditioning on and not suffering just for better consumption.

 

32°C, the air con was on, but it plays havoc with my sinuses and so it's on & off regularly and window ajar.

 

That and the long drive down from the midlands, I started to feel light headed and nauseous, so needed to get off the M25 at the nearest junction which luckily was only a matter of ⅓ mile away. Where I stopped was actually quite a good place as it was just shy of the ambulance station at Chertsey, should I have needed it. I had a good drink of water a spray of GTN and was fine after that, albeit with a bit of a headache. 

Very sensible to get off the motorway and take a break.

 

Interesting you mention aircon and sinuses; I suffer with dry eye and the aircon can play havoc unless I drink plenty of water - which usually means plenty of pee stops 🙄

I forgot to say I managed this on a single tank of fuel (bog standard unleaded + EcoMax shot) and still showing 160 miles remaining on the tank, I've never known the range show 415 miles at one stage before either.

23 hours ago, TheWanderer said:

 

32°C, the air con was on, but it plays havoc with my sinuses and so it's on & off regularly and window ajar.

 

That and the long drive down from the midlands, I started to feel light headed and nauseous, so needed to get off the M25 at the nearest junction which luckily was only a matter of ⅓ mile away. Where I stopped was actually quite a good place as it was just shy of the ambulance station at Chertsey, should I have needed it. I had a good drink of water a spray of GTN and was fine after that, albeit with a bit of a headache. 

32°C is not that hot really but add a bit of humidity and the sun shining through the windows and then it can become quite uncomfortable without aircon.

I suspect that dehydration was the real problem for you. Pretty easy to be caught out when the weather has been cold for so much of your year to date.

 

I hope the GTN was not Gin and ToNic

 

6 hours ago, TheWanderer said:

I forgot to say I managed this on a single tank of fuel (bog standard unleaded + EcoMax shot) and still showing 160 miles remaining on the tank, I've never known the range show 415 miles at one stage before either.

By my calculations that equates to 45 litre tank with a smidge over 6L/100 consumption. I knew they put it in the smaller engine and more economical Octavia mk 4 but I'm a bit surprised they put that small a tank in a sporty 2 litre turbo engine medium sized car.

Might have expected you to crack 50mpg at the 45mph average speed but the slow average speed also suggests there might have been some jams or some urban driving which knocks consumption and speed averages down.

Creeped up to 50 mpg on a straight run from Leicester to Glasgow, but average is obviously no where near that! 

6 hours ago, Gerrycan said:

By my calculations that equates to 45 litre tank with a smidge over 6L/100 consumption. I knew they put it in the smaller engine and more economical Octavia mk 4 but I'm a bit surprised they put that small a tank in a sporty 2 litre turbo engine medium sized car.

Might have expected you to crack 50mpg at the 45mph average speed but the slow average speed also suggests there might have been some jams or some urban driving which knocks consumption and speed averages down.

Because we have a bunch of amateurs running out road/motorway network there were long stretches of 50 mph restrictions (average speed camera protected) something like 25 miles in total length and then the "Magic Roundabout" aka M25, where the traffic is either very slow or stop/start unless you hit it at something like 2100 or later, but it was the last bit which was all local roads and lanes that took the average speed right down and Waze is becoming increasingly unreliable in it's directions/advice for some reason. 

 

So I think I might revert to Google Maps on the next runs, although Google Maps doesn't have reliable speed and average speed camera reminder information on it.

 

Edited 28 June, 20241 yr by TheWanderer

On 28/06/2024 at 16:18, Gerrycan said:

By my calculations that equates to 45 litre tank with a smidge over 6L/100 consumption. I knew they put it in the smaller engine and more economical Octavia mk 4 but I'm a bit surprised they put that small a tank in a sporty 2 litre turbo engine medium sized car.

 

The tank is 50 litres.

I brimmed the tank right to the top of the neck, so probably add another 1-1½ litres on top of that.

I got 4.9l/100km on the 200km outward leg of my last big drive.

Sunday morning, little traffic, all on motorways, virtually never needed to use the brakes or the accelerator after the first kilometer - just left it on ACC at 80, 100, 110 as needed for the posted limits on different stretches of road.

 

A calculator says that 4.9l/100km equates to 57.65 miles per imperial gallon.

For the whole day I did 475km and included some more congested driving but where possible I used ACC and I got 6.0l/100kn.

That is 47.08 miles per imperial gallon.