real world smart car mileage

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Comment by mr bad example on August 30, 2009 at 3:33pm

i'd like a turbo diesel, especially a MB... frikkin seirra club and damned algore.... global warming is a farce!

Comment by Tom Norris on August 30, 2009 at 3:23pm

Foo... I really wish the US would allow one of the diesel engines in the cars offered by smartUSA. I have a turbocharged 800 cc diesel-powered 450 Cabrio that gets 65 MPG around town. sigh...

Comment by mr bad example on July 23, 2009 at 5:04am

in "spud gunning", when i used hair spray for fuel, it fouled the combustion chamber quickly, going to "static guard" and pure propane, it burned clean and left no residue. now i have upgraded the ignition from a piezo electric BBQ ignitor to a 150,000V stun gun, nothing could foul that!

Comment by mr bad example on July 23, 2009 at 3:49am

ian, the AC is a killer, for my commute, it knocks 10-15MPG off my mileage in stop and go driving. when it's 75F and above, i have the driver window 1/3-1/2 down and the fan on dash level on speed one, then i get 52-61MPG when ther air temp is 85-90F. i have a job interview next week, i'll drive there with the AC on, supposed to be mid 80'sF, even though i worked at the place last year for 10 months, i don't want to show up sweaty.

i wonder how much stuff you can get in a modern engine, with modern fuels and synth oil after about 6200 miles... i can see older cars with coil fired ignitions and older, non-detergent gas and regular oil getting a little crap in them after 20-30,000 miles. i'm tempted to try our shell gas, they are putting nitrogen in it... nitrogen in tires, nitrogen in gas...

i'd be interested in what you could get at 80-90kph on a flat road, 80-85F in 5th gear... without AC.

Comment by Ian Pellant on July 22, 2009 at 7:34pm

For comparison; a slightly more spirited drive... yesterday I did the Cairns to Townsville round trip.
Air con on all the way; return trip was at night with lights on; day trip was with headlights in daylight mode (extra tail lights come on). CD player on most of the way. Paddle shift... still not keen on Auto. Passed the 10,000 km travelled since new, during the trip.

Scangauge Trip reports:
718 km
9.4 hours
76 kph average (includes city driving at each end; highway is 100 kph cruise; speedo indicates about 106kph when Scangauge indicates 100kph. GPS agrees with ScanGauge)
6365 rm max (it's a turbo and loves to spin.. happy doing 100kph in 3rd gear... and that DOES NOT significantly increase fuel consuption rate indicated on the ScanGauge. I needed to blow some deposits out of the exhaust.)
41.4 litres of fuel consumed
5.8 lhk (40.4 mpg average)
so... I sort of agree with the 41 mpg highway fuel consumption as being typically achievable and is the norm for my driving in Australia. Any driver should be able to better 40 mpg highway, so it's a fair sticker. Not many will better 50 mpg... I probably never will.

Comment by FIATman on July 22, 2009 at 3:01pm

I was not knocking the lottery, I have actually won a few bucks. I defy you to find ANY non-hybrid car that has comparable features to the Prius for 10k less. That would be 13k since we paid 23k for ours. We looked. In addition to my knowledge only a handful of all the Prius's ever built have had to replace the battery to date. There are all kinds of us geniuses out there I guess.

Comment by mr bad example on July 22, 2009 at 2:04pm

it's accurate to 1/10 of a gallon on 7 gallon fill-ups. my trip to wisconsin for the smart rally was spot on, i topped off on each "arrival", the only variable was the pump in wisconsin. don't knock the lottery, 3 years ago i was one number off of $135,000,000 and 3 months ago one number off $250,000.

if your foolish enough to pop for $10,000 for batteries in a prius, i'm a genius for popping down $160 for a SG2. it would take over a decade for the prius to pay for the price difference between the hybrid and a regular car, by that time you have to replace the batteries :-P

Comment by FIATman on July 22, 2009 at 1:35pm

I was looking into buying a scangauge, but did some looking into the need and expense.I will not try to justify or put down the Scangauge, but the fact that it relies on the calibration by the car owner and uses data from the cars computer makes me wonder how to justify the expense. On smartcarofamerica web site folks have gone on and on about calibration or lack of fine tunability of the gauge. The data from the car can't be all that accurate either, hello, this is a mass produced inexpensive vehicle. Consistant for sure, but accurate? The old method of using a vacuum gauge to give feedback to the driver relative to engine load is really all you need. That, accurate fill-ups and a calculator is the only way to get TRUE MPG. So don't show me a gauge on the dash and claim it is accurate. They are all relative. Our gadget oriented society gets carried away. Even the computer in the Prius I own disagrees with calculated MPG. As far as the scangauge's other functions, do I really care at highway speed? A USB to OBDII interface, software and a laptop will really let you analyze things. If I don't do that I still got the extra cash for MORE lotto tickets...LOL

Comment by mr bad example on July 22, 2009 at 10:38am

it depends on how i feel, the smart seems to run the same on 87 octane as it does on 93 octane. i usually run on sam's club gas, only buy other gas when out of state. i'm tempted to run shell with nitrogen in it. unless you are "hot-rodding" the smart, i think putting in high octane fuel is a waste. in my daily commutes, i never see 3000 RPMs, on occasional sprints, i'll run it up to 5,500RPMs, maybe running higher octane would be noticed then.

Comment by Brabus007 on July 22, 2009 at 10:25am

Smarts a designed for High Test... So maybe we aren't throughing our money out the window...
mr bad example,... Maybe you could do a test of the Shell stuff For US... Please...<:-))

~Facts about high octane petrol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDHwCWdrtdg&NR=1
~Myth about fuel additives
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jbcCr2ll3c&feature=related

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