Cycling UK Forum

Bonefishblues wrote:It's a vital service to get to one's holiday home.

There isn't a 'sneer' emoticon on this forum, but I've done my best! Touché!

I have to admit that buying the house in SW France was one of my many mistakes - I had the inheritance from my late mother, and was wondering what to do with it ... everyone I knew seemed to be buying houses overseas ... end of. At least I know full well that I'll lose out on money when the place is finally sold, that's something that eases my conscience a bit...

...not the travelling though. I'll be glad when I no longer have the obligation to do a 1100-mile round trip three or four times a year.

I hate airports more than I hate Channel ferries and motorways, so it has to be the car. I won't get into an argument about diesel mpg's, but I suspect my medium-sized car does a lot more economically than some of those quoted above...

What do we love about the French place? Lots of things. The quiet situation. The dark skies (not as dark as they used to be, alas!). The abundance of fruit from our mini-orchard (listed in a post in the 'marmalade' thread). The wild flowers, especially orchids, some of them fairly rare, springing up unasked-for on our lawn. The abundance of butterflies and other insects. The occasional visits from hoopoes, golden oriole (just once), and owls. Also lizards, snakes, the occasional hare and red squirrel.

You can see where my motivation comes from!

But as we get older the trips become harder to manage. Mowing the lawn and pruning trees becomes a frequent drudge. And in colder weather it's hard to keep the house warm.

Have I expiated my sins in having such a place?

Hi all, Got to say that the only way I do any "Flying" it is usually off the handle! Must book anger management course . TTFN MM

hamster wrote:

100%JR wrote:My Insignia 2.0 Diesel does sub 30mpg just nipping to work etc.I doubt it would do much more than 35mpg on a run.It might Squeeze 40mpg on a run if I tickled it and drove at 60mph.

That's incredibly poor.
My 2013 C220 CDi Mercedes estate does 58mpg on a motorway (real figures, not paper), long term average over everything 47mpg.
.

I suppose it depends how you drive?
Bloke at work has just swapped his 2007 Subaru Imprezza for a 2018 C-class 220 as the Imprezza was doing low 20s and he's averaging 30-40 in the Merc.He's happy enough but expected more considering that Merc claim (upto) 65mpg!!!
I drive mine pretty hard.It's an Automatic so will do a bit less than the manual but gets nowhere near what Vauxhall claim.It was worse when it was at it's standard 170bhp.I had it re-mapped to 225bhp and it's better....but only marginally.

I'm picking up a brand new VW Transporter Kombi Auto on Friday.I've no idea what wild claims VW make about it's mpg but I'll try it in both normal and stop-start modes to compare.I think it's the 205bhp.

661-Pete wrote:

Bonefishblues wrote:It's a vital service to get to one's holiday home.

There isn't a 'sneer' emoticon on this forum, but I've done my best! Touché!

I have to admit that buying the house in SW France was one of my many mistakes - I had the inheritance from my late mother, and was wondering what to do with it ... everyone I knew seemed to be buying houses overseas ... end of. At least I know full well that I'll lose out on money when the place is finally sold, that's something that eases my conscience a bit...

...not the travelling though. I'll be glad when I no longer have the obligation to do a 1100-mile round trip three or four times a year.

I hate airports more than I hate Channel ferries and motorways, so it has to be the car. I won't get into an argument about diesel mpg's, but I suspect my medium-sized car does a lot more economically than some of those quoted above...

What do we love about the French place? Lots of things. The quiet situation. The dark skies (not as dark as they used to be, alas!). The abundance of fruit from our mini-orchard (listed in a post in the 'marmalade' thread). The wild flowers, especially orchids, some of them fairly rare, springing up unasked-for on our lawn. The abundance of butterflies and other insects. The occasional visits from hoopoes, golden oriole (just once), and owls. Also lizards, snakes, the occasional hare and red squirrel.

You can see where my motivation comes from!

But as we get older the trips become harder to manage. Mowing the lawn and pruning trees becomes a frequent drudge. And in colder weather it's hard to keep the house warm.

Have I expiated my sins in having such a place?

We all do what we thought was a good idea at the time. I bought my VW diesel a mere 4 years ago because of its low CO2 emissions and thought I was doing a sensible thing. I didn't factor in the other particle emission. Since I live in the country and don't get stuck in traffic in a busy city with a cold engine at rush hour the emissions are still low. I do a mere 5 or 6k miles pa so use little fuel and mainly use my bike locally. We often use the train for our holidays which are always UK based: the car for visiting family. If I sold the car I would make a huge loss: someone else would get a bargain and would likely massively increase its use. I am unlikely to buy another car, so I try to assuage my conscience thus.

peetee wrote:

landsurfer wrote:So ... Engineering meeting with CAF in Belfast;

Flying ..... Staff drive to EMA ... catch plane, £168 return, met at airport by customer, meeting, lunch, return to airport by customer, staff collection from airport. Total time 1 day.

Drive .....Drive to Dumfries in diesel vehicle (37 miles / gallon) .. night stop at Premier Inn. Next morning .. 0430hrs .. drive to Cairnrayan ... Ferry travel to Belfast ..£340 .... Meeting. Return ... to Sheffield. .. Total cost ... > £1000.

Now folks guess, which has the lowest carbon footprint / cost.

FLY ??

What sort of diesel vehicle only does 37mpg?

Every diesel car I've owned by the time I get them. Petrol car before them did a lot worse. Right now a 1.6 litre diesel van does best mpg than our old diesel car

Obviously quoting mostly motorway driving for mpg figures isn't the same as typical use where you're often in stop start traffic as much as motorway. Perhaps quote urban or combined use and I bet 50 mpg isn't what you get. Like for like and all that.

Tangled Metal wrote:

peetee wrote:

landsurfer wrote:So ... Engineering meeting with CAF in Belfast;

Flying ..... Staff drive to EMA ... catch plane, £168 return, met at airport by customer, meeting, lunch, return to airport by customer, staff collection from airport. Total time 1 day.

Drive .....Drive to Dumfries in diesel vehicle (37 miles / gallon) .. night stop at Premier Inn. Next morning .. 0430hrs .. drive to Cairnrayan ... Ferry travel to Belfast ..£340 .... Meeting. Return ... to Sheffield. .. Total cost ... > £1000.

Now folks guess, which has the lowest carbon footprint / cost.

FLY ??

What sort of diesel vehicle only does 37mpg?

Every diesel car I've owned by the time I get them. Petrol car before them did a lot worse. Right now a 1.6 litre diesel van does best mpg than our old diesel car

Obviously quoting mostly motorway driving for mpg figures isn't the same as typical use where you're often in stop start traffic as much as motorway. Perhaps quote urban or combined use and I bet 50 mpg isn't what you get. Like for like and all that.

I don’t believe the figures either but in my experience 50mpg is the worst I have had from the VW 1.9 lump. That’s with mixed driving in a car that needs the inlet throats and valves cleaning up, if the EGR is anything to go by.

Based on mpg figures given by the trip computer of our seat 2.0 litre engine, same one in a few vw and skoda models, we get typically 35 to 38 mpg in day to day driving. That's trip mpg with average mpg being about 37mpg right now. We can get better trip mpg on motorway journeys but that's not typical use.

As far as accuracy of those figures go I cannot comment other than the few times I've run out a full tank to check it I got pretty much an mpg in that range. Once measured a higher but that was a pure motorway journey from Lancashire to Plymouth.

peetee wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

peetee wrote:
What sort of diesel vehicle only does 37mpg?

Every diesel car I've owned by the time I get them. Petrol car before them did a lot worse. Right now a 1.6 litre diesel van does best mpg than our old diesel car

Obviously quoting mostly motorway driving for mpg figures isn't the same as typical use where you're often in stop start traffic as much as motorway. Perhaps quote urban or combined use and I bet 50 mpg isn't what you get. Like for like and all that.

I don’t believe the figures either but in my experience 50mpg is the worst I have had from the VW 1.9 lump. That’s with mixed driving in a car that needs the inlet throats and valves cleaning up, if the EGR is anything to go by.

Not sure I believe that number tbh. My S60 is mid-high 40s, and I can only get it higher on motorway journeys. That's calculated mpg. The very best, ever, was 52andabit.

When VW diesels came in 1.9l guise they could give astonishing mpg. The best I had with a 1.9TDI Skoda Octavia was about 80mpg on the M4 from Cardiff to Reading under freak conditions of strong tailwind and a succession of large HGVs to drive behind. But even in more typical mixed use 50mpg was easy to get. That's all in the past. Today's VW diesels look great on paper but on real roads the mpg is mediocre. My 1.6l Golf is doing well if it gets 40mpg in mixed use.

My S60 is a Euro 3 too, so free of emissions strangulation

Its economy gauge lies and lies and lies, so mpg is always measured tank to tank.

pwa wrote:That's all in the past. Today's VW diesels look great on paper but on real roads the mpg is mediocre. My 1.6l Golf is doing well if it gets 40mpg in mixed use.

Gosh. It's almost as if VW have found a way to fiddle the tests. Surely not ...

pwa wrote:When VW diesels came in 1.9l guise they could give astonishing mpg. The best I had with a 1.9TDI Skoda Octavia was about 80mpg on the M4 from Cardiff to Reading under freak conditions of strong tailwind and a succession of large HGVs to drive behind. But even in more typical mixed use 50mpg was easy to get. That's all in the past. Today's VW diesels look great on paper but on real roads the mpg is mediocre. My 1.6l Golf is doing well if it gets 40mpg in mixed use.

Echoes my experience with my Passat while did 80mpg on one trip and averaged 58 in my ownership. That’s real figures calculated on each re-filling of the fuel tank. Cars are heavier now and the engines are capable of producing nearly twice as much power.

Oldjohnw wrote:We all do what we thought was a good idea at the time. I bought my VW diesel a mere 4 years ago because of its low CO2 emissions and thought I was doing a sensible thing. I didn't factor in the other particle emission. Since I live in the country and don't get stuck in traffic in a busy city with a cold engine at rush hour the emissions are still low. I do a mere 5 or 6k miles pa so use little fuel and mainly use my bike locally. We often use the train for our holidays which are always UK based: the car for visiting family. If I sold the car I would make a huge loss: someone else would get a bargain and would likely massively increase its use. I am unlikely to buy another car, so I try to assuage my conscience thus.

My story is similar to yours. I bought my current car, a Peugeot diesel, just before the scandal erupted. From similar motives to yours. I admit we use the car to get to France, but otherwise it's the train for preference, for distances we can't cycle.

mattheus wrote:

pwa wrote:That's all in the past. Today's VW diesels look great on paper but on real roads the mpg is mediocre. My 1.6l Golf is doing well if it gets 40mpg in mixed use.

Gosh. It's almost as if VW have found a way to fiddle the tests. Surely not ...

Mine is a 1.6TDI. I go by the trip computer but from time to time to a 'manual' check. You'd have to drive very hard on a freezing day to get less than 50mpg.

Bonefishblues wrote:My S60 is a Euro 3 too, so free of emissions strangulation

Its economy gauge lies and lies and lies, so mpg is always measured tank to tank.

That's how I measure mine.