Topic: The efficiency of modern cars

[nicanary]

I have just returned from a journey in my car to deliver flowers for an old lady's 100th birthday. The route was mainly country roads in an area known as the Ards Peninsula - this will mean nothing to most of you, but Carnut and Willie McCrum will understand. The trip totalled 54 miles, cruising at 50mph and occasionally 60mph, unable to achieve a better average simply because of the volume of traffic caused by roadworks.

When I got back I noticed my average fuel consumption - 71mpg. Quite astonishing. The car is a VAG 1.6tdi, so not a powerhouse, just a family hatchback, but suitable for my work. I remember when I was younger having small cars when I expected a return of about 35mpg and thinking that's OK. When you add into the equation the relative reliability of today's cars, and their comfort and refinement, then I have to say we live in a golden age. Our kids are going to have to live their later lives in electric cars, or maybe hydrogen-powered ones, and it's quite possible there'll be some sort of black box to keep them under outside influence.

Enjoy it while you can.

[Carnut]

You're absolutely right, modern car design has come on in leaps and bounds this millennium.
And yet, whenever I've been out for a drive in my crude old 1965 TVR I think "now that was driving" because it doesn't do nearly everything for you like they do today.  You have to take it by the scruff of the neck and concentrate!
The next step seems to be the driverless car which politicians and the media are banging on about incessantly, so it might be that the end of the golden era is in sight.  There'll always be cars for the enthusiasts, but it may be that once these horrible driverless things catch on our leaders will outlaw the old stuff for fear of it getting in the way of their new visions.  Only yesterday I read that classic cars are about to be banned from the centre of Paris..  As if a handful of old cars is contributing much to the declining air quality.  They're just morons.

And I could spend the whole day crossing on the ferry between Portaferry and Strangford, it's just so beautiful!

[nicanary]

I drive those roads on a daily basis - I'm so used to it I've got quite blase about the whole thing.

A few years ago I found myself with a refund from Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (I'd overinvested in an ISA), and bought a well-restored MGB GT from a retired schoolteacher in Banbridge. He wasn't using it enough, and I should have been warned. Neither did I, and now it's found another home.

I hadn't driven a car from that era for a good number of years, and the experience came as a minor shock. The steering was so heavy I sweated my way round the country lanes, and the brakes had no feel whatsoever. My 20-something daughter couldn't wait to have a go, but hurriedly gave up the driving seat after less than a mile. There was nothing wrong with the car, save slightly oversized tyres - it was just the vast difference between what we were used to, and what we accepted as normal back in the 60s.

How things continue to change......

[Allan L]

Yes truly modern cars are efficient and, probably sensibly, no longer fun to drive.
My relatively modern Subaru is a bit of a throwback (or engineer's car as we say!) in that it uses rather a lot of fuel to power a nicely balanced smallish car which can do what one wants it to without having to resort to electronic artificial stability or traction inhibition ("control") or an automatic gearbox.
Nevertheless it's quite a contrast to the 1912 Mors and 1938 Lea-Francis that I also drive, both of which are fun if you are in the right frame of mind but hell on wheels if you're not. The most obvious time and place not to be in the old 'uns is in heavy traffic, but that's no fun in anything.

[Tom_I]

I'm not sure that I find driving much fun at all any more, though that's down to many years of commuting, and probably in part to where I live, in the populous south-east of England. I did a couple of trips last year to Cumbria and North Yorkshire, and it was certainly a pleasant experience not to be sharing the roads with quite so many other motorists.

But I have to agree about advances in engine technology. Until a few years ago I had a 1973 Triumph GT6. It had a 2-litre 6-cylinder twin carburettor engine, which in its day, when you could still get 100 octane petrol, produced a maximum power of 98 bhp (99 PS). It got along pretty well, thanks to a combination of fairly low weight and lowish gearing, though I have to agree with Allan that even in such a relatively modern car, it could be a real pain to drive if you were not in the mood for it.

By the time I sold it, roughly the same power output was available from the 1.4-litre engine in the Toyota I was driving at the time, and combined with secure handling and much better brakes, I doubt it could have been outrun by the GT6 in many conditions.

Now a few years on, my partner's Ford Fiesta has similar power output (100 PS), but from a 999-cc 3-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, and that's not all the unit is capable of, as there is also a 125-PS version of the same engine.

Maximum power isn't everything, of course, and low-speed torque is much more important for everyday driving. Here the differences are even more telling. The 2-litre Triumph engine produced 108 lb.ft (146 Nm) at 3000 rpm, while the little 1-litre Ford unit produces 170 Nm from 1400 rpm upwards.

Things certainly move on.

[nicanary]

As an update - I retired from full-time work last November, and decided to change my car for something smaller and perhaps more cost-effective in my old age. Instead of my previous annual mileage of 25/30k, it's now more like 10/12k, so after 15 years of driving diesels I opted for one of the new breed of small-engined turbocharged cars.

My old VAG 1.6 Tdi used to average about 50mpg under all conditions (I have a heavy right foot) but this new 1.2 Tsi only gives me 45mpg at the most, and that's with a light touch. On Saturday morning last week, I was working hard around the town, and the onboard computer showed 27mpg! I'll give it a few weeks, and try to adapt my driving style - I think it's so many years with diesel power, and I'm treading on the pedal too hard.

I'll say one thing, the turbo gives it decent torque for overtaking in a hurry, but the fuel consumption is a joke, even though we all know manufacturers' claims are somewhat suspect. So I may have to temporarily retract my claim about the efficiency of today's cars - small cars appear to provide speed but at a cost!