Car mag style longterm road test

[Hippie1]

Here are some useless info regarding a little long term testing I did over the last 10 months on my bug.
I have used the Car Magazine's 20 000 km long term test as the basis of what I was doing and the results is very interesting.
In the 10 months we covered 20341 KM in total.
Total fuel used was 1970.85 Lt.
Ave. consumption was 10.32 Km/L with the best being 12.43Km/l and the worst at 9.30Km/l
Total fuel cost for the period was an astounding R24780
In terms of maintenance and repairs over this period the car costed just over R2000 to keep it running which include a DIY service
Oil consumption over the 20000 Km was 2Lt which came out of the leftover service oil.
The test was done on my daily commute which is a combined cycle route of open road and city traffic
Not bad for a 43 year old car. Me think

[hitlers revenge]

Not bad at all. Well done

[acpaterson]

Very interesting. Thanks for performing this detailed test. Cost of fuel was an eye opener!

[Hippie1]

Thanks Allen. As you said the cost of fuel is an eye opener. The reason for this is 3 fold. 1) I'm a creature of habit and working for 28 years in a environment where I was under an obligation to keep record of my fuel and repair cost just spilled over to my personal car naturally. 2) I'm a natural sucker for stats as it keeps you well informed. 3) fuel consumption is a good indicator of your cars state of health. IE consumption gets worse start looking for the reason as it may become an expensive problem if you let it be.
Another interesting fact is that it is surprising to see how many filling stations are actually doing us in and 99 present of the average drivers don't even notice it. I caught out a couple in Bloemfontein where you does not get what you pay for. Keeping stats like this allowed me to avoid these as the tank to tank consumption differed by sometimes up to 3 Km/l less under the same driving conditions over the same route.

[Tony Z]

Thats brilliant. Thanks for that.
I have always said that all my cars feel weak when I use Engen, in the Cape and up in JHB. Does this match your 3km/l less??
Is your engine stock?

[Hippie1]

Yes Tony it is a stock 1600 twin port. I found this mostly at Engen stations. The other options in my hood is Brent oil, Shell, BP and Caltex. Best consumption is with Brent and Shell and worst with Engen. There are one Engen station in particular that is the worst of all. Seems like the pumps are not calibrated correctly but the owner beg to differ although I have shown him the proof.

[Hippie1]

Just want to ad that its not only me that's complaining. Saw it on our delivery bikes as well. 4 similar Yamaha YBR 125's and the difference is almost 11 Km/l.

[Tony Z]

I found this mostly at Engen stations.

Seems I have not been imagining things after all.

I currently use Caltex and Shell. Occasionally I'll put in Sasol if I drive past one.
Have you noticed any difference between these?

[Hippie1]

Tony to be honest I have never used sasol in my bug but I have often used shell and occasionally caltex and they are not far off on brent. Difference is well below 1Km/L. However I know that brent is supplied by sasol. Another thing is that I usually make a point of it to try and stick to one brand as I'v found that mixing also effects your consumption

[Dawie]

You could take a calibrated container of, say 10 litres, to the suspect fuel station. Tell them to fill it up. Maybe they will fit "12 litre" in there.

Even an error of 1% would make a huge difference to the fuel station's profit.

[Donovan D]

O wow, really interesting read.
I've always used Engen in my bus. The one day I used Sasol was the day I seized the motor, but I did have major overheating problems back then.

[acpaterson]

Yup, very interesting. Food for thought.
Although I'm a VW\Porsche fan, I will be attempting to follow in the Iti's footsteps and filling up with Shell. Seems to be a good thing.