I have been back in the UK for 4 weeks and I am using an Alfa 166 2.0 twin spark throughout mainland europe it has been doing 32 mpg according to the computer ,the same driving on Uk fuel i have dropped to 23mpg .I thought there must be a problem with the car but everythink checks out ok.I have tried all different fuels with the same result .It confirms to me what I always thought that UK fuel is substandard.
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Interesting.
There's me thinking that for any given car, the variables for mpg are:-
state of tune of engine
route
driver.
So you have changed (2) and blame it on petrol. Hmmmmm.
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Andy,
wonder what your average speed was on the continent compared to UK? Have you been spending rather a lot of time stationary with engine running in UK?
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Different climate maybe. My car uses more fuel on a cold day, than a warm one.
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I noticed this when I used to live in France. Once did 42mpg in my Volvo 340 1.4 on a long motorway haul. Was doing about 85-90 most of the way. Usually this should only have given me about 28-30 mpg.
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I think you'll find that it's all just down to more congestion on UK roads. That doesn't necessarily mean stuck in traffic jams, it's just that *anything* that requires additional periods of acceleration will seriously dent fuel economy.
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You may have a point, Andy.
When returning from the Continent I always filled up on "The Other Side" and that tankfull used to seem to last for longer than the next UK tankfull.
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A lot of european surfaces have very low rolling resistances, but are slippery when wet!. This can improve your mpg at high speed by quite a lot.
Traffic and temperature can be major factors as well.
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