MPG

I have a 2006 1.6 Life (petrol) Zafira. I am getting 30 to 33 MPG during
normal driving is this OK by other peoples experience. I do not commute to
work so I am not stuck in a jam every morning and night. I use it mainly on
runs of betwenn 15 and 30 miles.

Cheers

John

 

sounds about right to me
i get 32-36 mpg normally (although i once got 40odd which must have been a
mistake !)
on motorways this drops to about 30 or 28 on empty french motorways at a
steady 85/90
keeping below 60 seems to be best

dB

 

Same model/year/engine so I must have a light right foot. City rush
hour stop / start commuting would be 34 mpg and on a good run anything
over 40mpg. Best I've dared manage is 530 miles on one tankful -
probably 420 miles per tankful in normal commuting conditions.

 

Hmm, I used to get 30mpg on a run in my Zafira GSi, which was a 2 litre
turbo petrol. I reckon you are being let down by an engine which is
underpowered for the weight of the car...

 

Same here basically, maybe not quite that good around town.
Wifey gets a lot less mileage than I do as she is a mite leaden footed
(don't tell her I said that!).
I feel that the gear ratios aren't ideal, I find that first gear is a
bit short, 3rd goes on for ever, and fifth isn't really high enough
giving 20 mph for every 1,000 revs making it a bit 'buzzy' on the Motorway

Ron(UK)

 

I find the ratios on our 1.8 zaf quite reasonable when its driven 7 up which
we do quite a lot.
Your impression sounds like you dont often drive it with much weight, let
alone anywhere near capacity.

Mike

 

Even so Mike, 20mph / 1000rpm is a little low geared for top. I suspect
your 1.8 is something like my own 1.8 auto at approx 25mph / 1000rpm in top
(4th) and hence motorway travel is quiet and calm

Gio

 

Hi all, I have a 2004 1.8 petrol, manual gears, and even with the most
lightfooted driving,have never been able to better 25m.p.g. and 35m.p.g. at
steady 55-60 mph on motorway,and this is driver only,correct tyre pressures
too!

regards all doug.

 

Actually, it`s either one or two up, or two up AND stuffed full of heavy
public address equipment. It handles heavy loads really well, I also
have a Volvo 945 Estate, and the Zaffy manages just as well.

Ron(UK)

 

That`s 20mph per 1000 revs in _fifth gear_, it always feels like it
could do with a sixth gear on the motorway.

Ron(UK)

 

Hi Doug, our auto 2002 does same as yours less 2mpg, no doubt due to the
auto's internal losses. The Mickey mouse figures published by Vauxhall were
always pie in the sky until the wife bought me a Scangauge last year. Since
then because I can now see actual and live av mpg figures I can adapt my
driving style to give the max mpg achievable yet still make reasonable pace.
A trip down to the Midlands -340 miles each way averaged 38 mpg down and 42
on the way back. -tank brimmed to work out fuel used. For me the greatest
gain was by reasonable acceleration up to 75 then back-off and let the speed
slowly drop to 50 before repeating. Obviously not something you can do when
the motorway full but during the drive down at Christmas and the roads were
quite empty. I am not saying a Scangauge is the answer and it would not
recoup its cost on mpg saved but it has paid for itself by the fault code
scan facility for our other cars. The off shot was it showed me my usual
driving method of constant speed and a light foot did not work on the
Zafira.

Gio

 

Hi my manual 2.2 does 30 - 34 on mixed runs. I am surprised it
compares quite well to the smaller engines.

The OP says he only does short 15 - 30 mile runs so its not surprising
its that low.

I had never heard of the scanguage before and had a look at thier
website. How does it know what the fuel consumption is? Is there a
flowmeter in the fuel line or is a calculated usage based on injector
timings etc. Also are there any other ways of finding out the mpg on a
zaf (other than working it out for yourself).

Gio, I presume you have ended up with a cable coming from the OBD port
under the handbrake to your display or have you managed to put it in
neatly?

Paul

 

Hi Paul, yes Scangauge connection is from the OBD port under the handbrake.
I repositioned the socket from vertical to more or less horizontal then lead
the lead with its small RJ45 connector through the gear leaver covering then
over to the steering column the display just sits on top of the steering
column top shroud in line with the speedo / rev counter. The cable follows
the gap between the shroud and the dash so not too visible. Mine works with
a standard cat 5 patch lead and joiner so I dare say I could have used a
fine gauge lead to make it invisible.

The calculation I understand is linked to the injection interval although
the initial settings are based on tank size, fuel used brim to brim then on
subsequent brim refills you compare the actual fuel added to that the
Scangauge recons you used. You then fine trim the variation. It will never
be 100% but I have found it is as near as dam it in practice and over the
months has not required adjustment. Its a bit depressing to see 4mpg on a
cold start and driving up a steep hill !!

One thing the unit did show up was an actual saving of an Ecotek device. I
like others no doubt thought it to be a 'snake oil' product but using the
Scangauge you can see your fuel consumption / hr and in my case 0.23 /
0.24g/hr at tickover. I borrowed a unit off my sons friends car and fitted
it to mine then fired the car up, tuned the Ecotek and observed the reading.
It was 0.18 / 0.19g/hr. Blanking off the Ecotek inlet and fuel consumption
back to 0.23 / 0.24g/hr at tickover. Uncovering the opening on the Ecotek
resulted in the lower value again.

You know as well as me that our cars are fly by wire, the emissions are a
closed loop system with tickover speed etc fully automatic so how could the
device make a difference? The Scangauge was just monitoring the engine
electronics yet it detected and displayed a change. I ran it for 2 weeks
and found the same variation each time I enabled / disabled the Ecotek unit.
I achieved a 2mpg reduction in fuel consumption but without the readout I
would have put it down to perhaps an unintentional changed in driving style.

Gio

 

Ouch, that sounds pretty low, my wife's 2000 1.8 (125 bhp Z18XE
engine) manages around 31 mpg on very short runs, rising to 40 mpg on
a 60 mph motorway cruise, even with 5 up, although as already
mentioned 5th is too low for quiet motorway cruising on this model.
These are trip computer figures which may be 1 mpg optimistic.

 

Ouch, that sounds pretty low, my wife's 2000 1.8 (125 bhp Z18XE
engine) manages around 31 mpg on very short runs, rising to 40 mpg on
a 60 mph motorway cruise, even with 5 up, although as already
mentioned 5th is too low for quiet motorway cruising on this model.
These are trip computer figures which may be 1 mpg optimistic.


Have you have actually checked the true mpg your car does or do you depend
on the cars display value?

Gio

 

I've checked it brim to brim on a few tankfuls at both extremes, but I
don't do it on every tankful. I've checked my Omegas/Vectra
( presumably with the same sensors / processing) on every tankful over
the last 150,000 miles, and the trip computers have never been more
than 2 mpg out.

 

I've checked it brim to brim on a few tankfuls at both extremes, but I
don't do it on every tankful. I've checked my Omegas/Vectra
( presumably with the same sensors / processing) on every tankful over
the last 150,000 miles, and the trip computers have never been more
than 2 mpg out.

Thanks for that, I asked because a friends Picasso had a very generous mpg
value from the onboard display. He was getting annoyed because it did not
match the ££ he was spending on fuel ;-)

Gio