I recently bought a new (well, second-hand) car. One of the gizmos it has that my old one didn’t is a display of current fuel consumption. In the interests of economy (with petrol costing almost £1.40 a litre now) I’ve been experimenting with how different driving styles affect consumption.
One odd thing I’ve noticed is that if I shift into neutral and coast down the hill towards my house (I know this is not recommended practice, BTW), the consumption tends to show about 140-150mpg. However, if I leave it in fifth gear and take my foot off the accelerator, cruising down the hill under engine braking, the mileage improves, often going “off the scale” (anything over 199mpg shows as dashes).
Why should this be the case? I always assumed that the engine speed was the important factor, and with the engine braking effect the rpm is far higher (~3000rpm) than the idle speed in neutral.
The way I’ve heard it explained in these sort of threads is:
The engine needs to run a certain RPM just in order to stay on, and in order to do this, it need to burn some gas when in neutral.
However, when in gear, the car can get the required RPM from the wheels, so to speak, and that engine revving you hear is not actually using much gas at all – in fact, less gas than if it were in neutral, because most if not all of the engine RPMs are “powered” by the engine braking.
if your new car has DFCO (deceleration fuel cut-off) the fuel system shuts off while coasting. If you put it in neutral, it can’t, so it keeps running at near idle.
Don’t know for sure, but it might be that with the vehicle in gear the computer recognizes a “deceleration” mode and provides less gas than for the “idle” mode associated with being in neutral.
ETA: Didn’t see the other responses before posting. Great minds think alike?
In the era of carburetors, taking your foot off the accelerator pedal would engage “the idle circuit,” which gave the engine a rich mixture to keep the engine running. Decelerating in gear used more fuel than idling in neutral. That brought us a folklore that no longer is true.
Today, with computerized fuel injection, little-to-no fuel is used with your foot off the go pedal, whether you are in gear or not.
If I’m understanding this correctly, then here’s a dumbed-down version of it: When you’re going downhill in gear, energy can go from the wheels into the engine; but in neutral, the wheels and engine aren’t connected, and the energy gets wasted. I don’t know enough about cars to know if this really affects the gas mileage, but I’m pretty confident that it does affect charging the battery.
Another thing to note, those “instant MPG” readings seem to be on the generous side. Mine in my Mazda indicate I get 34MPG or better, but 27 is what I really get.
One thing to note though: when you’re coasting in neutral, you may be using a little fuel to keep the engine ticking over, but you’re not braking. When you engine-brake in top gear, the fuel system might be off or nearly off, but you’re slowing down more
These threads invariably overlook the fact that slowing to a stop is not always the objective.
Eh, I’d guess that those gauges are accurate, but humans (you and me, both) are lousy at mentally integrating miles per gallon over time. Thus, if you did the math, you could very well be doing 34 miles per gallon when you cruise, but if you properly accounted for short periods of high consumption (say, 10 mpg whenever you accelerate briskly) you would reach the 27 mpg average.
The fuel consumption display has two viewing options, one gives the instantaneous consumption and the other shows the average.
My question is about the second one. What is averaging denominator? It is the fuel consumed divided by what distance? Since the car was first started, or is it more like the average over the last couple of 100 or 1000 kms/miles?
Likely depends on the make/model. My parents’ Camrys had this feature, and you could reset the “average” by (if I recall correctly) holding in the little button that you used to cycle through the various metrics. I’d often reset it before doing any significant amount of driving, just out of curiosity–same for the average speed indicator.
Yeah but in fifth gear there should be negligible engine braking. If I’m at a decent speed (<30 mph) the tach is usually lower in fifth gear (I’m guessing from memory maybe 1800 rpm) than in neutral (guessing again, 2300 rpm)
This is in a manual transmission (Mustang GT.) YMMV, literally.
With modern fuel injection systems any time you take your foot off the gas the injectors will turn off until a preset RPM is reached and then they will turn back on. On the cars I work on the turn back on point is about 1800 RPM cold and say 1300 RPM hot.
So if you take your foot off the gas in neutral the engine will get zero fuel for that split second it takes to get near idle. If you are in gear and coasting as long as the RPM is above the resume point no fuel is being injected.
ETA: engine braking as nothing to do with it, it is a function of engine RPM and will happen in neutral as well as gear.
Flat ground as well as hills.
Your car idles at 2300rpm? I’ve never driven a Mustang but that seems extremely high. Most cars I’ve driven idle in the 800rpm sort of range. If you’re coasting in neutral, surely the engine should just be idling?
Going downhill at around 50mph in 5th gear the revs are about 3000rpm, from memory. In neutral they’re below 1000. (VW Passat, manual transmission).
wisernow: at least on my car, the average consumption is calculated since the last reset. I tend to reset it each time I fill up, if I remember.
yeah, if you’re like in fifth gear and trying to lug it at 800 rpm, maybe. no street car idles all the way up at 2300 rpm. both of my Mustangs idled at ~700 rpm. bigger engines idle as low as 500-600.
