by TOM 5252 » Sun, 20 Sep 2015 8:47 +0000
A couple of months ago I drove from east Donegal to Drogheda and back to view red mk3. Most of the trip was done at maximum legal speed including the motorway sections. The MPG. for the run was 41.4, my usual mpg for this 16 year old mk2 is 37 or 38 (weekend driving , shopping trips etc).
That Drogheda trip was before I replaced both rear lower wishbones, marking and re-assembling the cam bolts. According to my NCT report a year ago the front axle slide-slip was -5.0 and rear was +0.2,
The NCT test-passed yesterday with no problems, reports front axle slide-slip is now -4.0 and rear is +7.1, so I might have to get the tracking done again, even though the handling has not felt any different since I fitted the wishbones from autocheck.
The point of the previous paragraph is that when I googled Side-slip last night to see how it relates to toe-in etc. I discovered that high side-slip values have a big effect on tyre and fuel usage. The nearer to zero you can keep these readings then the less fuel and rubber you waste in normal driving.
Also possibly relating to MPG ? according to yesterday's report my engine is running better than last year.
Last year's emissions figures-- idle CO 0.15 HC 69 fast CO 0.07 HC 39
This year's emissions figures-- idle CO 0.01 HC 16 fast CO 0.03 HC 26
Maybe at 46,000 miles the engine is only now fully run-in !
Tom 5252