The trip computer is saying 60.4mpg and I’m astonished. “That’s not an unusual improvement,” says Evan Morris, from Red Driver Training, adding: “typically we see savings of around 11% or so but I’ve seen as much as 50%.”
That’s a full 10mpg more than the 50.4mpg official WLTP figure for the Dacia Sandero Stepway. Morris has just schooled me using Red's Fuelsave techniques, which are all about squeezing as much potential out of every precious drop of the ever more expensive fuel that we’re all painfully filling our tanks with.
Over the previous weeks, the Sandero’s average consumption has been around 42mpg, with longer runs pushing that up slightly. Morris is convinced that it can do better. Significantly better.
Before we set off, we have a quick look around the car, checking tyre pressures – every fifth tank of fuel used is entirely down to tyre rolling resistance, so every PSI counts – and having a peek at the dipstick.
We also chucked out unnecessary weight that has been forgotten and left in the boot, weight again being detrimental to economy.
If I had a bike carrier or cargo box on the Stepway’s roof rails, I would be removing them, too, because they’re perfectly placed to create drag. Laziness here costs you handsomely come filling time.
Morris is quick to note the small details when we get in – things like starting the engine before putting on seatbelts, every second the engine’s running equating to fuel used. Put your seatbelts on before you’ve started it, then, likewise putting a destination into the sat-nav, changing the radio station or picking a favourite podcast. Small changes in habit help improve your MPG.
To see just how much I can save using Fuelsave driving techniques, we will be doing two identical laps on my local roads. The first circuit will be without Morris’s input to set a marker, without guidance, but he’s sitting alongside to view the trip and assess what I’m doing.
Picked by me, the route is the one I take when dropping the kids off at school and represents my typical daily driving, on a mix of urban stop-start traffic and faster-flowing country roads. It's a 17.1-mile round trip that starts and culminates back at my front door.
I can’t deny that I’ve consciously been driving more economically of late. Miserly mileage has become something I’ve been doing habitually, and gaining a few extra MPG has been relatively easy enough to achieve.
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So when Donald decides to throw Eggs at Irans Windows the Oil prices go up and we the captive punters globally get our pockets fleeced,ok, I can't complain,compared to most my annual mileage is small (about 4000 to 6000 miles a year) so I don't fill up that often it costs about £60.00 ,but for those who drive for a living they have to find the cash from somewhere,and of course then there's the massive queue at fuel stations with panic buying, my local one ran out of fuel in six hours because the litre price went up a whole 2p!, it'll settle down in a few days I guess once Donald gets his way.
Talk about opportunisic reporting. Skills? Honestly, i's not the word I'd use.
There is no way you can judge mpg over such a short distance. Run that route three times without altering anything and you'll see three different mpg figures on the trip computer. Take excess weight out the car? In the above pic a pram has been removed. How much fuel did that save? It beggers belief anyone can be fooled by this. On the otherhand take off a roof rack or cycle carrier that affects the car's aerodynamics? No kidding sherlock. It costs a couple of tankfuls ( £200 ) for someone to tell you that?
But best of all is this idea that you simply turn on the engine and drive away. If you're driving to the end of the street it may make a difference in economy, but if about to drive for half an hour then the difference is incalculable. Moreover, if you fire up the engine and just drive away doesn't that cause excess wear and tear on the engine?. What ever happened to the advice in a previous report that you should let the oil fully circulate throughout a cold engine before driving off?
I've been managing to eke out 5.4 m/kWh on a works Zoe.