General TwinAir Thread (including MPG)

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General TwinAir Thread (including MPG)

.... There was talk of software upgrades due to incorrect mapping but as far as I know any software updates were applied at the factory before shipping...

When I wanted to have a test drive in a TA at Vospers in Exeter two weeks ago I was told that the demo car was in the workshop have an ECU update.
 
You seem to be more uptight about this than I am and you don't even have a twinair. :confused:


Errrm, I've already said we are getting a twin air in 3 weeks time. I do not believe that an average of 35mpg is all that the twinair is capable of regardless of the 'tightness' of the engine. Alot of people believe they are excellent drivers but your reluctance to provide usefull, readily avaliable info such as your eco index makes me think you must not take eco driving as seriously as you make out.

I am simply analysing factors that could contribute to this absurdly low mpg figure. You seem to be taking it all as a comment on your driving skill rather than me trying to get all the facts.

I cannot understand the aggresive nature to my perfectly fair remarks on this forum. all you have shown us is mpg figures, we cannot see your actual driving style so I'd like to see fair and balanced information rather than newspaper style shock headlines.
 
The eco index will not give you the whole picture.
Here are the Pandas on fuelly - http://www.fuelly.com/car/fiat/panda (make sure that you click on UK to remove the underlining for UK MPG)
You will see that my old Panda has the best figures of the petrol Pandas (it's too old for an eco model).
I now have a Bravo and I am struggling to get the eco index up to 75 but I am knocking on Hellcat's figures and his is a diseasal! http://www.fuelly.com/car/fiat/bravo
I'm reserving judgement on the twinair until there are decent figures on fuelly for one.

Trev
 
Mikey, you can take them with a shovelfull of salt if you desire but the fact remains that I am an experienced driver and I know how to get the best economy from my cars. The same trip to the dealers in my diesel would show a shade over 80MPG whereas in the TwinAir I am lucky to achieve 45MPG under the same driving conditions.

You seem to be more uptight about this than I am and you don't even have a twinair. :confused:

I said that I am keeping an open mind about the fuel consumption until I have clocked up more miles, I would ask that you also wait as by that time we might have some more owners contributing to the debate.

As Venters has stated, my figures are lowest he has seen for the twin so perhaps there could be an underlying problem. There was talk of software upgrades due to incorrect mapping but as far as I know any software updates were applied at the factory before shipping.

You've forgotten that no one is as perfect as Mikey thinks he is (going by his replies to this, the cracked bumper and the parts stolen thread).

Replies to "These trolling noobs are getting cr*pper and cr*pper". This one hasn't even said he works as a solicitor/CAB volunteer yet.
 
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Alot of people believe they are excellent drivers but your reluctance to provide usefull, readily avaliable info such as your eco index makes me think you must not take eco driving as seriously as you make out.

Tbh if I was Grimwau I'd tell you to take a hike. I know I'm arrogant and rude but you take the cake :)
 
In all honesty though it's longtime owners like Grimwau who are the most trustworthy and when they say they're getting 35mpg then they're getting 35mpg........
 
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have any of you hyper-milers read the review in AutoItalia?

Twin Air driven as really intended (i.e. with Brio) returned 30mpg, which is less economical than a 1.4 :rolleyes:

obvious really, under powered cars need to have the nuts revved off them to move at all ;)

I am getting 35 mpg extra urban in my 1.4 turbo 150 bhp Fiat Bravo so go figure...
 
I got a brand new C1 recently and have just done 1000 miles in it. The fuel consumption is supposed to be around 62mpg on the combined cycle, so it probably wouldn't be far off theTwinAir if you switched off stop-start.

The engine was VERY tight to start off with, it was completely gutless, but it's a lot better now. Dispite this I still managed 54.6mpg on the first tank, and that included loads of stop-start driving. After 1000 miles my average is 54.0mpg. I'm sure I could have got more if I had driven it more gently.

If my car can get 54mpg then I would expect a TwinAir to get fairly close to it. When I drove a TwinAir I couldn't average more than 50mpg, and on non-motorway roads it droped to 40mpg IIRC.
 
Sorry but MPG figures are regulated by the government and no engine tweaks can be made whatsoever. They use expert drivers to achieve the figures and sadly most of us out there are not experts! The mpg figure has to be always attainable albeit with great difficulty.

Grimwau, I know you hate eco drive but it is a very good measure of a persons ability to drive well under eco conditions. I will be taking all your mpg figures with a pinch of salt unless you were to consider posting a screenshot of your overall eco rating out of 100, I think that's fair.

p.s it's unfortunate Fiat released the car during the freezing cold winter, this is definately harming the press the car is getting. The cold weather coupled with the car's rev happy nature is contributing alot to the low mpg figures we are hearing about i'm sure. :)

just to expand on how the makers CAN tweak the cars to perform well in the standard tests manufacturers know EXACTLY what the cars involved will be subjected to, therefore making it easy for them to ensure any car they make is designed to perform well in these tests. -for instance the urban part of the test is performed on a rolling road. The test itself is a euro standard one and you can see it here-

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/information/fuel-consumption-testing-scheme.asp

So the point being made here is that you can tweak cars to perform well in the tests, and it is highly likely than many makers do. The tests should only really be used to compare cars rather than tell you exactly what you are going to get, but as fiat have proved, you can run an entire ad campaign on being the 'lowest CO2 output of any petrol car on sale anywhere in the world'. Well- not at 35MPG its not. CO2 produced is directly proportional to fuel burnt- MPG.
to be producing a car with these claims but without any car tested by any major magazine, and no anecdotal evidence here, of any of them getting anywhere near the 68mpg bandied about, is going to land fiat is some uncomfortable PR situations at some point soon...

it is widely known that many cars dont get anywhere near their quoted figures using this cycle but this is the most extreme example ive seen.
 
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Its even worse than that, unfortunately.

The regulations give some testing allowances. You can bet the manufacturers take advantage of every last allowance to tweek the figures still further.

I am working on the percentage I get less than the figures on the current MTD should equate to 50 mpg on the Twinair, once run in.

The fact I managed 45 mpg average over 30 miles of mixed driving in a 9 mile example gives me hope that I can acheive that.

Cheers

D
 
Seems to me like TwinAir owners are going to be in some sort of constant challenge to prove that they can get reasonable mpg from their car, and all hopes are on it loosening up when run in. It is being marketed as the worlds most efficient petrol engine.
I've never found a vast difference with a run in engine. Tight for the first 500 miles or so then that's it. My Panda 100hp was doing 34 brand new which went up to around 38-40 at about 1000 miles and that's where it stayed, and achieved despite being driven without a thought for economy.
 
It seems that thread, which was meant to be in the manner of a "personal" blog has started something of an argument centring around the perceived and actual fuel consumption figures of the new TwinAir engine. Can I just state for the record that the figures I have posted have been obtained whilst driving my car in the same manner as always.

I have tried to obtain the best figures when circumstances have allowed but I have in no way driven 100% of the time with economy in mind. If I have been travelling behind a bus or milkfloat for instance then as soon as a gap in the traffic has appeared I have accelerated briskly to overtake. I have also been known to travel on the motorway at 75MPH when it is obviously less economical than staying at 56MPH.

In the real world this is what happens and my readings are so far based on a very low mileage vehicle that has been back to the dealership for repair work that necessitated running it stationary in the workshop and a 10 mile road test, during which the tech probably didn't worry about ecodrive figures.

Anyone who is considering buying a TwinAir should not be put off just by my experiences but use an open mind and do what some others have done and try the car for themselves, ensuring that at least a 10 mile road test is carried out to ensure that the driving experience is fully evaluated.

I am already seeing improvements, albeit small, in the consumption figures based on the average fuel consumption readout but I don't expect to come to any conclusion until such time as I have had at least 5 fillups to even out the average consumption.

In the meantime, if anyone would like to try my car to see what sort of figures they can obtain let me know as I am sure that there are plenty of us who would like to see the results of a mini test.
 
It seems that thread, which was meant to be in the manner of a "personal" blog has started something of an argument centring around the perceived and actual fuel consumption figures of the new TwinAir engine. Can I just state for the record that the figures I have posted have been obtained whilst driving my car in the same manner as always.
.

You could resort to the thread, 'Twinair (Excluding MPG)'. :). Still not sure when mine will arive... possibly tomorrow, but I wouldnt stake a tank of fuel on it, even at 69mpg.
 
It seems that thread, which was meant to be in the manner of a "personal" blog has started something of an argument centring around the perceived and actual fuel consumption figures of the new TwinAir engine. Can I just state for the record that the figures I have posted have been obtained whilst driving my car in the same manner as always.

I have tried to obtain the best figures when circumstances have allowed but I have in no way driven 100% of the time with economy in mind. If I have been travelling behind a bus or milkfloat for instance then as soon as a gap in the traffic has appeared I have accelerated briskly to overtake. I have also been known to travel on the motorway at 75MPH when it is obviously less economical than staying at 56MPH.

In the real world this is what happens and my readings are so far based on a very low mileage vehicle that has been back to the dealership for repair work that necessitated running it stationary in the workshop and a 10 mile road test, during which the tech probably didn't worry about ecodrive figures.

Anyone who is considering buying a TwinAir should not be put off just by my experiences but use an open mind and do what some others have done and try the car for themselves, ensuring that at least a 10 mile road test is carried out to ensure that the driving experience is fully evaluated.

I am already seeing improvements, albeit small, in the consumption figures based on the average fuel consumption readout but I don't expect to come to any conclusion until such time as I have had at least 5 fillups to even out the average consumption.

In the meantime, if anyone would like to try my car to see what sort of figures they can obtain let me know as I am sure that there are plenty of us who would like to see the results of a mini test.


For what it's worth I'm really not trying to wind anyone up or make enemies. I just really wanted to get all the facts straight before we make conclusions and damn the engine for it's supposed fuel figures. I tend to be a person that feels strongly about stuff and that can come across sometimes in a bad light and I am sorry guys. :)
 
The whole point of the Twinair is that is should give decent performance with great economy. There is no other reason for its existence.

In Italy the anecdotal reports that I have seen suggest that buyers are resisting it because it is not as economical as was promised, it is noisy, and it is expensive.

I say this both from what I have read in the press and from speaking to Italian family and friends.

I would like to know, really, just how economical this engine is, and as more hit the roads and the bitterness of winter falls away perhaps we will finally get a representative number of figures to work from.

I am not interested in listening to anyone who drives economically, if that means they are the people who look frightened behind the wheel and crawl about all the time and hold me up (not you grimwau). This is not realistic driving and if people don't accelerate to get by slow movers and drive quickly on fast roads I don't want to hear about their fuel consumption because it is meaningless to me.

There: feel better now.
 
I am not interested in listening to anyone who drives economically, if that means they are the people who look frightened behind the wheel and crawl about all the time and hold me up (not you grimwau). This is not realistic driving and if people don't accelerate to get by slow movers and drive quickly on fast roads I don't want to hear about their fuel consumption because it is meaningless to me.

There: feel better now.

Agree - also not a great idea to drive with one eye on the road and the other on the instant mpg read out. Expect to see a lot of crashed TwinAirs around.:rolleyes:
 
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