General TwinAir Thread (including MPG)

[cjc156]

the only hiccup was current pcp deal means needs to be registered this month etc etc so no deal was done as i dont want it this month and looked like factory order, will be interseting if Thames Fiat in Slough get back, when guy said list price was best deal he seamed shock when i got up shook his hand and said i wouldn't be wasting anymore of my time

Are you sure that is correct? I understand the PCP deal has to be proposed and accepted this month and has absolutely nothing to do with when the car is delivered. That is certainly what my dealer told me. My car was ordered in Oct last year and delivered in Jan. However he kept a PCP deal live for me on the Q4 2010 offers just in case the Q1 2011 offers what not as good. Turns out they were much better so he lapsed the old proposal and took out a new one. Suggest you speak to a different dealer.

 

[TrevC]

Wigit
I collected my Twinair Lounge from Thames Fiat last Wednesday! Was quite happy with my deal - discounts on 500s are hard to come by but they gave me a generous part-ex for my Mini Cooper, and threw in some mats. Very pleased with the car - performance is on a par with the Mini, and I got 46mpg on my cross-country 23 mile commute today, without using eco. I expect this to improve as I get some miles on it. Using eco adds 5 - 10 mpg, and reduces the performance to that of the 1.2, which I also drove. Good luck with finding the deal you want.

 

[wigit]

I have no px as keeping my current car, in reality pcp is best deal so I can keep the cash in he bank, I will try perrys as I originally thought the car needed to be ordered this month and a factory order arriving in 3 months ago is ideal

There is always a deal to be done

 

[chris_p]

My Average mpg computer is accurate when compared to brimming. Yesterday I drove one-up from East London, through Westminster and Chelsea and out into the Berkshire countryside then back through Barnet. Country roads beyond Henley, M4, M40, M25 and the North Circular. A journey of 137 miles. No £10 Congestion Charge and an average of 67.2 mpg. V-Power fuel, Eco Mode using shift indicator and Stop-Start. Temperature around 14º, Radio and some use of headlights. No AC. Car has 400 miles on the clock. I was not in a hurry.
It's not difficult to achieve this economy but it's also possible to bat around town in the lower gears and knock 30 mpg off!

 

[wigit]

had a second test drive this morning on my local patch which included some dual carriageway driving, once more 3 up it really impressed withe decent torque

deposit paid and hopefully the PCP I-Deal goes through this afternoon for a factory order bnw lounge with ivory/black ambience, side strips, 16" mulispokes, rear tints, parking sensors, and climate, not fussed by 12 weeks delivery as need to gravel part of my front garden

 

[Madabout500]

Just picked up our twin air lounge its done 36mpg over its first 180 miles according to the trip computer. Love the car and its performance is remarkable for an 875 cc the amount or torque from 2000 rpm is perhaps the most impresive aspect and it actually pulls reasonably well from below that but sounds as if its straining although i dont actually think it is. Will have to stop enjoying it so much and try to get the economy up once its has a few more miles under its belt. Does anyone know if they are supposed to have a software upgrade prior to handover ? My only dissapointment so far is that when removing rear numberplate to fit the chrome number plate surround i found the the two screws had been drilled straight through the rear hatch bare metal with no paint ! What makes it more annoying is that there four holes in the hatch with plastic inserts to allow the number plate holder to be installed without damaging the paintwork, anyway im going to insist that the dealer repaints the holes. But overall i love the car
Regards James

 

[rallycinq]

First fill up, managed:-

a) to pull up at the green pump

and

b) remember my fuelly log in.

Drove twenty miles to work, showing 45ish mpg so far.

Cheers

D

 

[cjc156]

Just filled up today from an almost empty tank, so reset trip 'A', which I do at every fill up. Before doing so, it showed 44.9. OK I think. I am on Fuely, so will update when I get a mo.

 

[cjc156]

First fill up, managed:-

a) to pull up at the green pump

and

b) remember my fuelly log in.

Drove twenty miles to work, showing 45ish mpg so far.

Cheers

D

I think 45 seems to be about right, especially on out of town driving. As I say, I've no complaint with that at all.

 

[tommus]

To the twinair owners that have had there car a few months, what is your MPG now with and without using the eco mode?

 

[TwinAir Newbie]

We got the TwinAir on March 1st.

It is used mainly for my wife's 18 mile (36 mile round trip) commute which is slowish but has a busy dual carriageway.

She did have one trip round the motorways to Cambridge and one trip to Central London.

My daughter has been learning on it this last ten days with a 24 mile round trip to school, so the miles have (for us) piled on and it's done about 1700 miles.

We look to drive economically 90% of the time and it's averaging around 45mpg.

Switching off ECO and giving it a bit of welly uses far more.

What I wonder about is switching off ECO and still driving very carefully.

I'd say that it is a difficult car to drive very economically.

 

[rallycinq]

I don't think I'll ever need to drive a whole tanbkful in non eco mode. Its fast enough in eco mode unless needing a bit of 'oomph' to overtake.

When seeing a need to overtake I switch off eco just before the manouevre, get past and switch eco back on.

A bit like kers in F1

Cheers

D

 

[rallycinq]

Scratch everything I posted yesterday.

200 mile trip today including my own personal Nurburgring.

Going up hill in eco mode needed more throttle opening than in standard mode. Therefore better consumption in standard than eco in these circumstances.

Cheers

D

 

[Bristol Nick]

Hello, my other half Louise bought a Twin Air Sport in January from our local Bristol Fiat dealer, it wasnt cheap because she also chose leather and sunroof! Previously she had the 500 1.4 Sport for 3 years which she loved.

We have now done 1500 miles, and she is dissapointed. The performance / handling is very different from the 1.4, and although the car looks great and is fine around town / country roads, the motorway performance is not so great. Yes it will happily cruise at 70, but if you meet an incline you can soon loose power. The 1.4 was a very good motorway cruiser.

Av mpg so far is 40.5, which is not great,(and we use Eco wherever it is warranted)- but no worse than the 1.4.

She now wants to trade it in (at a loss!) for the Abarth 500 1.4, having said that she hasnt made her final decision and we have read with great interest this thread. It would seem that many twin air owners are getting better MPG than us, maybe like Grimwau our early 2011 reg car did not have any software update available

 

[cjc156]

To the twinair owners that have had there car a few months, what is your MPG now with and without using the eco mode?

Mine has settled to around 45 mpg. I don't really use ECO mode at alll now, I gave it a try but think the car is so much better in normal.....

 

[TrevC]

Well, just clocked up 1000miles in my Twinair Lounge. My mixed-road 23 mile each way commute yields 50-53mpg if I drive resonably sedately, in Eco most of the time. I did give it a hard drive home the other day and got it down to 42 - still not bad, though. Subjectively it feels as quick as my old BMW Mini Cooper, and the best that ever returned was 42, and only 35 if driven hard. It would be nice if the Eco button was on the steering wheel though, for those quick overtakes! I disagree with the earlier post about motorway cruising - my Twinair feels quite relaxed at about 3000rpm in 5th, with urge to spare for hills etc. - that's in non-Eco mode though.

 

[cjc156]

Well, just clocked up 1000miles in my Twinair Lounge. My mixed-road 23 mile each way commute yields 50-53mpg if I drive resonably sedately, in Eco most of the time. I did give it a hard drive home the other day and got it down to 42 - still not bad, though. Subjectively it feels as quick as my old BMW Mini Cooper, and the best that ever returned was 42, and only 35 if driven hard. It would be nice if the Eco button was on the steering wheel though, for those quick overtakes! I disagree with the earlier post about motorway cruising - my Twinair feels quite relaxed at about 3000rpm in 5th, with urge to spare for hills etc. - that's in non-Eco mode though.

Yep, I've done most of the miles so far on the motorway / dual carriageway. No issues for me.

 

[TwinAir Newbie]

I haven't really put it to the test but I wonder if the ECO setting can be counter productive, especially out of town.

I try to drive frugally but I wonder if the reduced power settings are making the engine have to work harder, hence the relatively poor mpg.

I've had the car all this week with the misses being away and I'm doing about 44-45 mpg.

We didn't get the TwinAir primarily for fuel economy, but my big estate isn't far behind on the economy stakes.

 

[TrevC]

Picking up on Newbie's point, I don't know about Eco being counter-productive out of town, but my gut feel is that it gives a bigger benefit around town. The first 5 miles of my commute is mostly at less than 30mph, and by the time I reached the country lanes, my Mini's computer showed low 30's mpg. The Fiat shows around 45. I'll have to try it Eco on and off. I know all this is a bit geeky but it gives a bit of extra interest to the same old journey every day!

 

[TrevC]

According to road test reports, the Eco button re-maps the ECU to give less torque (down from 145Nm to just over 100Nm from memory) and also moves it further down the rev range. It would be nice if a FIAT powertrain engineer could explain any further details, mind you I am a car anorak. Since, like most modern cars, the 500 is drive by wire, and the power and torque are controlled by the electro-hydraulic operation of the inlet valves as opposed to a throttle, the fact that when you engage Eco and then need to press the accelerator harder to maintain speed doesn't necessarily mean that the engine uses more fuel.