Hi,
This is a new project thread for George, my
Aygo Go (80's band Wham, George Michael, "wake me up before you Go-Go" - geddit, no, oh never mind...
).
An introduction. The Aygo is a small hatchback made by Toyota and PSA (Peugeot / Citroen) in the Czech Republic since 2005. Both PSA and Toyota were moving their small cars upmarket so they needed something to fill he gap, the Aygo and the Peugeot 107 / C1 did that. I collected George this evening trading in
Helga to do so.
My reasons for a change are detailed there but this is about introducing George as a new project / hypermiler car. So some pics :
As you can see George is a small hatchback which is popular here in Europe and Asia but maybe not so much these days in North America. The Aygo is a relatively simple car with some cost and weight saving features such as non wind-down rear windows :
and a single piece of glass for the rear tailgate rather than two metal pressings welded together with glass added :
The interior is simple - everything you need and not much else - actually it has a secret sat nav and some other goodies - plus of course the SG2 (see the right hand side of this pic).
And the last time I had a car with tyres this skinny was in 1992...
Initial impressions are positive but of course we are in the very first flush of the honeymoon period. George has fewer miles than I expected (only 16 !!!!) when delivered which is amazing - I expected a few hundred at least as George is a few months old. In fact he is more or less brand new which is not what I was expecting at all.
He is quiet compared to TDI Helga and of course light and easy to drive. There was a rattle on the way home from the dealer but a quick check under the bonnet revealed the read battery cover to the right side of this pic of the "3 cylinders of glory" was loose
The engine is more or less bang up to date, it is a 1.0 (998cc) 3 cylinder engine with VVT, and injection this, and something else which makes it dead modern - I think. I do know it has a chain driven cam so no timing belt to worry about
The fog light areas are totally blocked. The grills etc. seem prettty much blocked already, there is only a small radiator which is mounted just behind in the grill on the right side of the pic above, and there are openings in front of that only. So even aero seems to have been thought about at the factory.
Official figures are 0-100 kph in 14 seconds, top speed 98, urban MPG ~ 52, combined 60 and extra urban (aka highway) ~65. Unofficially magazines have the 0-60 as 11.5 secs and he does feel this kind of "nippy". Gearing seems to be over 22 MPH/1000 in 5th which means relatively relaxed motorway use at my normal high speeds of 55-75.
I filled him up tonight and reset the SG2. The SG seems to register >65 MPG for my urban style journeys everywhere and I am not hypermiling yet! So far there are no mods. I may pump the tyres up to 40 PSI tomorrow and see if that helps with coasting.
My initial target is 60 MPG tank to tank, and then on to 70.
Mrs A's Prius arrives tomorrow so we will have a simple and cheap vs tech. and spendy comparison to make. Mrs A thinks George is too small for us but A Junior already thinks he will be great as he is the only person to have worked out how the MP3 stereo thing works...
I'm off to study the manual...
I have a family issue to sort at the weekend in England so George will immediately get a long run with me. I'll monitor things and update the thread.