Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com - View Single Post

Fklein64 · 01-09-2013, 04:08 PM

Thanks for the warm welcome.

As I mentioned before I'm German, and here it is not allowed to modify a car with a boat tail or covered wheels. You will lose your insurance since the car does no longer match the the one that was used in the certification process for security and COC conformance.

Rules here are *way* more strict than yours. Police would pull you out and you have to revert your car back into the original state to drive on.

I had no choice about the transmission, the 204HP is not available with manual transmission. In Germany, other than in the US, most cars are manual, only the top models with the strongest engines are usually available as automatic. In this specific case, I had to chose between a 163HP manual or a 204HP automatic, but the 204HP is the newer, has the more modern engine and is more efficient than the slightly older 163HP engine.

In the city and after cold starts, the mileage is poor with automatic, but that changes on the highways when the gearbox oil warmed up and the torque converter is locked. Then the 204HP engine revs lower than the 163HP and the mileage is close to or better than the 163HP engine. Actually I was worried about the "automatic overhead" when I bought the car, but I drive more than 95% Autobahn, long distance. That gives me a combined mileage close to the highway mileage. In the European EPA counterpart NEFZ, the 163 manual is 20% better than the 204 automatic, which is still 20% better than the 163 automatic. On the highway, 163 manual and 204 automatic are very, very close.

For the city traffic, we use my wife's small LPG car (LPG is 50% cheaper than regular gas in Germany). The "big vessel" is for the long distances (50mls or more), and there the automatic doesn't matter much.

01-09-2013, 04:08 PM	#3 (permalink)
Fklein64 EcoModding Lurker Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 6 Flying carpet - '12 Citroën C5 Tourer HDI 200 Exclusive 90 day: 42.64 mpg (US) Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Not in Germany Thanks for the warm welcome. As I mentioned before I'm German, and here it is not allowed to modify a car with a boat tail or covered wheels. You will lose your insurance since the car does no longer match the the one that was used in the certification process for security and COC conformance. Rules here are way more strict than yours. Police would pull you out and you have to revert your car back into the original state to drive on. I had no choice about the transmission, the 204HP is not available with manual transmission. In Germany, other than in the US, most cars are manual, only the top models with the strongest engines are usually available as automatic. In this specific case, I had to chose between a 163HP manual or a 204HP automatic, but the 204HP is the newer, has the more modern engine and is more efficient than the slightly older 163HP engine. In the city and after cold starts, the mileage is poor with automatic, but that changes on the highways when the gearbox oil warmed up and the torque converter is locked. Then the 204HP engine revs lower than the 163HP and the mileage is close to or better than the 163HP engine. Actually I was worried about the "automatic overhead" when I bought the car, but I drive more than 95% Autobahn, long distance. That gives me a combined mileage close to the highway mileage. In the European EPA counterpart NEFZ, the 163 manual is 20% better than the 204 automatic, which is still 20% better than the 163 automatic. On the highway, 163 manual and 204 automatic are very, very close. For the city traffic, we use my wife's small LPG car (LPG is 50% cheaper than regular gas in Germany). The "big vessel" is for the long distances (50mls or more), and there the automatic doesn't matter much.