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EcoJag
Hello everyone!
I'm new to the site, I don't know how I've never come across it before, it's a great resource!
Im a great fan of Jaguars, but Jaguars and economy don't really go together. My old v12 Jag does 4/5 mpg (uk) and with fuel here in excess of £5 a gallon it's not a cheap car to run.
My every day car is a 2006 Jaguar X Type 2.2 diesel, and as I already spend far to much on fuel in some of my other cars, I've been trying to save a bit in my every day car.
The factory says the car will do 47mpg (uk) combined. By driving carefully I was able to get upto 50 mpg.
I've started doing a few modifications to try and improve things further and had some good results, the last few tanks I've been just over 60 mpg (uk)
I've been doing things on a tight budget, the idea of this car is to save money not spend it.
So this is the story so far
Car was purchased for £950 needing a few flywheel and a few other bits.
New fly wheel, clutch kit and brake discs and pads all round purchased for £450
The car had some nice big wheels on it which I sold for £325 and i put some narrower wheels on which I had in stock.
The aux belt and tensioner needed replacing, on this ending the aux belt drives the air con and alternator from the crank pully, the belt had a tensioner and two idler pulleys. The air con pump was removed, and the alternator bracket modified, and a stretch fit belt now drives the alternator from the crank with no idlers or tensioners. Saved weight, friction, saved money on the tensioner kit and sold the air con pump for £70.
I then removed the catalytic converter and which I got £170 for and replaced it with a £30 decat pipe, and removed the EGR valve which I got £45 and replaced that with a £20 egr removal pipe.
I have also removed the air intake pipe which channel end the air in from the front grill to the air box. This pipe was quite restrictive, now the air is taken from a much bigger area from much behind the radiator, the engine now breathes better and the air intake temp is about 3 degrees c warmer.
The car also has a hydrogen fuel cell, I've not seen anything about them on here yet, but it basically turns water into hydrogen and oxygen using a bit of electric, this is supposed to improve the fuel burn increasing economy. It doesn't save the amount of money the people who try to sell these advertise, but my feeling is that it does something. I had this system on a previous car, thought I way as well reuse it rather than binning it.
So todate, the costs, including the cost of the car, minus the bits I've sold off it have cost me £800, and I'm getting 60+ mpg (uk) which I'm fairly happy with.
I'm not wanting to spend loads of money, but if anyone has any suggestions of other stuff I could do, without breaking the bank, let me know.
I'm not really into sacrificing power or comfort in the pursuit of economy as I do quite a lot of miles, but todate, with the current mods I've noticed a fairly good power gain as well, so I could live with loosing a few BHP.
In just over a week I'm due to do a 2500 mile round trip in Europe so it will be very interesting to see how the car performs.
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