Greetings from the Netherlands!
Hi everyone!
My name is Sjoerd, also known with my username Sjoegerd. At the moment I'm 23 years old and I drive a Peugeot 106 1.1i from 1994. With the high gas prices in my country I'm looking for ways to improve my milage on a low budget. I'm driving around 2000 kilometers each month and with an average of almost 17 kilometers for each liter (almost 40 mpg) of fuel I'm not doing that bad in my opinion ;). I hope to learn a lot on this forum and I hope I can save some fuel :D Greetings from the Netherlands, Sjoegerd |
Welcome, Sjoerd!
The little Peugeot has a lot of potential. Make sure you've read the 65+ efficiency mods and 100+ Hypermiling tips (see the page header). Increase and monitor the tire pressure (make sure you have top quality tires - you'll earn back the premium in lower rolling resistance and better handling). Keep in the right lane on the highway Speed kills economy, especially with small cars. Get a partial grill block but monitor air intake temp - I used a cheap in/out digital thermometer with the sensor in the intake until I got an UltraGauge. Instrumentation like that UltraGauge won't work as unfortunately your car is probably just too old to have an OBDII port, but check out the MPGuino project. Most of all, keep a fuel log. Knowing you're improving is very motivating. For me, it is a hobby now; one that saves me money to boot. Cheers, Bart |
Welcome to the site. Check out the 100+ Hypermiling list and 65+ mods list links at the top . It sounds like you're off to a good start.
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Hi Bart,
Thanks for your comment :) I keep a fuel log in Excel, just got the car about a month ago so it is easier to keep up. Tyre pressure is already at 2.5 bar, and most of the time I don't exceed 100 km/h. A grill block is not that handy for these engines I think. There is no upper grille and these type of engines tend to overheat quick. Maybe it is an option for the winter ;) The car is not OBDII equiped and instrumentation is kinda expensive for my income but I wil keep it in mind. In the meantime I will try the hypermiling tips and make sure the car is in good shape. Greetings, Sjoegerd |
The 106 is a nice project car, either for a pocket-rocket or a penny-pincher's commuter.
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I have a new record! Just did a fillup today and achieved 19,3 km for one liter of fuel. That is about 44,5 mpg I guess? I used some of the hypermiling tips because it's hard to fit in all with a lot of trafficjams and such. I used the coasting in neutral towards roundabouts, motorway exits and traffic lights, easy on the throttle and anticipation. In my opinion it is possible to achieve the 20 km/l mark and that will be my goal :)
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Good going, Sjoegerd:thumbup:
I'm sure you can beat not only 20 km/l, but even 25 with some aeromods (engine undertray, Kammback) and advanced techniques (EOC). We are thinking about whether to get a Pug 106 for the wife if it turns out she will need to commute by car. Two main factors are that it is light and that the rear hatch is ideal for attaching a Kammback. Is your transmission a 4-speed or 5-speed? I'm not sure if your commute will permit it, but I've found that leaving the car at home and biking saves a lot of fuel;) |
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The 106 is a great car for commuting in my opinion. Light, comfortable and great for in the city. Also with 100 km/h on the highway it's much less noisier than my previous car, the Citroën AX. The 106 is a 5-speed by the way ;) Using the bike saves hell of a lot of fuel! But with my school at 50 km, my work/learn place at 40 km and my girlfriend at 35 km it would be a lot of cycling. :P |
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As you get better at estimating your coasting distance, your fuel use will drop. Don't stay in 1st or 2nd gear in a traffic jam - it uses too much fuel. Try to avoid 1st at all, unless for starting from a stop, and use 2nd and coasting. Once the engine is thoroughly warm, you can use some really high gear when the engine doesn't have to work hard. I'm doing 30km/h in 4th , 45-50 in 5th with a 1L engine . Works well as long as it's flat, shouldn't be much of a problem in the Netherlands. I Don't accelerate in these gears though - the li'l car will pull it off, but I can hear and feel it doesn't like it much. In city driving, my fuel consumption drops or stays the same now - before joining ecomodder, it always skyrocketed during city driving. Pulsing briefly and then coasting is extremely effective in city driving. |
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I find it hard to use hypermiling tips in the dense traffic. If you leave gaps to make sure you don't have to stop, other drivers fill them up so you have to brake and accelerate again. Also with coasting towards roundabouts and traffic lights. I have the feeling that I'm disrupting the "traffic flow". I get tailgated almost all the time in such conditions. |
Never mind the occasional idiot that needs to fill the safe gap you leave ahead of you. They will jump out again soon enough, often to get caught up in a brake jam in the nervous left lane.
When my commute was Voorburg-Amsterdam before the A4 got widened traffic jams were my daily annoyance. I adopted a game I called 'follow the fool'. (EDIT not literally following, just keeping an eye on the whereabouts) Somebody cuts you up, then you don't react but just try to keep him in sight and see what happens. So often they ran into trouble changing toward temporaryly faster lanes which always turn to be jammed the worst. I lost more of them behind me than ahead of me, despite me not making any effort to hurry at all. |
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How about a bumper sticker along the lines of (in fine print, so only tailgaters see it) "I know my a$$ is nice, but you don't have to kiss it". |
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Good for you to start this at such a young age, it will save you a lot of euros, wish I had the sense when at your age :o |
It's also a game to get the most dirty look :rolleyes:
Today is another fillup day, I'm now at school and have a 50 km trip back home. Hope to get home before I fillup, because I got already 575+ km on this tank. My goal is everytime to get at least 600 km with a tank. I will post also some pictures of my beloved little red communist friend :D |
I'm not really satisfied with the outcome of the fillup. Average was 18,29 km/l (42,34 mpg), that is a kilometer less than the last tank. I think it is due to the traffic jams last week.
Haven't got time to make some pictures of the car but they will be here soon :) |
Hi Sjoerd,
It looks to me like you're doing a fair amount of urban/suburban driving. That means you're getting caught in a lot of stop-and-go traffic, jams, etc. So the first recommendation I have, and I'm sure you've already seen it elsewhere, is weight reduction. Your little 106 - and that's right about the grille block, the first gen 106 is essentially a "bottom breather" getting all its cooling air from below the bumper - has a little bitty engine that has to work pretty hard to get back up to speed. So if you never carry more than a single passenger, maybe you could pull the back seat? And take the unnecessary stuff out of the boot? Stuff like that. And then of course, getting back up to speed. If you don't have to get all the way back up to speed, you'll save a bit. If you can allow a bit of a gap to open but not quite enough to allow someone else to block you, you may be able to just keep a teeny bit of momentum going. It isn't much but every little bit helps. If most of your driving is in and around the city - 2000km per month means you must get out on the highway at least once in a while - then your first and biggest results will come from improving your performance at low speeds: weight reduction and engine mods. Aerodynamic mods look great but are really at their best on the highway. More than one guy here on ecomodder has completely removed his alternator belt (but they keep them in the car, just in case) and either charge up when parked, or keep the battery topped up with a solar panel. The alternator puts a fair amount of load on the engine, which you could certainly stand to set aside if at all possible in stop-and-go traffic. Also, I strongly suggest you convert your car to manual steering if that isn't already the case - that power steering pump is another significant parasitic loss which in your case is even bigger compared to the engine's modest output. |
Hello elhigh,
Most of the time I'm driving on the highway and larger secondary roads between 80 km/h and 110 km/h. Last week it was more in the city than usual that lead to more slow traffic driving. I'm pretty sure that if it was a normal week, the fuel consumption was around the 20 km/l. The car doesn't have power steering, it is light with narrow tires so it is also not needed. Besides it's the most basic model you can get, there wasn't even a 12v socket! I'm not going to do mods like removing the back seat or the alternator belt. I need the back seat from time to time and only thinking about removing the belt makes me insecure. Even though, thank you very much for your input! |
Aha, you have the Rallye. That's the completely stripped down model. In that light there may not be much weight reduction you can do.
Yes, pulling the alternator belt would give me the shivers, too. But I know my truck, for instance, is good for at least ten miles because that's how far it went after I tried to replace the alternator in the parts store parking lot, and couldn't, and drove home with the new alternator in the front seat. |
It's not a Rallye, that has a 1.3i engine with a short geared manual gearbox. I have a base model XN with a 1.1i engine :). I also have -30 hp in comparison with the rallye.
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The weather has been worse the last week here, colder, wind, rain; no wonder you did not as good on your last tank. I'm struggling too.
Comes the summer you'll see some amazing tank fills... |
That could also be the reason!
This is the little monster by the way ;) http://i62.tinypic.com/33w5dmf.jpg And in front of the gate the car :P |
Gotta have to agree with you about the alternator belt removal, since it's a mod I also wouldn't feel so confident to perform. Anyway, even considering that it's already one of the lightest versions of the car, you may eventually still find a few spots to eliminate some dead weight. For example, have you never considered a single-arm wiper conversion? I know it's a popular mod among street-racers, but it actually provides some aerodynamic advantage alongside a little weight reduction...
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I had previous experiences with single-arm wiper in the Fiat Uno, and it didn't bother me at all.
Anyway, if you would consider to make some aeromods in the 106 I'd tell you to use some lighter materials to reduce the weight penalty in city traffic, since the energy spent to break the inertia and put the vehicle running is always higher than to keep it running at a constant speed. What about a Kammback extension? You could make it for cheap using Coroplast, and if you would consider to replace the entire hatchback with a custom piece already integrating the Kammback you could reinforce it in some spots using fiberglass (or eventually some old rags soaked in glue if you would rather wanna go the dirt cheap way). |
If alternator belt removal is too harsh (totally understandable), then how about a ON/OFF switch on the alt's field wire? Only partially reduces the load on the engine, but much safer. Of course, only works with non-self-exciting alternators.
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http://oi61.tinypic.com/2wgb33p.jpg
I found out on the forums that a grill block is a nice/cheap/reasonable effective way to improve the aerodynamics of the vehicle. When looking to the front of my car I found out that there are only two small slots to provide air to the radiator. There is not really much to block :P To test it out I really must install a coolant temperature gauge first I guess. Don't want to overheat the girl. |
You can still get some improvements by getting the front bumper and grille smoothier. There's no real need for some of those gaps in the bumper and the grille.
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New record! 19,5 km/L, that's about 44,7 mpg!
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Well done! Now the warm weather has returned you will even improve on that, no doubt.
Saw another 106 yesterday; noticed the grille slots in the bumper were wider than yours (extending beyond the license plate on both ends). You better be very careful if you consider blocking them in the summer... |
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You could close it off in winter. Central heating pipe insulation / swimming pool floats are popular to close off this kind of opening. |
Hmm, my fuel economy isn't getting better. It is getting worse! Last two tanks were between the 18 and 19 km/L.. I think I'm not paying attention enough :(
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Well, I was wrong! I achieved my goal of 20 km/L. I actually made 20,5 km/L. That's about 47 mpg I guess :D
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That's great!
What is your driving conditions? |
Mainly speeds between 80 km/h and 110 km/h. Some city traffic and traffic jams. Last two weeks I tried to use the right gear for the right speed instead of trying to keep the revs as low as possible.
So my goal is reached. The next is trying to keep the fuel usage around the 20 km/L. It will be hard but my overall average is 18 km/L.. I have work to do! :D |
Hi all! It's been a while since I posted an update.
The average fuel consumption is now 18,5 km/L. The last tank was way above 20 km/L, the calculation was not that accurate because the car was on a slight slope so it was not filled properly I guess. But even if I could fill up with 5 more liters it was a great tank, the best untill now! Without the 5 liters it was 24,6 km/L, that is about 56 mpg. I also save of money by doing most of the maintenance myself. Last weekend I did an oil change and I serviced the brakes so all is going smooth now :). It took some time but the costs were below the 50 euro's. |
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