Heavy brick does well
 

I don't know if this belongs under "success stories" but I was kind of surprised. I have not had the car for very long, nor have I ever really driven the it without some attention to fuel economy so I don't have a baseline.

I own a '99 Chrysler Grand Voyager SE minivan, 2.4 AT, modified for wheelchair transport. The car is heavy as ... and 5 cm (2 in) higher than original due to the modification (lowered floor, car is raised to keep ground clearance), and it sports some huge mudflaps to protect some of the floor construction. I am currently on a road trip with my girlfriend to Paris, France, and it was the first leg/tank of this trip that surprised me.

This tank (total 550 km (340 miles)) was mostly "semi-highway" (Norwegian highways: low speed, hills, crests and turns all the way) at an average speed of about 80 kph (50 mph), with some lower speeds and some, maybe 20 km (12 miles) of 110 kph (68 mph). In addition, it included 3 cold starts at about 20 degrees centigrade (~70 Fahrenheit) and maybe 15-20 minutes of city driving.

This tank gave a nice fuel consumption of 7.5 l/100 km (31.5 mpg) (measured by calculating fuel filled vs. corrected odometer reading) with the car loaded to 2450 kg (5400 lbs), which is actually a bit over maximum allowed total weight for the car. With the slushbox and all the hills, I find that pretty satisfactional :) I give most of the credit to the ScanGauge II though, which allowed me to keep the converter from disengaging the lock-up most of the time.

As a side note (everything beyond this point has nothing to do with ecomodding/-driving success), the rest of the trip so far is not as impressing. Of course the fuel economy plummeted when the speeds started to exceed 120-130 kph (75-80 mph) with A/C on on continental European highways, and in some stretches full throttle acceleration from 100 kph (60 mph) to those higher speeds maybe once every minute due to traffic, but the larger concern was that the car didn't handle it in the heat of nearly 40 degrees C (100 F). We actually had the car stop twice on the German Autobahn before the local "specialists" insisted that the oxygen sensor was blown and put in a new one. The car stopped again after one more hour of driving. At that point I was certain that the cause (or more like it; the trigging factor) was the load in the heat, so with more easy driving, cruise control and lower speeds, the rest of the way to Paris was a success (apart from when I felt the car lacking power all the time in the Parisian suicide-traffic, I guess mostly due to the overloading)

Wow :eek:
We use the same van at work to move from job to job on a construction site.
Transporting from 4 to 6 adults all the time, plus tools and supply.
Lots of idling, average speed for a 8 hour day must be below 40km/hour, including 20km of highway (120km/h) from our work site to the place I work for.
We are getting from 20 to 25L/100km.

I'm glad to see its only our fault if it gets that bad of a fuel consumption, because there is a lot of Caravan on the road nowadays.

31.5? That is amazing! That's good as my 2008 Sentra 2.2L on the freeway! At least when my wife is in the drivers seat lol.

I've barely ever gotten 26 out of my Kia Sedona, but I don't have much of a baseline for it. Good going!

Goes to show euro cars usually get better than us varieties, lean burn and usually slightly less weight help a lot.

Normally that rig tops at about 28mpg US when mildly hypermiling.

Hi,

Genuinely interested and not having a go, but why would European versions of US vehicles have lean burn ? Euro cars have to have cats like US ones so not sure why (or even if) we would be blessed with this tech ?

AFAIK Euro Chrysler Caravan petrol models are identical to the US ones. We do get Diesel ones too, which most people buy. We also get Diesel Grand Cherokees and 300Cs - I can count the Hemi ones I have seen in the UK on the fingers of 2 fingers.

Cheers

Euro, Aussy and most other regions in the world have less of a focus on Nox output, a CAT is not really needed so much during lean burn events and is NOT damaged by them either, contrary to popular belief.

And lean burn isn't exactly the right word, chrysler likely has mild lean burn in certain situations, such as during decel and under very light loading, here in the US most auto manufacturers have wanted to have mild lean burn under certain situations to improve FE but our government will not allow any form of lean burn, even during decell if the Nox is elevated as a percentage. Here the motor has to cut off altogether or run at stoich, in europe the mix is allowed to go leaner during light throttle due to the lack of very specific Nox as a percentage req.

Europe especially years ago did not have such an ideotic Nox requirement. As such if the vehicle goes a little above stoich the CAT is not affected, Nox goes up a bit as a percentage and fuel use would go down.

All this said, I am going off what I was told over 10 years ago, Europe may well have adopted BS regulations similar to the US focusing more on percentage than the actual amount of emissions.

Also Chrysler may not have used any lean burn but if the past announcments from GM are an indication, a lean burn or more appropriately "an agressive engine tune" is usually offered to nations that don't have the USA like emission requirements. If you can find some of their new world platform announcements for motors you will usually see a brief blip talking about lean burn, usually just one sentence.

Overseas MPGs or Ltr/km are more important than here and the auto companies do exploit relatively minor tuning changes to run the ragged edge of what the regulations state must be there. If the regulations there allow a bit more Nox, believe me the auto companies will exploit that to have the best FE for that region.

Cheers
Ryan

I'm well at home now, and can report that the average FE for the whole trip ended at an average of 10.4 L/100km (22.6 mpg US) over 4100 km (2550 miles), but that is not disappointing as the car was loaded even heavier on the return (GF and shopping in Paris is a heavy combination :P ), A/C was used almost all the rest of the trip, and average speeds over maybe 75 % of the total distance were somewhere between 120 and 130 kph (75-81 mph).

The trip was great by the way, despite the car trouble on the way down :)

Good to see you made it safely without any major issues, that is still fairly good mileage considering you were driving a brick like a racecar :)

At those speeds you would fit right in the US on the 45mph roads :)

I regularly get 25+ when driving on low traffic interstate highways. My Grand Caravan has the 3.8 L V6. If the average speed is allowed to go over 72 mph, the fuel consumption increases dramatically. If the speed is kept near 60, mileage increases only slightly. That may be because most slower interstate driving is accompanied by traffic and construction congestion which cause more acceleration.