Hello everyone.
My name is Gustavo, I'm 25 and I'm from Portugal.
I had an Honda Concerto 1.6i-16 for about 3 years until it was destroyed in on the 16th of February 2007. The car had been bought new in 1992 by my father and he gave it to me when he bought the Accord diesel. I was 8 at that time and I grew up in that car.
After the Honda was gone, I bought a Rover 216 Coupe. It uses the same platform and engine, but the bodyshell had some modifications... one of it is that it no longer is a 5 door hatbachback or a 4 door saloon... but a 2 door beautiful Coupe. Since I was a child I loved that car... it was a Coupe version of my Concerto but with a british suit. I was sure I'd never have one because I wouldn't trade my loved Concerto.
The first time I calculated my fuel efficiency with the Honda Concerto I got... 16L/100 kms.
True! I was barely getting 400 kms out of a fuel tank. In a few months time I was squeezing about 7 L/100 kms, although it became an habit to do almost 8L/100kms. I got this car in April 2004 and this was on that summer. By that time I kept a record of my fuel usage in my computer... only much later I knew about Spritmonitor.
I not only changed my driving habits but I only read and researched a lot on how to make my engine more efficiently without modifications... only with proper maintenance, beyond what most people would do.
For those of you who are familiar with Honda's, the Concerto had a D16A9... the Coupe has a D16A8, which adds a catalyst converter and a O2/Lambda Sensor... yes, it's more efficient. The exhaust manifold in the D16A9 was 4-2-1, but the D16A8 uses 4-1. I think it probably gets better figures on exhaust emissions.
I live in Coimbra, where I study Management. My hometown is about 100 kms away. I usually spend the week at Coimbra and go back to Viseu in the weekend. The speed limite between these two cities is of 100 km/h and I usually drive between 90-100 km/h.
During the week I don't need the car to attend class as I live very close to the university.
50-60% percent of my driving is travelling and the rest in town. These will vary a lot... some weeks I'll do 50 kms, others I'll do 200 kms.
I only use A/C in the summer time... in winter it will be pretty rare.
I rapidly got my fuel efficiency to double... going from 16 to 8L/100 kms in about two months.
After that I tried to recover lost efficiency of my engine. My car had about 160.000 kms so I believed it couldn't be at 100% efficiency. I heard about carbon build-up and stuff...
I started trying fuel additives (injector cleaners, for example), carb cleaners, and I got a OEM replacement K&N air intake filter. I also raised the pressure on my tires. This was still with the Concerto.
I repeated everything with the Rover and went even further:
- I changed my PCV valve;
- thermostat (my thermostat was cooling in excess... in fact, so was the one in the Concerto.... only some months ago I was sure about that);
- changed rotor and distributor cap;
- new spark plugs.
Besides the air intake filter, all other changed parts are original.
To my big surprise, some weeks ago I achieved 6,02 L/100 kms over 1700 kms. With all these changes it gets easier to make a fuel tank last longer.
I hope I can learn a bit more here about fuel efficiency and I'm always glad to help.
Today
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