[Kovacs]

Thought I would share my fuel economy results over the last three months driving to provide some insight as to what sort of numbers are achievable in the given circumstances. The car has about 8,000k's in total on the clock, but I don't know whether economy will change much in the next 8k or so due to break in.

First trip (the first two fuel ups) was just over a thousand k's up the coast so the figures are pretty stable and accurate. There were a few roadworks and traffic jams (at the beginning) of the first trip too and most of the driving was on the highway rather than motorways. The car was using the active cruise for most of this driving too and about 250k's were in two 110kph zones while the rest was 100kph.

The subsequent trips have been around my city and the 'motorway' driving is part motorway part main road, but there are only 5 traffic lights in 13 kilometres with predominantly 80kph zones for my usual route. The suburban driving various greatly in nature but a reasonable portion involves going into the relatively hilly CBD area which has an abundance of traffic lights.

L/100km (Indicated) is as indicated on the car which is reset each tank, while (calc) is simply the manual calculation using the litres filled and driven on the given tank. These tanks have been driven for economy to see how low was achievable in the i30.

Km's Driven   Litres Filled   Suburban     Motorway     L/100km (Indicated)      L/100km (Calc)
632.5              39.19                10%               90%              5.8                                6.196
524.4              32.39                  5%               80%              5.8                                6.177
265.4              21.01               30%               70%                7.5                                        7.916
507.1              35.68               10%               90%              6.7                                7.036


Unfortunately I haven't yet much of an experience with driving the car in more suburban environments as a portion of each fill up given the nature of my driving patterns, but when those occasions arise I'll add to the data.

It's evident the car can get really good economy when it gets to maintain a constant speed, it surprised me just how good those figures could be. On the flip side economy seems to pretty average when suburban driving is introduced given most of said driving isn't in heavy or constant start-stop traffic, not that I have done any predominantly suburban driving to validate that comment.

This is the 2.0L Auto i30 and does near bang on 2,100 RPM at 100kph. On that note, I've driven an SR and was surprised that 7th was overall slightly shorter than 6th in mine, given (1) that the gearbox should have a greater spread of ratios given the additional gear and (2) the turbo engine should better accomodate operation at lower RPM given the higher torque. I understand the SR and N-Line are more 'sporty' which may influence shorter gearing generally, but given the target audience of this car, I doubt many will be doing big pulls in the overdriven gears of 5th-7th in view of the speeds you'd likely be doing. This is more an observation than a concern and I'm sure it 99% of people won't notice nor care, just found it interesting given the potential fuel economy and NVH benefits.

[Dazzler]

Thanks for that comprehensive post. Very interesting! 

[Kovacs]

Cheers Dazzler

[mickd]

Hi,
Detailed economy notes. Good result as you got what you were drinking for 
Your 2.0 is geared for economy and suspension for comfort, 
SR , etc are targeted for a sports market, so totally different aspects .
When driven gently both will have good economy,  give them a caning and one will be doing harder and eventually will not be able to keep up.
Horses for courses.
Enjoy the  car and the forum 

[danman]

Hi Kovacs,
I am interested in an update on your economy while I am considering buying a 2018 2.0L Petrol for Sydney driving (including rideshare and deliveries).

I previously used a small SUV for rideshare which was tested at 7.0L/100km and I averaged 8.8L/100km. Can anyone help me estimate a real life figure for rideshare-like driving mostly suburban?

If I do decide on i30, I will be sure to share my results here.
Thanks in advance.

[Kovacs]

Hi Danman,

I don't do many kilometres in the car (despite being my only car) so I don't have a huge range of data. For context, including the 1,400k trip from where I purchased the car, I've done 3,200k's in 6 months. I'm not sure what style of driving you will be doing, so I'll give you some information about the two main trips I make and their respective economy. I don't drive aggressively and will coast towards a stop where possible to maximise economy and minimise brake wear. I also use cruise control a lot. Keep in mind the car still only has 8,700k's and my last car didn't fully break in until about 13,000k's, so there might be some slight fuel economy improvements yet to come. I also check tyre pressures regularly.

The 'primary trip' I make compromises the majority of kilometres I do and involves mostly 80kph zones (some 60 too) with 5 sets of traffic lights in 13k's. The primary trip gets economy of between 5.8-6.7L/100km depending on how many red lights I get and what time of day it is, but I most often see about 6.4L/100km. This trip is usually made from a cold start.

Recently I've done more city driving. I live 3.7k's from the CBD and there are about 6 sets of traffic lights in that distance from my house to where I've been going in the city and the majority of those lights are usually red ('the city trip'). With that in mind the city trip gets anywhere from 8.5-10.5L/100km depending on how many sets of lights are red. This trip also usually involves a cold start.

Hopefully that's of some assistance working out what you might get in a suburban setting, given I'm not sure what type of suburban setting you have.

Let me know if there is any other info I can provide.

[mickd]

@danman
Go for "bad", say 10 L /100km and anything better is a winner.
Wife got 6.5 - 8.5 depending on the actual flow of traffic.
You will be treating it like a Taxi /Courier so expect more than specified.
Bit hard to say really. 
Better off being comfy and relaxed as opposed to trying to save $2:00 per 100km

[galixia]

I drive from the suburbs into the CBD every day and back again. So ranges from a bit of highway to stand still traffic. I brought my car new with 15kms in March and have 11000kms now. My average sits at 7.8lt/100kms for that whole 11000kms. I don't coast up to lights or any of that sort of stuff. Just normal driving, because the other way would add 10 mins or more onto my commute, which I've tried and the saving of petrol isn't worth it.

So thats my I30 Active Auto. I was 8.2/100kms for ages and its only these last few thousand its starting to drop. I expect it will drop another maybe 0.5/100kms over the next few thousand kms up until its first service as the engine still breaks in.

[Dazzler]

I drive from the suburbs into the CBD every day and back again. So ranges from a bit of highway to stand still traffic. I brought my car new with 15kms in March and have 11000kms now. My average sits at 7.8lt/100kms for that whole 11000kms. I don't coast up to lights or any of that sort of stuff. Just normal driving, because the other way would add 10 mins or more onto my commute, which I've tried and the saving of petrol isn't worth it.

So thats my I30 Active Auto. I was 8.2/100kms for ages and its only these last few thousand its starting to drop. I expect it will drop another maybe 0.5/100kms over the next few thousand kms up until its first service as the engine still breaks in.

Interesting! That's a significant drop over time. 

[Dazzler]

I'm convinced that a K & N air filter has made a difference to my SR's fuel economy (between .1 and .2 L/100 kms) it also improves the induction noise under acceleration and also the performance slightly as well (only a seat of the pants impression)

I noticed a slight improvement by the Trip PC when I first installed it and since cleaning it up and swapping it to the wife's new Kona Turbo, I've noticed the reverse.. (MY SR has been traded on a Hybrid Camry, due to arrive by the end of August)

So be interested to see if anyone has tried one in a 2.0 Petrol (PD) with similar results.

[Kovacs]

I will at some point put a K&N filter on my 2.0L, both for the longevity and to see if there are gains of any sort to be had. I was hoping someone on the forums had done so already, just to get some impressions.

I know on my previous 1.5T Focus, the filter didn't make any appreciable difference to economy (not large enough to accurately conclude) but did improve low end response between 1,000-2,000RPM quite noticeably, so was worth it for that reason alone.

[galixia]

I'm convinced that a K & N air filter has made a difference to my SR's fuel economy (between .1 and .2 L/100 kms) it also improves the induction noise under acceleration and also the performance slightly as well (only a seat of the pants impression)

I noticed a slight improvement by the Trip PC when I first installed it and since cleaning it up and swapping it to the wife's new Kona Turbo, I've noticed the reverse.. (MY SR has been traded on a Hybrid Camry, due to arrive by the end of August)

So be interested to see if anyone has tried one in a 2.0 Petrol (PD) with similar results.

The 2lt has a whole different airbox setup to the 1.6lt T from memory, which may effect things too. On my 2lt goes through pipes to a bottom airbox/holding area, then goes through another pipe to a simular sized airbox up the top where the filter is before heading out of there and into the engine. Seems kinda silly to me to have two big airboxs in the system.

[Dazzler]

Cheers, I wasn't aware there was that much difference.  I put a K & N filter in the Wife's previous 1.6 Tourer which @CraigB kindly gave us and there was a noticeable but small difference in economy and performance.

[CraigB]

The 2lt has a whole different airbox setup to the 1.6lt T from memory, which may effect things too. On my 2lt goes through pipes to a bottom airbox/holding area, then goes through another pipe to a simular sized airbox up the top where the filter is before heading out of there and into the engine. Seems kinda silly to me to have two big airboxs in the system.

The lower box/tubing is a silencer, I had that originally on my GD but I ripped that crap out then opened up the filter box entry port to 75mm with some flexi duct routed to behind the grill.

You'd be surprised how thick the filter box collars are as well, I managed to open up the inside of the filter box exit port (engine side) by 4mm which left enough thickness for strength and helped improve the flow