Cold making my Audi (95 90q) very fuel thirsty

[Louis-Alain Richard]

Just to add my recent experience about this;
I am presently evaluating a Mitsubishi Eclipse GT (3.0 V6, 200 HP, manual).  Figures for mileage are officially 21 to 28 mpg (source: Transport Canada).

Real life measurements as of Saturday and today: 11 mpg ( 100% city driving) to 17 mpg (90% highway, 70 mph). Temperature is below zero F.

You can compute your own figures.

Mandatory Audi content: when I drive this car, it shows how stable a powerful Audi AWD car is compared to a powerful FWD.

Louis-Alain
83 urQ



 -----Original Message-----
From: 	quattro-admin at audifans.com [mailto:quattro-admin at audifans.com]  On Behalf Of Huw Powell
Sent:	21 janvier, 2003 15:13
To:	John Stanton
Cc:	quattro at audifans.com
Subject:	Re: Cold making my Audi (95 90q) very fuel thirsty


> Anyone seeing drastic fuel consumption increases 15% in the recent North
> East cold snap?

I've been seeing it for several winters now?

I primarily blame reformulated gasoline, which apparently has less
energy available per gallon, and explains why it was about six years ago
my coupe started getting approximately 15% worse fuel economy in
"winter" - ie about october to april - so it wasn't all about "cold".

There are also factors you can't avoid - longer rich running while
warming up; more fuel perhaps wasted "warming up" the car for comfort;
more fuel wasted "spinning the wheels," whether accidentally or
intentionally (!); longer hours of darkness, higher heater fan speeds
and more defroster usage, entailing higher electrical demand... etc,
etc.

My 90Q got about 26 mpg or so consistently in the 'summer', and
struggles to get 22 in the 'winter'.

I still think RFG is the primary culprit, but that could just be
paranoia...

--
Huw Powell

http://www.humanspeakers.com/

http://www.humanthoughts.org/