2008 CanadianDriver 50-litre Challenge

[Juke1]

Why don't they just invent an atomic measuring device that can break it down to the subatomic particle level so we can more precisely measure how much gas is being used?

As each driver's weight changes during the course of the day, they will be forced to either consume liquids to compensate for weight loss, or have appendanges amputated to compensate for weight gain.

The fuel will come from one source and be carried in a tanker along the route.  To ensure no tampering takes place, highly trained special forces soldiers will be hired to observe the tanker, the cars, and the drivers.

The driving style of each driver will be monitored by computer for throttle position, braking usage and steering angle deflection.  As each car moves over a determined section of highway, this data will be compared, and drivers deviating by more than 2% of the standard determined by the average of the group, will be "removed."  (by the Special Forces team...)

All cars will have their OE tires replaced with identical models.

To ensure no "ringers" from manufacturers, all cars will be car-jacked from little old ladies fitting an identical demographic to ensure consistency.

...And most of you will still rag on about the results...

Cute...

It's  just that for some of us who are accustomed of testing the correct way we find this method rather odd.  I worked in service garages for many years and often had to do gas tank replacements, I know how much fuel is in there even on the empty mark.  We own a car in this list and already know that it does better than that.

[Minou]

9th generation Corollas were known to hold close to 58 liters.

What? My dad has a 9th gen 'Rolla, and he thought for the longest time the car only had a 45 litre tank, cos he could never get more than 42-43 litres into the thing, even when he ran the car till the gas gauge was pegged on "E."

On my '05, when the low fuel light lit, I'd put only 40 liters.  I once drove 104 km on the highway with the light on and put 47 liters in.  An act of faith I would'nt have done had I not known beforehand that my car could swallow more than its stated 50 liters.

So to conclude, this test is more of a range test where the cars with the bigger tanks stand more chances of winnning although I fully admit the Corolla and Civic to be the more economical of the group.

Can you show me where you found out that 9th-gen Rollas can take 58 litres of gas? I have a hard time believing that.

If you search around the Corolla forums, you might find it.  When I had my '05, there was a gentleman who put his numbers on the table and who routinely put between 55 and 58 liters in his Corolla.

[wing]

Gas pumps are corrected to a temperature of 10 degrees C so wouldn't that throw everything out the window anyways?

[kenm]

I'm a regular visitor to Canadian Driver and a big fan of the site. I don't follow this forum, but I could not let this one go by without comment. I remember reading the first 50L challenge, scratching my head at the numbers, and moving on. I have read this one carefully, and I swear that you guys are smoking something very powerful. A 2700 lb. Corolla 4AT would be lucky to average 58 (imp) MPG if it was pushed off a cliff. I put 52.827 litres of regular in my Corolla yesterday. I'm looking at the receipt right now. I have put 54 litres into that same tank. I have driven said Corolla for many tanks and grand total of 108K without ever running out of fuel. There is a very possible error of 10% in this test and potentially a 15% error. It's incredible how much logistical effort you guys expended on this feature, and yet managed to completely screw up something as fundamental as the fuel measurement. It's this simple:
1. Fill all cars to the brim from the same pump.
2. Drive X number of kilometers, returning to the original gas pump.
3. Fill all cars to the brim using said same pump.
4. Do some grade 5 math.
5. If X kilometers is not considered enough for a fair test; repeat and average (Caution: may require grade 6 math).

To all people who have already posted some version of this method: Gold Star
To everyone else: Go back to what-ever-it-is-your-smoking.

KenM

P.S. Low fuel warning lights have the repeat accuracy of a blind shot putter.

[Juke1]

I'm a regular visitor to Canadian Driver and a big fan of the site. I don't follow this forum, but I could not let this one go by without comment. I remember reading the first 50L challenge, scratching my head at the numbers, and moving on. I have read this one carefully, and I swear that you guys are smoking something very powerful. A 2700 lb. Corolla 4AT would be lucky to average 58 (imp) MPG if it was pushed off a cliff. I put 52.827 litres of regular in my Corolla yesterday. I'm looking at the receipt right now. I have put 54 litres into that same tank. I have driven said Corolla for many tanks and grand total of 108K without ever running out of fuel. There is a very possible error of 10% in this test and potentially a 15% error. It's incredible how much logistical effort you guys expended on this feature, and yet managed to completely screw up something as fundamental as the fuel measurement. It's this simple:
1. Fill all cars to the brim from the same pump.
2. Drive X number of kilometers, returning to the original gas pump.
3. Fill all cars to the brim using said same pump.
4. Do some grade 5 math.
5. If X kilometers is not considered enough for a fair test; repeat and average (Caution: may require grade 6 math).

To all people who have already posted some version of this method: Gold Star
To everyone else: Go back to what-ever-it-is-your-smoking.

KenM

P.S. Low fuel warning lights have the repeat accuracy of a blind shot putter.

Yes Sir, the one and only method to measure.


P.S. Low fuel warning lights have the repeat accuracy of a blind shot putter.

You would be amazed at what comes out of an empty tank!!

[rrocket]

P.S. Low fuel warning lights have the repeat accuracy of a blind shot putter.

Agree with most of what you said but this:  In my Echo (2000) and my Supra (1994) when I fill as soon as the light comes on it's the same.  Every time.  Especially the Echo, since I always fill it full.  It's dead accurate. My Lexus and Import Queen's Lexus the same thing. I can't speak of other's cars here..but the car's we've owned..the low fuel light is dead accurate.

[airbalancer]

I wonder what method they use in Nascar to fill the cars with fuel mmm

I would still go with the PT 878, but at over $10gs each it could get costly
The smallest line I have used it is 1/2 copper
I should find if it can go smaller

[quadzilla]

Looks like the article made it to Autoblog Green.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/25/canadian-50-liter-challenge-finds-the-most-efficient-compact/

[Hyksos]

Looks like the article made it to Autoblog Green.

Snowdog is dead on. This test is meaningless. They don't really know how much gas is in the tank at the beginning of the test or even at the end of the test. What kind of crazy person would take their numbers over the numbers of the EPA?

Canadian Driver should really be lambasted for this kind of puke.

The more you'll do headline, the more you'll lose credibility.

[cruzzer]

An impressive result for the Corolla, especially with an automatic. Too bad it's such a boring car to actually drive. Now that we know the Civic and the Corolla are the 'kings of economy' (in their segment), it might be interesting to pit an automatic and a manual version of EACH of them in an extensive test (acceleration as well as fuel economy, as well as a longer term fuel economy test). I have a difficult time believing that in day to day driving, that the automatic beats the manual. BUT, if it does, it's worth knowing. Still though, you have to balance even improved fuel consumption with acceleration. My guess is that the manual will beat the automatic version of each car to 100kph by about at least 1.5 seconds. Kind of like buying the 1.8 litre engine and getting 2.4 litre performance. For that I'd sacrifice a small amount of fuel.

Unlike some others on this thread, I don't have any trouble with the cars selected. What I do find interesting is how both the Honda and the Toyota did as well or better than their Transport Canada numbers, whereas many others did MUCH worse.  The Focus and the Mazda come to mind. And how can the VW be that bad!? Almost 3 litres more per 100 km that the winner!!

[libraman]

Cruzzer here are some numbers that I would put more faith in. They measure the actual amount of fuel burned by these cars over given distances. The highway numbers are pure highway and the 150 mile trip numbers are more mixed (I believe highway and some stop and go). They are from real world tests actually carried out by Consumer Reports. They are the same car and transmission used in the 50 litre challenge tests. I have converted the CR test results from US mpg to litres/100km:

    highway  150 mile trip               
Corolla   5.88      6.03
Civic   5.47      6.91   
Mazda   5.60      6.53
Elantra   6.53      7.35
Sentra   6.91      7.35
Spectra   6.53      8.11


Makes you wonder if the Corolla really does have a 58 litre tank as previous posters have noted.

Then again I believe Toyota sponsors this site...

[Leighow]

What a wonderful review from Canadian Driver.

Toyota is amazing -- as is the Civic.
We were well aware of this when we bought our best car ever - a 2007 Mazda 3.

The Mazda can do better than this on the highway.
I used to study our car's Speed vs Fuel Consumption on its built-in Trip Computer. Consumption would soar to 12 L/100  as I went up hills and drop to 2L/100  coasting down a hill.

The Maxda 3's sweet spot was at about 80km/hr
(Sorry, I do forget that number!).  Even so, heading back into Canada thru NY or Vermont while sharing the road with SUV's et al ...our speed & fuel consumption would soar!. I have stopped worrying about gas mileage -- but yesterday it cost $61 to "top-up".

Bravo Toyota.

[drederick]

Appologies if this has been discussed previously, but what exactly was asked by each manufacturer to supply? did you ask for the most fuel efficient powertrain combo? It seems strange that anyone would supply anything but the best FE combo for a test of FE, right?

Take the G5 for example, the manual is rated at 5.9l/100kms hwy versus the auto at 6.4

Also, I thought it was strange to have received a manual Civic as i thought the auto was better on gas. But, there appears to be a difference between us and CN FE estimates and in Canada the manual appears to be the most efficient - is there an actual difference between the us and CN auto cars?

US:
5-Speed Manual (City/Highway/Combined) 26/34/29
5-Speed Automatic (City/Highway/Combined) 25/36/29

Canada:

Automatic transmission (City/Hwy)  8.2/5.7   
Manual transmission (City/Hwy)  7.4/5.4

[johngenx]

The Corolla is rated for about 5.5L/100km on the highway by TC. I have been mathcing or slightly beating that on our own trips to the mountains and back (so no elevation effect) and by sticking to the posted limit, using the cruise and minding my habits while driving through towns, I've come very close to 5.0.

4.9 would be difficult, but not impossible.  My 5.2 readings include travelling on 110km/h divided highways.  If I were able to take an alternate route with a 90 posted limit, I think in the 4's would be possible.

[blevan]

A 4.9 L/100 km round trip seems contestable on the Corolla.

On a trip from Ottawa through Montreal through that exact same route, 5 speed MT, but probably speeding a tad more than the convoy, and with a slight cross-wind (but it was more downwind than cross actually), I would have averaged slightly more than that, say 5.2 L/100km.

I can see myself cruising on the highway at 100 km/h using up 5.0 L/100km, but ONLY in tailwind conditions.  The minute there is a bit of a headwind component, that FE gets shot up waay more closer to 6.0L/100km, and does worse the minute speed starts approaching 120km/h.

For the sake of it I once drafted a Greyhound bus at 115-120km/h giving it about 2-3secs worth of distance.  Not the safest thing to do mind you but that got the instantaneous fuel consumption down to 4.5L/100km consistently.  I have to wonder in this 50L challenge whether the car convoy were actually close enough to each other to draft each other?

Was the corolla always stuck at the back of the draft train?

[blevan]

I have a difficult time believing that in day to day driving, that the automatic beats the manual. BUT, if it does, it's worth knowing.

At least in older generations, the 5MT Corolla will beat the 4AT mileage in city driving (if that is what you refer as day-to-day driving) because upon acceleration there is very little losses on the MT, except at the very start when the clutch is slipping.  In the automatic version, much of the power is lost through torque converter in city driving.

In highway driving it is a different situation, because at those speeds the torque converter goes into lock-up and power is transferred from engine to wheels in basically the same way as it is done on MT.

What I have found in general on Corollas is that the 5SPD MT is geared with close-ratio between gears, providing with pretty good acceleration and it makes the MT model much more fun to drive than the AT which seems to lack some juice...But that doesn't mean that the 5th speed on the MT is more fuel-efficient than the overdrive of the AT.

I can only compare with 9th gen MT and 8th gen AT, but at 100 km/h the MT is geared in such a way that the engine revs at 2600rpm exactly at 100km/h.  The 8th generation AT, on the other hand, revs MUCH lower than that.  That might explain some fuel efficiency differences on the highway.

Actually I would be interested to find out from someone here what their RPM is displaying at 100km/h in lock-up situation.

[sirAQUAMAN64]

Wing saw your Mazda3 Sport (can't miss that fin) in the background and you proclaiming 'This Crayola is amazing' on Motoring 2008's segment. Unfortunately, they also have your name on the bottom as another gent comments two or three times.

Anywho, looking like a fun road trek - if you can stand keeping to the speed limit and keeping your distances intact.

[wing]

Hey cool didn't notice my car on the show.

But yes they put my name under Jim Kerr's commments....

[wing]

Also the comment felt so cheeze because they asked me to fake it.... haha

[mrthompson]

It ain't easy being cheesy...