My wife has a 1.6 Corolla ADV.
We bought the car with low fuel consumption in mind.
She drives the car to work and normal shopping in a town
in the country.

We had the car serviced last week 15 000km.
The average fuel consumpton is about 8,7L/100km urban and long distances combined.

What bugs me is the 12L/100km when we drive in town only.
We took a full tank and reset the trip meter and fuel consumption meters to nil and drove the car till it was empty again.
Is this consumption normal.

I had a look on a lot of websites and they give figures of about
9L/100km for ultra urban driving.

I know that driving styles differ but something does not match.

The people at an online magazine called Canadian Driver and "Motoring 2008" (a TV program) conducted an experiment to see how far cars could travel on 50 litres of fuel.

The Toyota Corolla came out tops against 12 other vehicles in the same price range (compact sedans and hatchbacks), having travelled a staggering 1,017 km on a single tank! They drove for 19 hours; and 188 km of the distance travelled happened after the petrol light went on.

Organisers of this study tried to emulate real-world conditions as much as possible. They drove through a looped course around Ontario, changed drivers every 100 km (different weights), and "drivers even braked for chipmunks on the road".

Read more about this fascinating experiment over at CTV.ca and also check out the comments section for doubters of the validity of the study (what's new), amongst other opinions.

We've all done it - driven a car with the fuel gauge past 'empty' and hoping not to get stuck along the way. Some people aren't quite as worried because they claim that they "know their tank".

Tankonempty.com aims to demystify the mystique that surrounds this issue by allowing users to write in how far they've driven their car after the warning light goes on.

Seeing as how it's a bad idea to run your car at very low fuel levels, this site's service could prove to be beneficial. Besides, not many people are willing to get first-hand experience on how far their cars can stretch it. The validity of the data is probably questionable as just about anybody can contribute data without verification but it probably provides a good estimate.

What's the furthest distance you've driven past Empty? Leave a comment.

10 seconds. According to TheRecord.com, idling for more than 10 seconds burns fuel almost twice as fast as driving and "produces almost double the amount of toxic emissions per second than a vehicle moving at average speed." Pollution Probe of Canada have said that an average idling gas engine burns 3.5 litres of fuel per hour.

It is recommended that if your car will be idle for more than 10 seconds that you rather keep it on neutral as this rests the engine, produces fewer emissions and the car will be quiet and vibrate less.

You could even turn your engine off completely when stopped or parked for longer than 10 seconds and restart when needed. Of course when sitting in traffic or any other situation where it's not easy to determine when traffic is moving, it's probably better to put your gear on neutral. The action of turning off and starting your engine apparently does not use up more fuel nor cause wear and tear on the starter or engine as the general belief goes.  read more »

Every time there's an announcement about fuel prices I can almost feel my wallet getting tighter and vow to make less unnecessary trips. Of course that's soon forgotten as soon as the fuel-gauge dial sits on the "F" and the car feels like a python that's just eaten a whole sheep. The bottom line is that most of us dread any fuel price announcement as they always seem to increase. On the AA site it shows that unleaded 93 started a 584 c/l, up to 711 in June and a slight decrease to 690 this month. A similar tend is exhibited in other fuel types.

Listed below are tips that can possibly help you to maximise your mileage per tank.  read more »