Gas Milage

[Aldwyn]

Is it just my car, or do TR6s generally eat gas?

BEAUTIFUL day here in central Maryland, so I took the TR into work this morning. About to take her back out for some errands! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

For a round trip of 26 miles, the car ate a hair less then a quarter tank of gas!!

Is that normal?

Thanks!
Aldwyn

 

[bobh]

Aldwyn,
That's a tough question. I've found over the years that all cars get tremendous mileage after filling them to the brim. As the tank empties the mileage drops drastically.
Sorry, I'm poking fun at gas gauges. For as many years as cars have has gas gauges they still are no more accurate than a scud missile.
How much gas did your gauge indicate when you started on the drive? If it was under 1/2, the apparent consumption may be horrible. This is due to the inaccurate nature of the sending unit. In reality you should have used a little over a gallon, possibly 1 1/2 gallons if you were putting your foot in it pretty well.
The best way to determine your mileage is to fil the tank to the brim, record the number of gallons and the miles. Next time you fill it do the same thing. I emphasize filling it to the brim (or as near as possible without overflow) so that you have the same amount each time you fill the tank. Do this for a couple of tanks and calculate your mileage.
Modern gas pumps deliver gas much faster than they did back in the days when the TR6 was king. I find they hit the auto shutoff well before the tank is full. It's hard to get some pumps to deliver a trickle so that you can fill our cars without splashing gas out of the filler neck.
On my TR6 when the gas level is maybe 1/2 of an inch lower than the bottom of the filler neck. It will still take well over a gallon. Once I milked a pump slow enough to put in 2 more gallons. That's over to 15% of the capacity of the tank.
If you do not fill the tank entirely you will never get an accurate mileage figure.
Yu should get around 20 maybe up to 25? on the highway at 55mph.
I see you have OD. You should get closer to the high number on the highway.

 

[69tr]

I have overdrive and I got about 27mpg the only time I checked. That drive was a mix of a little city driving and a lot of beautiful SW Virginia back roads.

 

[eejay56]

By tracking over time through several tanks of gas you can get a fairly accurate figure. My 1500 Spit with no OD will get 25 mpg if I'm very careful. Normal fun driving I get about 20.

 

[MadMarx]

A good TR 6 needs about 26-21 mpg
A TR 3/4 a little more than that.

But it depends on how you drive.

I.E. my race car needs on normal roads at cruise speed (90mph) 21 mpg and on the race track up to 5 mpg.

 

[Aldwyn]

When I left for work, the tank read little under 3/4. When I got home this evening, it was 1/2.

I have been planning on checking how much I am actually getting using the methods above, but keep forgetting. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif This swiftly dropping needle has brought it back to mind again! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

The drive is mostly highway, and I was using OD most of the way there.

On the way home, I took the "long route" down some treed drives, and twisty roads... adding about 4 extra miles to it (included in my estimate above of how much I drove).

 

[Tinster]

Crypty got 15 months from one tank of gas.

d

 

[Aldwyn]

Braggart!

/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

I thought about you today, Dale... I was driving down Oakland Mills road, though the farmland (some of the last left in Columbia). Maybe I should take a picture of the "Oakland Mills Road" sign for you next time. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

 

[Tinster]

Aldwyn:

Please tell me that beautiful stone Christ's Church
has not been torn down for condos?

I fondly remember Oakland Mill road before ANY
development.

d

 

[Darwin]

With my spitfire filling the tank to the top of the filler can lead to incorrect readings. I have to bounce the back of the car several time to release trapped air in the tank. Bounce, fill, bounce fill until full. I have managed to get up to 2 gallons extra in that way. With my engine being almost toast I was getting about 20-24 miles a gallon. I hope for much better when I get the car running again.

 

[swift6]

The advice to figure your mileage is good, but also assumes that your odometer is accurate. You might try to do 20 miles or so on the interstate, using the mile markers, to see how accurate your odometer is. Then compute your mileage. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

 

[AngliaGT]

On back roads it seems that I'm getting around
16MPG.On the freeway - over 20.
But,who wants to drive on the freeway?

- Doug

 

[BritBox]

I average about 20 mpg in my TR250, but I drive it hard because I can. It's my fun car, and I tend to shift around 4,000 RPM because the car and I like it that way. Sounds good, feels good. I filled the tank with premium (as usual) last week and winced at the $2.99 per gallon cost that day. Then I think about how much other forms of therapy cost and it doesn't seem so bad.

My Mazda Protege', which is almost perfect in its own completely different way, has a much less accurate gas gauge than the TR. The last quarter-tank is gone in about fifty miles. Go figure.

You need to take a closer look at your gauge, or find some other explanation for the excessive consumption. Check your oil--the fuel pump can rupture and send gas into the crankcase, and sticking carb float valves can dump gas, too.

Good luck,

 

[Paul Johnson]

Many good comments. Just to recap, you cannot use any gauge to figure mileage as they are not that accurate across the range. To calculate, you need to work from a full tank, drive to at least near empty and fill again. Then divide gallons into miles. As mentioned above also, you must know what your odometer error is and factor that in.
My 6 on a 1300 mile trip last week came in at 24mpg overall, some city and town use, mostly highway, driving at 70mph in 4th OD at 2900rpm. One particular tank was low because of a strong headwind (20mpg) and another was much higher with a strong tailwind (27mpg).

Bottom line is, if you want to know average mpg, then you need to know miles and gallons over a wide range.

 

[AltaKnight]

I think the main problem is that the tank only holds 10 or 11 gallons giving a maximum range of a bit over 200 miles - maybe! When that gauge needle starts dropping it seems to be in free fall!

Just get used to filling it every time you pass a gas station and life will be good; besides it's an opportunity for people to admire the car while you're filling it (again)

 

[Aldwyn]

Not to mention wonder at the neat way the gas goes into the back of the car. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

Dale: I am not sure which church you are refering to! What was/is the location?

You guys make a good point on my odo not telling the correct milage... I will have to test it out, as I havent done that since buying the car last year. I just know it seems to eat gas like a whale eats krell!

 

[tomshobby]

My '67 GT6 was pretty consistent at 33 to 35 mph. My '64 TR4 was not quite as good at around 30 to 32. However, my TR6 was only 15 to 17 when we first got it and later about 23-24.

I am really curious to see what it is after the engine build. I would think it will be a little better under moderate driving and considerably lower when being more aggressive.

 

[NickMorgan]

Surely your GT6 went faster than that!!! (lol)

 

[kodanja]

Me thinks he means mpg...

 

[tomshobby]

Yup, I meant mpg. Back then I was young, dumb and ....... well, I will just say it went much, much faster than that.