MPG Confusion

[bruce_19]

So I was speaking to some car friends last night and though it rather amusing that yes they know a lot about cars and how to modify them and what helps compliment each upgrade ect ect but when it came to MPG they totally got it wrong.

So talk started as it always did with them talk about 'claimed' figures ect and future plans for the cars then the time came for me to let them know what's happening with my car and I got the normal about driving an auto and it only being a 1.4 turbo. So with my quest to see what works at improving MPG we started to talk about ways of improving it and I realised that people can become confused by it.

What I was trying to get at was if you are doing say a 10 mile trip and only getting 30 mpg because of start stop traffic and your other option was a 20 mile trip but you where constantly moving and get 35 mpg they thought yeah we would always go for the better mpg. The misconception I can see nowadays is that people are so concerned with better mpg and claimed mpg that they are not looking at the real world anymore.

So lets take the 30 mpg 10 mile trip and say get 400 miles out of a tank not the best but not the worst.
Now take the 35mpg 20 mile trip you would get roughly 465 mile out of the same tank which is better isn't it???

Wrong. It may look better on paper but when I comes down to it you are spending just over 1.5 times more in the quest for seeing a better mpg figure than seeing a lower figure but in the long run you are better off doing less miles but being is start stop traffic.

I never really understood the difference till a couple of years ago speaking to my dad about it.

So the quest for a better figure might cost you more in the long run, always look at your options try them out and work out what really is better.