Fuel efficient for commuting recommendations?

infinityjrc, Oct 3, 9:06am
Hi about to start the big commute to work each day and will need to buy a good travelling vehicle that will not bankrupt me; looking at smaller body style. Any help appreciated.

motorboy2011, Oct 3, 9:10am
Motorbike

splinter67, Oct 3, 9:15am
pushbike no rego

morrisman1, Oct 3, 9:18am
what type of roads and what distance are you travelling! Are there any otheruses for the vehicle!

likit, Oct 3, 9:25am
I car pool with 2 others to Darfield each day,a return trip of 132 km.In my Commodore I'm doing 9.5l/100km,one of the other guys has a Suzuki Escudo & that is doing 10.5l/100km,the other guy has a Suzuki Iglis but he has no fuel figures.I was quite surprised how economical my 3.8l Commodore is.At 100km/hr the engine is ticking over at 1800rpm the two Suzukis are over 3000rpm,don't be fooled by a small car economy over a bigger car especially if you are doing open road driving.

donz01, Oct 3, 10:39am
I had amedium sized 1999 2.0 litre5 speed manual Holden Vectra. Left Ashburton with a full tank, travelled through CentralOtago to Wanaka then Queenstown then down to Invercargill then up to Dunedin. From memory it was around 950 km and it used 68 litres of petrol. Just worked it out now to be 7.15 l/100Km ! Vectras have a habit of breaking cambelts and also overheating. Change the cambeltand tensioner including tensioner bolt every 60,000kmnot 100k like Jap cars and for piece of mind do the water pump at the same time. Our old Vectra is now sitting at our local Holden dealer with a 4Kwindow price.

budgel, Oct 3, 8:35pm
You need to say what your budget is. Are you looking at new, near new, or genuine second hand!

dlmckay, Oct 3, 8:43pm
I used to own a little Suzuki Alto - it was about 900cc and super efficient for stop-start driving on Auckland's motorways.

Yes, it was extremely uncomfortable to drive on the open road, but for in town driving, I couldn't fault it.

20l tank (I think) and it lasted me 10 days.My commute was only 18km, but it took me an hour each time.

tuttyclan, Oct 3, 9:08pm
If thats too old may I suggest a 1996 / 97 Honda Civic or Accord.A Civic you should get around 6.5 litres per 100 and Accord around 7.5 litres per 100 on the open road.

zirconium, Oct 3, 9:43pm
OP lives in Auckland. Daily commute will average about 20 or 30km/hr if the working day is normal hours. What about one of the small fords! How much do you want to spend!

kcf, Oct 3, 9:57pm
I've got an AE110 Corolla (1995, 1500cc 5AFE engine) and that gets me 14-16km per litre of petrol that I feed it.Probably worth about $3000-$3500 or so on trademe depending on the km's.

I've had smaller cars that were more economical (Mira 20km/l) but they've tended to be quite uncomfortable on the long haul trips.

My mother has a 1300cc Sirion that will do 17km/l and is quite nice for one or two people, but they start dragging the bum on the ground if you put four in them.Probably about the $4k mark or so on trademe, again depends on km and condition.

kwaka5, Oct 3, 10:02pm
Can get 4.25L/100k's out of my GSXR1100. It's just the insurance and rego that kills yah.

thejazzpianoma, Oct 3, 11:22pm
+1 otherwise its just pointless.

1coppertone, Oct 3, 11:55pm
although its not the prettiest of cars i have a older one of these thats non fuel injected and Im geting close to 100km on 5 litres on open road driving. great for city driving but definatly not the most comfortable car to be siting in for the longer journeys.

rovercitroen, Oct 3, 11:58pm
Also, keep safety in mind if you are doing alot of open road travel. No matter how cheap it is to run its no good if your dead or disabled in an accident. What is your budget! What you need is a good balance of safety, reliability and fuel economy. As someone above said a larger car like a Commodore can be quite economical at steady open road speeds and if you have a crash you may have a chance of survival.

tuttyclan, Oct 4, 12:45am
On the other side of the coin the fuel efficiant and sometimes slower car might not be in the wrong place at the wrong time if someone plows into you when the bigger commodore might be.All cars are dangerous but only as dangerous as the nut behind the wheel.Smaller cars might be worse off in a actual accident but probably have more chance in avoiding the oncoming car or similar situation than the bigger car and resulting in no accident at all.If one wants to drive a fuel efficiant smaller car I dont totally agree its any more dangerous overall and it saves fuel.Hey you might survive in the big commie but get hit by a bus the very next day.When your time is up its up.

tuttyclan, Oct 4, 12:52am
Another thing to consider is what you want to use the car for as its no point buying a car that does 4.5 litres per 100km and expect it to tow a huge boat lol.Yes its all about balance of many things,purchase price,type of use,and running costs.

rovercitroen, Oct 4, 2:53am
I don't mean that you need a big car to be safe but even with small cars some are much safer than others.

smac, Oct 4, 6:38am
Handling is a factor, but it's not necessarily about size. You twitch the wheel of my falcon 5 degrees and you're on the other side of the road, whereas I drove the work i30 the other day and at 100kph you could pull the wheel 1/8th of a turn with no discernible change in direction. I know which of those two cars I'd want to try evasive action in.

pebbles61, Oct 4, 7:22am
Even with the insurance and rego it's still cheaper lol. What a cage driver pays in parking (assuming they don't have a spot) each year would cover the insurance, rego and a set of tyres lol for the bike.