I have that problem, I discovered it's a symptom of what's been diagnosed as heavy right foot

That can be cured with some minor experimental surgery. I'll just apply for a research grant for some amputation equipment and training then we'll be ready to see if it works! 


They have found that some peeps respond well to a fairly simple sound circuit that goes off when the petrol use goes up. Use a minimum amount and it stays silent, use a little more and it starts beeping at you. Put your foot down and the thing screams. Drivers either learn to reduce their fuel use or they inactivate the system.

Quote from: M3ta7h3ad on April 05, 2012, 01:10:58 AM

A lot of the 200mpg folk fit kill switches and turn off their engines to coast. Then let it bump start itself when they need power :/ seems dangerous to me so not going that far but have been changing it into neutral for the down hills.

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I think you will find its also illegal as you are not in full control of the vehicle, perhaps someone else can confirm.

As for having a kill switch etc that is just plain stupid and these people should be removed from the road.

It depends on how you define control, you choosing to switch off the engine is fine, you're still in control so I would say not illegal per se.

What is not recommended is trying to do this sort of thing in an automatic geared car, you won't get any benefits and could wreck the drive train. On a car with power assisted steering it could be near suicidal if the kill switch stops that from working.

It is also not recommended to use coasting on a road with a lot of other road users as it will affect their driving. In that situation maintaining a steady speed is more important.

Reducing speed to match trucks will save quite a bit of fuel at a cost of a little time.

The important bit in control is to minimise distraction around you so you can concentrate on driving. Doing anything other than driving can be constituted as a distraction and thus reducing your control, so turning around to speak to kids in the back would definitely count, as would eating a biscuit or smoking a cigarette. You are also supposed to have both hands on the wheel, so keeping one hand on the gear stick and rowing through the gears could be an issue too.

Although at the extreme end of coasting it has been used to achieve MPG figures of 1,500 MPG and one team is supposedly attempting to achieve 2,000 MPG.

With automatic braking systems it is expected that lorries could drive safely very close to each other in a road train system. That would save fuel for the cars behind the first one. Similarly cars fitted with self drive systems could save by driving close to each other on motorways.

If you have to slow down then costing is better than braking later. Taking your foot off the accelerator and coasting towards junctions where you have to stop or when traffic lights change from green to amber or red will reduce consumption. Trying to time your arrival to the lights changing to green so you don't have to stop completely will also help. Steady acceleration away is better than putting your foot down hard.

Turning the engine off at all whilst driving is just madness, you'll lose power assistance on the steering on most cars, servo assistance on the brakes and the ability to accelerate out of danger.

A lot of the 200mpg folk fit kill switches and turn off their engines to coast. Then let it bump start itself when they need power :/ seems dangerous to me so not going that far but have been changing it into neutral for the down hills.

I could be wrong, but don't modern engines pretty much inject no fuel in to the engine if you are going down hill and not touching the accelerator? If that is the case then keeping the engine running when in neutral would potentially use more fuel?

Not according to my mpg gauge. Does the same (shoots up to 0.4 gph rather than recording 99mpg) only no engine braking to slow you down quicker so you roll further

I think the reason they fit killswitches is to keep servo and assisted steering. No idea how they do it but they do.

I do the follow lorry speeds and also do the 2500rpm rule (typical 1.6 ltr petrol engines are most efficient around that point).

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All this effort just to save a few litres per tank strikes me as mad, and some of these ideas aren't very sensible. If you really want to save money get an old diesel veg burner, then you can drive like you stole it and it doesn't matter, none of this arsing about watching guages and needles or caressing the accelerator, dropping into neutral, etc. At some point I'll probably get another one for long trips, then I've got the best of both worlds.

I work my arse off as is, sod lining the govt's pockets for nothing!

I've yet to hear of anyone getting caught out by the tax man, they would have to be distilling thousands of litres in their shed - I've read of people filtering their own oil getting inspectors visits and they just take a look around, check there's nothing untowards going on, look at it all with honest interest then go away with nothing more said. Your average Joe will not get a second glance (you're allowed to use up to 3000L a year or something daft anyway!) so it's not like running red diesel. Also most veg oil burners are old diesels which cost nothing, I'm not sure where you got the idea from it would cost you more. The smell of cooking burgers is lovely, it made me hungry 

There should really be another term for driving with your foot off the accelerator whilst in gear, because that is not coasting really... As you say though, people should be doing the first point anyway but all those things are common sense economical driving which you or I could easily do, in fact even on top of running a veg oil motor or perhaps LPG which is still cheaper and less hassle now there are more stations selling it. If you did switch I guarantee you wouldn't care about driving like that any more, trailing lorries with no visibility and all (which sounds like great fun in the rain especially). Personally, I enjoy driving and certainly do not want to change my habits and make every journey tedium to save 50 miles on a tank though.

When I had the BMW running veg I could get to Sunderland from Portsmouth in 5 hours or under and rinse a tank of fuel without a worry about how fast I was going. My average cost of fuel for a month whilst running on veg was about £10 thanks to knighty helping me, I literally saved thousands. Last summer I ran on neat veg for months, I didn't visit a petrol station for ages! I even got given about 5 litres of 15 year old 4-star by a mate and dumped that in the tank to mix with veg at one point.

Anyway my main point was I'm all for the common sense driving but some of the the stuff beyond that is mad compared to getting a more economical car (i.e diesel if you eat motorway miles) or running LPG/veg. Actually, the only downside really to veg I feel is that you do have to do some research and plan ahead a bit when using it to make sure your car will run okay and it's harder to find places to get the cheap, larger quantities of veg oil with prices going up because people are catching on that its quite lucrative now there is higher demand. But its still way cheaper than petrol or diesel and you're not giving half to the gov. I'd much rather do that or go LPG than all this econo-driving malarky, the people fitting kill switches and things are nuts. If someone is really struggling that much with fuel costs surely its worth thinking about a real switch in either transport or fuel?