Hello,
I've registered to this forum because fuel-efficient driving and awareness for the environment is becoming more and more important to me.
Currently I drive a Mini Cooper with a 136hp 1.5l turbocharched 3 cylinder engine and I'm quite happy with the fuel economy.
I get around 4,1 - 4,5 liters/100 km (57,3 - 52,2 mpg, depending on traffic and weather situation) when driving with 80-90 km/h behind a truck on the highway, of course with a reasonable safety distance of 1,5 - 2 seconds.
My daily commute is 10 km one way and there I manage to get 4,4 - 4,8 liters/100 km (53,4 - 49,0 mpg) with low revs (1200 - 1500 rpm, speed limit is mostly 50 km/h) and prescient way of driving during summer and 5,3 - 5,7 liters/100 km (44,4 - 41,3 mpg) during winter.
So I've already test-driven a Mirage 1.2 (or as we call in in Germany: the Space Star) and averaged about 4,7 liters (50 mpg) with A/C on and the dealer driving half of the time. The car only had around 3.000 Km on the clock and was probably not broken in. The terrain was quite hilly and I wasn't used to the car. So the conditions were not optimal. It's hard to guess what my Mini Cooper might have consumed under these conditions, but my guess is around 5,0 liters.
Since I like the Mini Cooper but I enjoy saving fuel more and more I am a bit clueless about what I should do. The Mirage would save me about 1.000 Euros per year (mostly because of less depreciation over the years) and would probably have a better fuel economy. But the Mini has the better handling (doesn't matter much because of my driving style) and definitely the better seats (they even have lumbar support) while I guess that the Mirage will cause backaches after a couple of hours (although I usually drive such long distances only on holidays, so maybe once or twice per year).
So my decision mostly depends on how much fuel I could actually save. Do you think that under the described circumstances I might see a huge improvement (at least 0,5 liters less) over my already quite frugal Mini Cooper?
It would definitely be a Mirage with the 1.2l engine (and 5 speed manual) because I want the Xenon headlights.