While reading a press release about the new City Rover I noticed that there wasn't any information about MPG. So I went looking on the internet, after looking at a few pages I found out.
37.9mpg combined and 46.6mpg extra urban with 167g/km for CO2 emissions.
I did some maths and....
10,000 miles in a City Rover costs £911.60 at 37.9 MPG combined
10,000 miles in a Toyota Yaris costs £685.50 at 50.4 MPG combined
Is this MPG figure for the City Rover right ? If it is should they be allowed to market a modern car thats this bad ?
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All I can say is that Mrs helicopter drives a Yaris and IMO its a great little car. The mileage computer does generally show over 50 mpg when she drives it and then helicopter junior (autogyro) gets the leaden right boot going and rather spoils the figures.
I really would like a British Car to do well but if the above figures are correct thats a 30% difference on fuel costs and I can't see myself buying British.
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It does have an engine that's 40% bigger though (if we're talking about the Yaris 1.0)
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I am - although I I don't know what model Carl_a was using to work out his figures
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You can us the 1.3 or the 1.0 according to the Toyota web site they do the same mpg. I was only using the Yaris as an example, every small car seems to do better MPG than the City Rover.
I would also note that the City Rover should be lighter than all the other cars because it does not have much equipment (less airbags, power steering, ABS + loads of other things).
I don't like to bash a British company, I would like them to do well.
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The Yaris is a very light car - can't find figures on the Rover website (which is useless in Netscape) but the Yaris is only ~750kg, giving a pretty good power-to-weight ratio. Also, the more modern engine means power is delivered over a wide rev band.
A further point here is that the CityRover only has an 8 gallon fuel tank, giving a 300 mile range on the combined cycle, compared to the 10 gallon tank and 500 mile range of the Yaris...
It quite probably compares well to other cars in the sector, but the Yaris is a pretty good piece of Jap engineering...
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Nice to see that knocking is alive and well on this thread and another...
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On a Yaris 1.3, mpg is more like 40mpg in mixed driving and perhaps around 45mpg on very gentle motorway runs. I think you'd be lucky to get 50mpg average - whatever the figures might say.
Combined mpg figures are only a rough guide - some cars are spot on, some cars exceed them, some do much worse.
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"On a Yaris 1.3, mpg is more like 40mpg in mixed
driving and perhaps around 45mpg on very gentle motorway runs."
Spot-on.
"500 mile range of the Yaris"
We have to fuel *far* more often than this.
"The Yaris ... pretty good power-to-weight ratio."
It's not significantly slower than my IS200 for urban driving.
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"500 mile range of the Yaris" We have to fuel *far* more often than this.
Very true unfortunately. I find the warning light comes on with >10 litres left in the tank so I end up only doing 300-350 miles between fills. Still, my point was that the City Rover has a tank 2 gallons smaller and gets consumption that is something like 20% worse according to the official figures.
(And yes, I do appreciate that the figures can be miles off - I tend to average 40-45 in the Yaris with a mixture of 2.5 mile runs to work, shorter runs to the shops and the odd longer trip)
"The Yaris ... pretty good power-to-weight ratio." It's not significantly slower than my IS200 for urban driving.
Around town it's great. Even on the motorway with one passenger it's pretty good as long as you keep fairly near the speed limit. Suffers a tad with more than three or four on board though.
Granted the City Rover will have a better engine, but my old Tipo had a worse power to weight ratio than the Yaris yet it didn't feel too underpowered. That was a 1.4 as well, although others have commented elsewhere on the age of some Fiat engine designs.
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For comparison I struggled to get 42mpg in an old style Micra (listed as 47mpg combined) but easily average 47mpg in Summer and 42 mpg in Winter in a Ford Ka (listed as 42mpg combined).
I think as a car ages so the mpg reduces. That might explain my Micra/Ka experiences (old Micra, new Ka). Also as noted weather conditions can make a signficant difference. The latter probably depends on the nature of the engine though.
Also PAS seems to reduce mpg by about 5mpg (at least it did on the Ka). If the City Rover does not have PAS then 38 mpg combined is poor. I think the old Skoda Felicia was about the same as it had an old engine.
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Personally I've not been able to measure any reduction in MPG in any car I've had as they've aged (although I've never had a new car so maybe I've missed some of it)
MPG is so influenced by driving style that it's difficult to get an accurate comparison between cars (eg my old AX did 48mpg when I drove round the streets of Swindon but 62mpg when I moved house and spent all my time on the motorway) In addition some cars cope differently with different styles.
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Autocar has given its opinion of the City Rover in today's issue.
HJ
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Having bought todays Auotcar and reading between, on, and over the lines it doesnt appear to have many redeeming features worthy of its excessive price tag and poor dynamics.
Oh and the dealers wont even discount apparently...
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I bought AutoCar today and they rather liked it according to them.
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Read exactly what they say. Tell me if there is more positives than negatives.
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I'm back, well I hate to say this but this week I've seen and drove the new Fiat Panda. And I have say that the Rover has not got a chance!
The Panda is far better with its refinements ie: Electric sunroof on certain models, fitted radio/cd (not a retro fit), climatic heater controls on certain models, for less money.
Autumnboy
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