General mileage on a 35 litre tank panda

[Bonefish Blues]

By all means touch the wheels near the centre where they bolt to the hub and compare with the others - fronts will usually be hotter than rears. If a brake is binding significantly you'll immediately feel the difference in heat. I'd be a little - or maybe a lot! - reluctant to touch the face of a brake rotor or even a drum as you might get badly burned. I note you do mention this but people need to be aware that they may very well be "super hot" so hot enough that even a brief touch will burn you. (depending on how the brakes have been used but can be very hot after even quite moderate braking) Guess how I know!

Agreed - brakes are much hotter than one expects (ask me how I found out, but it seems likely in a similar way to you @Pugglt Auld Jock ) after you've been driving, and a binding brake will be comfortably hotter than the surface of the sun. (The latter may be a slight exaggeration, but I'd not be wanting to put my mitts anywhere near one...again)

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Agreed - brakes are much hotter than one expects (ask me how I found out, but it seems likely in a similar way to you @Pugglt Auld Jock ) after you've been driving, and a binding brake will be comfortably hotter than the surface of the sun. (The latter may be a slight exaggeration, but I'd not be wanting to put my mitts anywhere near one...again)

I think often hotter than an exhaust? Well maybe not the actual manifold or a cat?

 

[Bonefish Blues]

I think often hotter than an exhaust? Well maybe not the actual manifold or a cat?

...but easier to get your fingers on than any of the aforementioned. Who needs fingerprints anyway?

 

[The Panda Nut]

Summer tyres give less mpg, are you sure it's that way round

In general

In winter the engines colder for longer
Winter tyres should be designed to move around more to generate heat, softer compound with more rolling resistance

Summer tyres are normally harder rubber compound with less rolling resistance

Although different brands and models will no doubt blurry the lines


MPG normally alters between summer and winter, how much depends on journey type and how fast the blower fan is on at the beginning

Ha I wondered which one of you would spot that deliberate mistake! It is like a switch is thrown on the economy side. I run Michelin Alpins in winter and they have some chunky tread, and Continental Prmium Eco 6 in summer which are supposed to be as good as it gets, so no suprises really. The Contis are down to 5.5mm after 6 years of summer running, and the Mich are down to 7 after the same winter running. No complaints with either tyre. Once one set is worn out it may well be Goodyear Vectors which we have on Pandabird 3. They are also looking good after nearly a year, and its nice that at the moment all the tyres on the Nuttery cars are wearing down evenly. After the 169 its a joy. I did measure the Michelins last week and couldnt detect any wear at all from when they went on in October. I can see these tyres out living their shelf life. Michelin claim the Alpin tyres will clear water as well at the end of their life as at the begining. I hope I live long enough to find out. LOL

 

[Decronium]

I stopped worrying about it a while back. I think it does about 25ish. Track days are single figures.

 

[JoleePando]

@JoleePando I would also touch the wheels or brakes after a journey (brakes can be very hot).

If one is hotter than its opposite number, that tells you if a brake is binding.

Also check tyre pressures.

Even if you're doing short urban trips, 200 miles on a tank seems very low. I sometimes do a round trip of 350 miles on a tank in my 1.2

(35 litre tank = 7.7 gallons, so about 50mpg, which is what I've come to expect. My dash tells me I'm getting 60mpg+ average but it's lying.)

This is interesting. I really need to get a measure of how much I'm getting out of it approximately, but it does seem to be around the 200-250 miles mark.

Late in responding to everyone!

I've taken the car out for a spin quite a few times since I last posted. I was sitting on about 5/8 of fuel and since then it's down to 3/8 of fuel, and that's around 70 miles (50 of motorway, 20 of urban).

In terms of heating up, it does heat up within a couple of miles and remains at the halfway mark consistently after that. Is there still a chance it could be the thermostat causing the issue? Best to measure it with MultiECU?

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

In terms of heating up, it does heat up within a couple of miles and remains at the halfway mark consistently after that. Is there still a chance it could be the thermostat causing the issue? Best to measure it with MultiECU?

That sounds just as it should be. Exactly what our Becky does.

I don't worry about Becky's fuel consumption. Because she does so many really short journeys it's going to be rubbish anyway. I do keep an eye on how she's driving though. Does she run smoothly, no miss fires and pulls strongly and smoothly when needed? If in slow moving traffic I throw her into neutral and let her move along under her own momentum, if she runs along nice and easy then the brakes can't be dragging to any significant extent. For me, every journey in any of the family cars is an opportunity to do some real time diagnostics.

I run her on standard "copper core" plugs and fuel her with E10 from Morrisons or Asda with a wee splash of The Scala's Archoil AR 6900-P max https://www.powerenhancer.co.uk/product/archoil-ar6900-p-max-advanced-petrol-synthesis/. I'm not a believer in oil additives as I've mentioned before. However I do believe there is a place for good quality proven fuel additives and I buythis one mainly to protect the Skoda's direct injection engine and it's fuel system. So, as I am buying it anyway, I run some through the Panda just to help keep things clean and well lubed. Not really sure it does much good, but It doesn't do any harm for sure.