cruise control use more fuel?

stulid

stulid

stulid

Caporegime
Joined
17 Jan 2010
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Location
weston-super-mare
Wednesday, just got home from work, fuel light is on.

I have made this trip a thousand times before, but this week I have set the cruise control to 65mph all six journeys so far, usually just use my right foot as god intended! But still about 65mph, normally expect the warning light to come on on a thursday on my way home.

So am I being dumb? Or does it use more fuel for the same speed as my right foot?
 
Cruise will compensate for an incline and maintain speed, your foot probably won't. This should be reasonably obvious when you go up a hill on a motorway with CC on and you start catching and/or passing people left right and centre.
 
Well I certainly notice it on the uphill part of the motorway.

But there is only one uphill part on the motorway journey to work(either to work or going home)
And I reckon I'm about 45miles behind where my £20 of fuel normally gets me.

Instead of spending £25 on fuel, I think I will end up needing another £13 just for using cruise control.

My jouney is literally motorway junction/20miles/motorway junction, no A or B roads.
 
I might be way off base here but I imagine cruise is far more constant than the bursty comparative of your right foot. Latter being closer to the pulse and glide method for improving efficiency.
 
Odd, I get better MPG using cruise.

On an average run at about 70MPH using my right foot I get between 33/34 MPG. Using CC I get around about 35/36.

Not a massive difference, but it's still higher.
 
It may be the increased price of fuel also? I usually get away with £20 a week, looking at about £25ish now, and rising...

My experience with cruise always gave a higher mpg.
 
[TW]Fox;16179384 said:
Why would that cause him to cover less miles on a tank?
Click to expand...

Because if he is only putting in £20 a week, then when prices go up he will be getting less litres to £20 of fuel?
 
It completely depends on the driver.

I find cruise used effectively gets me much more consistently high mpg. But then that's because I generally drive with a heavy right foot and tend to find my speed creeping up if I dont use it.
 
GinG said:
Because if he is only putting in £20 a week, then when prices go up he will be getting less litres to £20 of fuel?
Click to expand...

What has that got to go with getting less miles to a tank full of petrol? A tankful is a fixed amount. If he's putting in £20 a week and the price goes up, he's putting less fuel in the car. He isn't doing less miles, he's putting less fuel in.
 
Well, we don't know if he's using a full tank or not. If he is using money as his guage for filling up his tank, then yes, less fuel per £ equals, fuel light coming on early.

If he filled his tank up and didn't care about how much it cost, then it becomes irrelevant as the amount of fuel is the same.
 
The fact that he mentions warning light means he's just putting £20 in, unless I'm reading it incorrectly
 
This is why you should work how much fuel you use over x amount of miles, not how much £££ you spend in x amount of miles. Prevents confusion like this :p
 
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