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False economy examples


FindernRam

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My car has one of those automatic engine off things for when you are at lights or stuck in traffic. Supposedly to save on fuel and pollution.

Yesterday after covering 17000 miles it informed me that this essential gadget had saved me 60 miles worth of fuel, or just over a gallon and a quarter.

For this planet saving amount I've been lugging around a double size battery, a beefed up starter, various sensors and wires. In weight alone I would have saved more fuel by not having them, let alone the extra energy used in creating them!

What examples do you have of false economy?

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18 minutes ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

Buying any tools from Aldi. Use them once, bin them

Binning Aldi tools when they’re mostly have 3 year warranty. Take em back for a refund.

My paddle mixer and belt sander is still going strong after over 5 years. ??

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2 hours ago, FindernRam said:

My car has one of those automatic engine off things for when you are at lights or stuck in traffic. Supposedly to save on fuel and pollution.

Yesterday after covering 17000 miles it informed me that this essential gadget had saved me 60 miles worth of fuel, or just over a gallon and a quarter.

For this planet saving amount I've been lugging around a double size battery, a beefed up starter, various sensors and wires. In weight alone I would have saved more fuel by not having them, let alone the extra energy used in creating them!

What examples do you have of false economy?

You obviously don't spend much time stuck at traffic lights or in jams then I'd hazard a guess.  All motorway driving?

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30 minutes ago, Boycie said:

Don’t you have to apply the hand break and put into neutral for it to work?

Seems a faf to me.

An old one of mine used to but the last one just needed brake & clutch down if you're waiting at a junction.

With automatics you just need to stop with your foot on the brake for it to cut off.

My new car (automatic BMW) has this feature but also has a thing where if you're driving at any speed and take pressure off the accelerator, then it must effectively go into neutral and coasts - to save fuel. The engine revs drop to tick-over speed.

Which is fine, but I wasn't warned about it and it took a little while to get used to not being able to rely on any engine-braking if you take your foot off the power to go round a bend or down a hill etc.

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1 hour ago, Inglorius said:

You obviously don't spend much time stuck at traffic lights or in jams then I'd hazard a guess.  All motorway driving?

No! I'd say it was almost classic mixed motoring, about 1/3 on motorway (with jams) 1/3 round town and 1/3 wandering round scenic areas. It does tell me how long its been active on a typical drive, like a trip into town typically is about 3 minutes switched off, but I found buried in the menu one day a how many miles you saved since new.

For @ Boycie in my car you just have to be in neutral with clutch up. Pressing clutch to go into gear starts it up again. No faf at all, barely notice it working.

1 hour ago, David said:

Android phones 

Nah! Anything with i-xxxxx ? except you could never describe that as economic.

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stop/start technology is not for fuel saving, it's for environmental reasons. Mainly inner city pollution prevention.

You can turn most of them off.

But you burn more fuel starting an engine, than you would leaving it ticking over for 10 seconds.

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Recently I had some gardening to do. Got quoted £150 for it. Thought, sod that, I’ll do it myself. Me and the wife took a day off work to do it. Once we’d treated ourselves to a dominos, and a massage each to recover from the back breaking work, not to mention the lost wages, it probably cost us a minimum of £300. 

Lesson learnt. 

I was on an army weekend a while ago, and a staff sergeant told me his wife wanted him to paint his kid’s bedroom that weekend. But he would earn about £300 for being a staffy with the army for the weekend. So he did what he enjoyed, paid a painter and decorator to do the painting. The room got painted, probably to a more professional standard, a decorator was gainfully employed, and he ended up quids in. Everyone’s a winner. 

The moral of of the story is, it’s almost always a good economy to get a guy in. 

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1 hour ago, Moist One said:

stop/start technology is not for fuel saving, it's for environmental reasons. Mainly inner city pollution prevention.

You can turn most of them off.

But you burn more fuel starting an engine, than you would leaving it ticking over for 10 seconds.

That was my understanding.

I have the auto version, so it kicks in whenever the car comes to a halt (assuming engine temp and battery is all up to temp/power, of course).

Unless I'm surrounded by crowds of pedestrians, I always switch mine off (so the engine continues to run).  Main reason is because I just find it so bloody annoying!

It does auto re-set each time the ignition is switched off/on though, so it normally takes a "stall" before I remember to cancel it again!  

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