This was a thread over the weekend, so I thought I'd repost this from 23
Mar 1998, with a few minor editorial changes.  It's in the archives, and
now its in there twice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks to those of you who participated in the Vanagon MPG survey.
Here are the results in summary form (You may have to clean up the table
a bit to suit your email package):
---------------------------------------------------------
Summary Results:  MPG
Automatics:     City    Highway
   Vans                 17.5      19.5
   Westfalias       16.5    17.4

4 Speeds:       City    Highway
   Vans                 17.4     22.4
   Westfalias       18.0    20.5

5 Speed Syncro 4WD  City        Highway
   Vans                            17.3    20.0
   Westfalias                 12.0    17.9
---------------------------------------------------------
Summary Results:  L/100 Km
Automatics:     City    Highway
   Vans                  13.5    12.1
   Westfalias        14.3    13.8

4 Speeds:       City    Highway
   Vans                  14.0    10.7
   Westfalias        13.2    11.6

5 Speed Syncro 4WD  City  Highway
   Vans                            13.7  11.8
   Westfalias                  19.6   13.3
-------------------------------------------------------
There were 28 usable responses:

# of vans in survey:    Vans    Westfalias
Automatics                      2       4
4 speed manual               7       8
5 speed syncro 4WD     5       2
------------------------------------------------

All respondents were for gasoline engines.  One eurovan, one bus, one
response did not break out city & highway, and one response did not
include any MPG data; these were not included in the averages but are
reported with the raw data.

The results put numbers to common knowledge:  Automatic
transmissions consume more fuel that manual transmissions; 4WDs
consume fuel more than 2WDs; heavier vans (Westfalias) consume more
fuel.  I tried to report the numbers in a way that allows each of us to
compare 'our' van with others of like kind.

We could all take driving lessons from Sudhir Desai's mother. Sudhir
reported 27 and 30 MPG (7.8 & 8.7L/100 km)!  When I asked him about it,
he responded: "my mom owned the van before i did, and kept it in perfect
running order, and she got 27 mpg averaging both engines the van had
in it's life. the 30 mpg was her best effort with the first engine that was in
our van driving 900 miles to Gemantown, Tennessee."

We are all aware that averages, by their nature, aggregate disparate
information.  Many people noted differences in summer and winter
driving (I used mid-point #s in these cases); vans in Florida being
compared to vans in Alberta might not be fair; and we all have different
driving habits.  For those who find meaning in the numbers, I am glad to
have done the work.

On a personal note, my motivation in doing the survey was to get the
numbers to compare the fuel consumption of my newly purchased
Canadian '91 Westfalia Syncro that is wearing a Weber 2 barrel
progressive CARBURETOR (it's a long 'engine box fire' story).  In June, I
plan on driving from Halifax to Michigan and back, I'll report on my fuel
consumption, gotta beat 27 mpg (let's see:  80 psi in the tires, 40 mph,
hook up the propane tank to the intake manifold....:-).......)

Malcolm Stebbins