Matt's ZB RS-V wagon long term review

[Anthony121]

7.0 l/100 km average in my SSV wagon from Canberra to Sydney, periods of 6.5 l/100km. Sitting on 100 to 110 km/hr where allowed. Getting passed by no one. 4 Adults on board, aircon on (middle of January). Total comfort.
Now that's good, especially since I was driving a pushrod engine car with "only" 6 gears.
We will never get this good again in our lives.
Even my old Addy used to do 9.2 l/100km on long runs, although that had been tuned.

Was the SSV based on the last 100km or last 25km setting as it is only less than 300km trip.

 

[Brettly-2008]

7.0 l/100 km average in my SSV wagon from Canberra to Sydney, periods of 6.5 l/100km. Sitting on 100 to 110 km/hr where allowed.

Hmmmmm. Cant say I've ever heard of a 6.0+ litre VE or VF achieve figures this low. I cant even get this low in my V6, not even close. 7.8 (V6) and 9.2 (V8) is the best I've seen on sustained highway cruses.

 

[wetwork65]

Hmmmmm. Cant say I've ever heard of a 6.0+ litre VE or VF achieve figures this low. I cant even get this low in my V6, not even close. 7.8 (V6) and 9.2 (V8) is the best I've seen on sustained highway cruses.

Nuff said

 

[Brettly-2008]

Nuff said

Did that also include periods of well below 100kmh?

 

[wetwork65]

Did that also include periods of well below 100kmh?

Probably was some short periods of say 95 km/h, waiting to go past trucks (in a leisurely manner). But never 20 km/h under the limit. This was way back in January, so maybe call this grandmother driving? Remember there were double fines/demerits heavily policed over this period and this does focus the minds of drivers to do exactly the speed limit, no more. Especially when you see poor sods pulled over by the police every few minutes, if you have ever driven the highway around Goulburn you will know what I mean. My poor wife had to put up with me reciting how low the average was dropping, 8.5, 8.2, 7.8,......etc
DOD/cruise control with 95 octane fuel works well in these situations.
BTW when I first got the car, I got a best of 8.6l /100km over 100 km pussying south from Perth on the Forrest Highway. This was my best until the January Canberra trip.
The point is that lots of ratios in the gearbox and lower capacity engines can only reduce consumption so far. An "ancient" pushrod V8 at low revs can be a remarkably low thirst beast and Holden did a good job on this in the VF. This is what we will reminisce on one day, even though a sewing machine motor connected to a battery is what we will be driving most days.
The Mustang example in a previous post was not as good as this, even driven carefully. The ZB V6 with ****loads of ratios may potentially drop fuel usage even lower on a similar trip to the one I have described
My photo shows current 19.9 l/100km mostly round Northern Beaches, with some M1/M2 travel. This is the normal score, using more of the quiet enjoyment of the engine.

 

[DG355]

I drove my VE SS ute Wollongong to Melbourne and nearly made it on one tank but lost my nerve with Melbourne in sight. 100kph on cruise all the way. 8.9L/100. Was on 98.

 

[StrayKiwi]

Don't think there will be much in it kos.
According to Green vehicle guide the official extra urban consumption of a V6 RSV is 7.1L / 100 km's running 91 and a 2.0 RS is rated at 6.3L / 100km's on minimum 95 Octane. 7.1 / 6.3 =12.7% more liters burned by the V6 so it will depend upon whether the premium vs 91 Octane difference is more or less than 12.7% around where you live.

Where I live the price difference between 95 and 91 is NZ$0.12 per litre. I'd need to run a few tanks of 95 to determine whether the improved mileage difference is worth an extra NZ$7.44 per fill.

 

[Brettly-2008]

I drove my VE SS ute Wollongong to Melbourne and nearly made it on one tank but lost my nerve with Melbourne in sight. 100kph on cruise all the way. 8.9L/100. Was on 98.

Yeah I find I can get in the 8s at 90-100kmh. In WA 110kmh is our predominant highway speed, so 9s is normal for me.

 

[wetwork65]

Yeah I find I can get in the 8s at 90-100kmh. In WA 110kmh is our predominant highway speed, so 9s is normal for me.

Oh and to answer the question on consumption over 25km...
Note the enthusiastic recent figure.

 

[MattSAU2XR8]

Just arrived in Alice Springs via Leeton NSW from Melbourne and now have about 3000 kms of fuel economy data collected and calculated out on paper, not relying on trip computer. Although the figures suggested by the computer were surprisingly accurate!

Around town doing short trips, eg. 10 kms per day, on ULP 91 at an average speed of about 25 kms/h economy is pretty poor at around 17 litres per 100 km. Although if only doing 10 kms per day this is only $2.50 per day...

Mix in some highway driving for an average speed of 50 km/h, still on ULP 91, and it drops to about 10.7 litres per 100 km

Get out onto the highway with car fully loaded, and cruise at between 105 and 115, still on ULP 91 and it drops to 9 litres per 100 km.

Up the speed to 135 in NT and it sits on about 9.8 litres per 100 km, so must be fairly good aerodynamically

Noticed if I dropped speed to about 85 could get usage down to about 7 litres per 100 km on dash, which is probably accurate, and robably using cylinder deactivation assuming its fitted, but not practical to drive so slow to save a few dollars an hour...

Had one long stretch on PULP 98 from a near empty tank and no effect at all on fuel economy although the engine felt a little more eager at times, or seemed to run smoother, not much in it.

So long story short:
- Poor economy if used for very short trips at about 17 litres per 100 kms, although I suspect a lot of reasonably quick cars wouldn't do well with short trips
- 9 litres is pretty good for interstate use with car loaded up, although I concede a lot of much older cars would probably be able to do the same thing


Headlights definitely better with the Osram Nightbreaker Ultimates but still not enough to be confidently detecting 'roos at night. Presently tossing up between a light bar and some LED globe inserts for the high beams. Presumably in Germany they don't have animals to worry about on the autobahn's...


Other than that car's been great so far.