Estimating fuel costs in the UK?
 

Hi all.
I will be touring in England and in Scotland later this year and am putting together a budget for the trip. Can anyone help me with some rules of thumb for converting miles travelled into pounds spent on petrol in the UK?
I have worked out my itinerary and know more less how many miles I will travel. I will be driving a medium-sized, automatic rental car. Now I need to know more or less how many miles to the gallon I can expect to get and how much a gallon of petrol is going to set me back in pounds.
I am accustomed to working in kilometers and litres rather than miles and gallons and I have no idea how much petrol costs in the UK so any help would be greatly appreciated.

25miles per gallon US = ~ 0.1 liter/km. At current petrol prices of about 1.04 pounds/liter, that's roughly 10pounds per 100km.

YMMV

I would figure on 5.5 pounds per Gallon = 1.55 per litre X 3.8 Average 30 mile = 40km per Gallon = 18.5p PM = 13.75p PKm

Thanks folks. As a matter of interest, does the UK work in litres or gallons? / miles or kilometers?

You buy fuel by the litre here in England, and travel by the mile.

As for converting and calculating, I have no idea - all I know is my car costs around 70 GBP to fill up and will go for around 400 miles before I have to do so again.

BTW diesel is around 1.10 GBP at the moment, petrol 1.04/05 GBP.

Hope you have a great trip anyway.

*Cogs grind in brain* Ok, so between 16 and 18 pounds per 100 miles? :)

Do you have an idea of the model of car you will be hiring? Then you can look up what mpg it gives and work it out bit better.
The UK works with miles and litres just to confuse the issue, although they still talk in terms of mpg as that is something folks understand.
Remember a UK gallon is bigger than an US gallon.

I drive a ford focus automatic - that would probably fit into your category.

It cost me £50-£55 to fill up and that will last me about 400 miles (I think that is about 700km.

Petrol is over £1 a litre everywhere - if you are in a remote area you will probably pay more. Supermarkets often sell the cheapest petrol.

I do my trip planning with <b>Microsoft AutoRoute</b>. It has spaces where you enter the car's putative MPG or metric equivalent, and the estimated fuel price per unit.

You draw your route (or just enter endpoints), AutoRoute does the fuel costing. If you aren't going to use any of its advanced GPS features, you can probably pick up a 2005 version (that doesn't have them) for $5 on eBay.

If you work on a fuel cost of &pound;1.04 per litre ((unleaded petrol; diesel slightly higher), and on an average consumption of 30 miles per gallon (UK gallon), you'll end up with just over 9.4 litres per 100 miles travelled... so if you work on &quot;10 litres per 100 miles&quot; as a rile of thumb, and then add 5%-10% on top, you'll be in the right ball park. Remember that consumption may be better if driving more on motorways, and worse if driving round town.

If you are coming from the States - be prepared for a shock - the calculation above are all very accurate but they do not prepare you for the culture shock relating to the cost of fuel -

We experience the reverse sensation when travelling in the states - the fuel seems so cheap and the cars so inefficient that the main down side seems to be having to physically pull over and fill up so often during a day long drive.

Driving a large engined car on small country roads can be a crippling experience - our Volvo four wheel drive does 10 MPG on small roads - a 180 mile trip round the English Lakes' back roads recently cost &pound;72. It hurts.

There is talk of fuel going up to &pound;1.50 a litre.

Thanks for all your responses. I live in South Africa where we have US type long, straight roads, but UK type cars. Our petrol prices are roughly half those in the UK (about 50p a litre), so that is going to be a shock.

So, I now have estimates ranging from about GBP11 to GBP18 per 100 miles. Since I'll be driving mainly on narrow, winding Scottish roads with lots of hills and stops for pictures, it would be safer to work on the higher cost for my budgetting.

Thanks all :)

Since you'll be taking so many ferries - just think of the savings. All those miles w/ NO petrol costs :)

(unfortunately, car mileage stats are calculated for &quot;city&quot; and &quot;highway&quot; driving and you will be doing neither. But you have the right idea - better than city a bit worse than highway.)

In light of recent rises in world oil prices, I am in need of an update to this thread.

What is the current cost per litre of diesel in the UK?

I will be driving a Ford Mondeo 1.8 XL diesel.

I guess GBP18 per 100 miles isn't going to cut it anymore :(

How does the fuel consumption of diesel cars compare to petrol cars?

All help greatly appreciated.

Ford says they give about 50 MPG on a combined cycle (So town and motorway driving).
I would work on it giving about 40 mpg to be on the safe side - anything better than that and you will be very happy.
I believe the AA have up to date fuel prices on their website.

Remember too that a UK gallon is bigger than a US gallon - this will affect your litres to gallons conversion.

Diesel cars tend to me more efficient than petrol cars, particularly when driving long distances at a stretch.

Diesel is now about &pound;1.34 per litre. That's about &pound;5 per US gallon or &pound;6 per imperial gallon. I have a 2 litre diesel that returns 47 miles per imperial gallon or 16.5 km/litre at motorway speeds, with AC and lights on. You will get less from an automatic. I get more than 600 miles from a tank which costs &pound;70+ to fill. More detail than that I can't tell you because I start twitching when the gauge gets low. Diesel engines consume significantly less than petrol engines but petrol is approx 15p/litre cheaper. It all depends on how far you intend to drive. Your call!

You've got to take these averages with a much bigger pinch of salt than you're probably used to back home.

You don't know what kind of car you're going to get (all you've booked is a group, and no-one's got the foggiest what'll be in stock on the day), and fuel consumption can differ considerably these days between a given Ford and its equivalent GM, Renault or Citroen model. Achieved mileage fluctuates far more here than I've found in the US (journey types and traffic congestion are as changeable and unpredictable as our weather) and driving styles can have a huge influence (I get about 10 miles per gallon more than Mrs F on one journey we often do: she just drives a great deal faster than me)

For our 1.6 Ford diesel automatic, we average 35-40 MPG over our mix of rural/motorway/urban - though a bit over 50 MPG on a typical all-motorway journey in France (where congestion's far rarer).

Budget at the inefficient end (a tad over 35 MPG) and, if it's important to you, practise high-economy driving techniques (lights off by day, a/c off, stay within speed limits, keep a good distance back from the car in front and learn to anticipate) to come out ahead.

All measurements here are in real (ie British) gallons.

Automatics are generally fuel-hungry so why not drive a manual? Much better anyway for roads that twist and turn.

And, yes, the price of fuel is horrendous, but better that way that to have it priced unrealistically low meaning people have no incentive to use less of it!

Ah, I answered your same question on GreenDragon's thread, as follows :-

Yelpir, DH (who is our driver) reckons that petrol for 100 miles costs us about &pound;10 when driving on open roads and &pound;15 when just driving around town for a week. This is for 2 people in a small (old) car with a 2L engine but for petrol, not diesel. There's a website where you can compare fuel prices at nearby garages - www.petrolprices.com - and for our postcode it shows average prices of 117.5p for petrol and 131.1p for diesel, so c.12% more for diesel. I believe fuel costs more in very rural areas, though (and on motorways), but it looks as though your estimate (of &pound;18 per 100 miles, on the other thread) should still suffice. You could try putting in the postcodes of the places you are staying to check what fuel costs round there.

Our car is automatic too.

As I expect someome has has already said, our petrol is priced by the litre too.

Thanks, all :)

I should have said that I booked a manual transmission because it was about GBP170 cheaper than the automatic. It means that I will have to do all the driving but 2nd driver would have cost another GBP86 anyway so the total saving is more than GBP250 (that alone will probably pay for most of the fuel).

All this litres/gallons (Imperial/American) kilometers/miles is blowing my mind. I have upped my GBP18 per 100 miles to GBP20 per 100 miles and am hoping for the best.

I am a very conservative driver and always stay within the speed limits. I am very fuel conscious and closely watch the consumption indicator in my car as I drive. I keep a good distance from the car in front and keep braking to a minimum, prefering to regulate speed through anticipation and use of the accelerator. I usually get very good fuel consumption on the open road but I have little to no experience of driving on narrow, winding British roads so this will be a new challenge for me :)