Questions to the 200hp petrol owners

[Anonymous]

Hello,

Firstly please ignore the username, I kinda 'pre-empted' that one a bit.

I am considering treating myself and buying an RCZ in the not-too-distant future. It is likely to be the 200hp petrol model. However, having been a driver of remapped diesel cars for quite some years now, I have got into the lazy habit of driving everywhere at not much above 2k revs and just letting the torque and turbo do all the work (the remap I currently have will pull in a high gear from as low as 1100rpm, just to give you an idea of laziness).

Now I've never driven a turbo petrol car before, only NA. How does the turbo on the RCZ petrol deliver the power across the rev band? Does the turbo allow you to pull away quickly at fairly low revs (assuming you're at or above the revs where the turbo comes online) in a medium-high gear or do they behave much the same as a NA petrol engine where you need the revs off the end of the dial (ok, slight exaggeration) for the car to shift?

I realise the simple answer to this is to go and drive one, but as the nearest dealer is a considerable distance from here and I'm also chocka with work/family stuff I just don't have the time atm.

My other question is what sort of mpg do you get from sensible driving? The book says 40.9 combined for the 200 model iirc - how accurate is that? Would I be right in thinking that low 30s on all local towny driving is about right, or more/less? What about motorway driving at say a steady 80? I read in another thread that they are really low geared and the revs are off the dial somewhere at that speed, is that correct? I'd expect that sort of revs to equate to rather eye-watering mpg figures? I don't know much motorway driving but when I do I like to cruise 80-85 ish.

Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

i have come from a 2.0 ivtec engine to a rcz and and whilst the engine is not loaded with torque peak power comes in at around 4500rpm to 5000rpm then begins to die its a very quiet engine ounce its warmed up,vut it will not compete with a remapped diesel engine

 

[pete.garratt]

Well, I've got a gt 200, so I'll try and answer from my own experiences.

How does the turbo on the RCZ petrol deliver the power across the rev band?

The power band is pretty flat, starting at about 1400rpm. There are some torque/power graphs on this forum from another user, Zombie1066. They show both standard and what can be achieved with re-mapping.

Does the turbo allow you to pull away quickly at fairly low revs (assuming you're at or above the revs where the turbo comes online) in a medium-high gear or do they behave much the same as a NA petrol engine where you need the revs off the end of the dial (ok, slight exaggeration) for the car to shift?

I find I don't need to do a lot of gear changing. I plant my foot and it keeps going & I think you might find that's a key difference. My experience of turbo diesels is that they tend to run out of steam, whereas the petrol keeps going. So, I would say you can pull away well in the conditions you describe.

My other question is what sort of mpg do you get from sensible driving? The book says 40.9 combined for the 200 model iirc - how accurate is that? Would I be right in thinking that low 30s on all local towny driving is about right, or more/less? What about motorway driving at say a steady 80?

I think the quoted figure is accurate and you will get that consumption, provided your driving style and conditions match those of the test that's used to generate the published figures. In the real world it will be different.

Here are a few examples from my own driving.

My daily commute is about 25 miles round trip. About 20 miles of that is motorway (A1M) but there are a couple of steep hills, one of which is at a point the motorway narrows to 2 lanes and there is a junction just at the foot of the hill. As a consequence, traffic up this hill can get a bit congested and you can be crawling for a mile or so, sometimes. The junction has traffic lights on the slip road to limit traffic joining the motorway, so that gives you some idea of the road conditions. The other 5 miles is on pretty flat urban roads and dual carriageways. My experienced weekly mpg ranges from 35 to 38, depending on time of year & how bad that hill I mentioned was.

On a return trip from Carlisle to Hertfordshire, the trip computer reported 51.3mpg at the end of the trip. However, this was under cruise control, set to 65mph wherever possible. This trip was over the hils to Scotch Corner (very pretty as it was a sunny day) and straight down the A1. Traffic conditions were good all the way.

I do a fairly regular trip from home to the Black Country up the M1/M6. I get mid-40s for mpg.

Just before Christmas, we had a long weekend in Germany to go to a market. This was about 1000 miles. Again mpg was mid-40s.

For clarity, my gt200 has been re-mapped - although it's not quite the same as Zombie1066s mentioned above.

I read in another thread that they are really low geared and the revs are off the dial somewhere at that speed, is that correct? I'd expect that sort of revs to equate to rather eye-watering mpg figures? I don't know much motorway driving but when I do I like to cruise 80-85 ish.

Don't think this is true. At 70mph, revs. are about 3500rpm & the rev. limiter is set at 7500rpm. OK, that's higher than you would get on a Diesel, but that's down to the difference between Diesel/petrol and will be generally true in all comparisons. Having said that, let's not forget are doing pretty well at Le Mans etc. with Diesel.

I suppose an obvious question for you in return, so to speak, is: how come you've discounted the 2l HDI engine for your RCZ? Perhaps you ought to consider testing both, if you can, although I appreciate that might be hard if your nearest dealer is bit of a trip.

Hope that's of some help.

 

[Anonymous]

i have come from a 2.0 ivtec engine to a rcz and and whilst the engine is not loaded with torque peak power comes in at around 4500rpm to 5000rpm then begins to die its a very quiet engine ounce its warmed up,vut it will not compete with a remapped diesel engine

Thanks. What is "torque peak power"? Isn't peak torque and peak power 2 different things?

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I've got a gt 200, so I'll try and answer from my own experiences.

How does the turbo on the RCZ petrol deliver the power across the rev band?

The power band is pretty flat, starting at about 1400rpm. There are some torque/power graphs on this forum from another user, Zombie1066. They show both standard and what can be achieved with re-mapping.

Yes I've been analysing his graphs. Unfortunately I don't have the old dyno graphs to hand from the diesels I had RR'd in order to compare, although of course the top end of the graphs wouldn't look anything like anyway, with it being a petrol.

Does the turbo allow you to pull away quickly at fairly low revs (assuming you're at or above the revs where the turbo comes online) in a medium-high gear or do they behave much the same as a NA petrol engine where you need the revs off the end of the dial (ok, slight exaggeration) for the car to shift?

I find I don't need to do a lot of gear changing. I plant my foot and it keeps going & I think you might find that's a key difference. My experience of turbo diesels is that they tend to run out of steam, whereas the petrol keeps going. So, I would say you can pull away well in the conditions you describe.

Thanks. Remapped, mine will go to the redline if pushed, but as it doesn't do a right lot past 4k then there isn't much point. I quite enjoy that style of driving though, but I'm so used to the low down torque that that is probably why. A friend of mine used to have a Civic Type-R and always used to rave about the power, but I found it incredibly dull and tedious to drive as you needed the revs off the end of the dial all the time in order for it to do anything. If the petrol RCZ needs the same sort of thing then I'll probably give it a miss, but if the turbo works similar to a diesel coming in around 1500 rpm then it'd probably work for me.

My other question is what sort of mpg do you get from sensible driving? The book says 40.9 combined for the 200 model iirc - how accurate is that? Would I be right in thinking that low 30s on all local towny driving is about right, or more/less? What about motorway driving at say a steady 80?

I think the quoted figure is accurate and you will get that consumption, provided your driving style and conditions match those of the test that's used to generate the published figures. In the real world it will be different.

Here are a few examples from my own driving.

My daily commute is about 25 miles round trip. About 20 miles of that is motorway (A1M) but there are a couple of steep hills, one of which is at a point the motorway narrows to 2 lanes and there is a junction just at the foot of the hill. As a consequence, traffic up this hill can get a bit congested and you can be crawling for a mile or so, sometimes. The junction has traffic lights on the slip road to limit traffic joining the motorway, so that gives you some idea of the road conditions. The other 5 miles is on pretty flat urban roads and dual carriageways. My experienced weekly mpg ranges from 35 to 38, depending on time of year & how bad that hill I mentioned was.

I know exactly where you're on about, it's just near the Welwyn junction and you're going north if it goes into 2 lanes!

On a return trip from Carlisle to Hertfordshire, the trip computer reported 51.3mpg at the end of the trip. However, this was under cruise control, set to 65mph wherever possible. This trip was over the hils to Scotch Corner (very pretty as it was a sunny day) and straight down the A1. Traffic conditions were good all the way.

I do a fairly regular trip from home to the Black Country up the M1/M6. I get mid-40s for mpg.

Just before Christmas, we had a long weekend in Germany to go to a market. This was about 1000 miles. Again mpg was mid-40s.

For clarity, my gt200 has been re-mapped - although it's not quite the same as Zombie1066s mentioned above.

Quite impressive mpg for a high powered turbo petrol engine. I could definitely live with that. 65mph on a motorway would have me falling asleep though! :lol: If it will stay on the top side of 30s mpg all the time (not including fun sessions obviously) then I'd be happy with that. I just had visions of it doing 20s round town and not much more at 80+ on a motorway.

I read in another thread that they are really low geared and the revs are off the dial somewhere at that speed, is that correct? I'd expect that sort of revs to equate to rather eye-watering mpg figures? I don't know much motorway driving but when I do I like to cruise 80-85 ish.

Don't think this is true. At 70mph, revs. are about 3500rpm & the rev. limiter is set at 7500rpm. OK, that's higher than you would get on a Diesel, but that's down to the difference between Diesel/petrol and will be generally true in all comparisons. Having said that, let's not forget are doing pretty well at Le Mans etc. with Diesel.

I suppose an obvious question for you in return, so to speak, is: how come you've discounted the 2l HDI engine for your RCZ? Perhaps you ought to consider testing both, if you can, although I appreciate that might be hard if your nearest dealer is bit of a trip.

Hope that's of some help.

In answer to your question, I have a considerable amount of experience with both mapped and unmapped Vauxhall, Ford and BMW diesels. They are all great when they're running alright, but uber expensive to put right when they go wrong. I have several issues with modern day diesels:

1. is that they make the transmission so that it can only just handle the factory power (if you're lucky) and remapping them is pretty much guaranteed to result in DMF, clutch and gearbox issues before long. I am no boy-racer by any stretch of the imagination and know that slamming 500NM of torque through the tranny from a standing start is the worst possible thing you can do, but even feeding the power in more progressively has still resulted in expensive DMF, clutch and 'box replacements - DMFs in particular. They just don't build them like they used to do :thumbdown: .

2. is that the 8% bio-diesel content of standard pump diesel coupled with ever-increasing emissions regs is a recipe for disaster as far as EGRs and DPFs are concerned, not to mention gummed injectors and coked up inlet manifolds, all of which are expensive problems to put right. This can be avoided to some extent by using additives or a premium diesel such as V-Power (as I do) which has strong detergents in to keep things minty, but it's an extra expense that I'd rather not have. Plus...

3. the ever-increasing price difference between the cost of unleaded and diesel. Unleaded in my neck of the woods (W yorks) is 129.9 today with diesel at 136.9 and V-power at 146.9. Granted, I use V-Power through choice as in my experience the extra mpg you get from it vs standard diesel and the preventative maintenance from it stopping your engine getting clogged up with gunge resulting in costly repairs is worth it imho, but 16ppl more than unleaded is just taking the piss now. With more and more people jumping ship to diesels to try and save on fuel costs I can see the void between diesel and petrol prices becoming even greater as the "government" increases the price more to make up for people not needing to use as much of it vs petrol, and I think the price difference will continue to increase until there is only a negligible difference in fuel costs between running comparable sized engines of each fuel type.

For me though, I am now in the fortunate position of being able to do most of my work from home and just this past 12 months alone I've only doing 5,800 miles in my own car (I drive a truck for a living). Diesels are still economical on shortish journeys, but it's not good for them, and definitely not if they're fitted with a DPF as it'll never get to do its re-gen cycle, but when you factor in all the above issues, to me it just makes more sense to have a petrol model now.

I look forward to your comments. :thumbup:

 

[pete.garratt]

Here are a few examples from my own driving.

My daily commute is about 25 miles round trip. About 20 miles of that is motorway (A1M) but there are a couple of steep hills, one of which is at a point the motorway narrows to 2 lanes and there is a junction just at the foot of the hill. As a consequence, traffic up this hill can get a bit congested and you can be crawling for a mile or so, sometimes. The junction has traffic lights on the slip road to limit traffic joining the motorway, so that gives you some idea of the road conditions. The other 5 miles is on pretty flat urban roads and dual carriageways. My experienced weekly mpg ranges from 35 to 38, depending on time of year & how bad that hill I mentioned was.

Curiously enough, I'm in a 207 loan car for a few days just now. Not sure what engine but I'm guessing 1.4l. On the same commute, I'm getting more or less the same mpg as I do in my RCZ on the same trip.

Now, OK, you have to drive this with a slightly different style but I'm not thrashing it. However it is, perhaps, illustrative of how efficient the THP engines can be under cruise conditions.

However, I know which one I'd rather drive!

 

[Anonymous]

I have a 200THP GT. My average fuel consumption since new in April last year over 3800m has been 28.1mpg.

Trying to compare a petrol and diesel engine is like trying to compare apples and oranges. It is a waste of time. Diesel engines are all about low down torque and even mapped ones run out of steam quitye quickly. The RCZ petrol engine is small and very free revving and needs to be worked to gain the maximum performance from it. Keeping it on the boil and working the turbo and shifting correctly makes for a very rewarding drive if you are looking to wring its neck.

As a 'grand tourer' it will pull nicely from quite low RPM as peak torque is delivered very low down the range and is pretty much flat. When you hit around 4500 it rears its head and runs through the temp torque boost easily and into the start of the red zone.

Around town it is very civilised and quiet. At speed it is stable and quiet allothough you will notice a bit more wind noise.

If you have been driving diesel engines for a long time you are going to fin it a very different drive and it will need very different driving techniques. Once you have mastered it then it is a real pleasure.

I only do very low milieage in mine as its one of a number of cars that I own, but it is the one I have done the most milieag in this year and to be honest I can't really complain to much. There are a few niggles, the NG4 is brilliant but still does not support BT streaming which is frustrating. It does however transform the cabin from a mundane Pug to something quite exotic. I have the Xenons and find it annoying that if I wash the screen when the autolights have come on the light washers douse half the car!! The concept of a key to start it is a bit quaint in this day and age. The promised MPG is nowhere advertised. But otherwise, mine is squeak and rattle free, is very quiet and gives a very connected drive from a car that looks a million dollars and costs peanuts in the scheme of things.

 

[Anonymous]

@ Mr S, thanks for your input. 28mpg average is a bit concerning? Do you drive it hard most of the time?

@ Pete, how did your mpg pre-remap compare with this? Generally speaking a remap sees an increase in mpg so I'm wondering if Mr S's are more typical and yours are due to your remap, or the other way round?

Are there any other '200' owners on this site that can comment?

 

[pete.garratt]

@ Pete, how did your mpg pre-remap compare with this? Generally speaking a remap sees an increase in mpg so I'm wondering if Mr S's are more typical and yours are due to your remap, or the other way round?

In truth, I worried about the same thing.

In fact, I haven't noticed any real difference.

I did the re-map after about 4 months ownership. If anything, the mpg figures I calculate are ever-so-slowly improving. I guess the engine still hasn't fully bedded down. After 8 months, I've done 8,000 miles & my current average consumption is about 37.5 mpg. The improvement seems to have slowed or even stopped just now. I'm not sure if this is becaused it has fully settled, it's winter now or a mixture of both. It's something I plan to monitor throughout the life of the car.

As you note, some of this is 'relative' and highly dependant on driving style. In my view, you should not be fearful that the 200 bhp RCZ exhibits excessive fuel consumption as a basic characteristic

Hope that helps.

 

[Anonymous]

@ Mr S, thanks for your input. 28mpg average is a bit concerning? Do you drive it hard most of the time?

@ Pete, how did your mpg pre-remap compare with this? Generally speaking a remap sees an increase in mpg so I'm wondering if Mr S's are more typical and yours are due to your remap, or the other way round?

Are there any other '200' owners on this site that can comment?

Not really. Its a mix of a 6mile trip to the train station, longer journeys of 60-80 or so miles each way and the odd session caning it!!

It could be that at 3800 miles it is still not run in properly but the figure is pretty consistent. For me as the number of miles I drive and the fact that petrol is a lot cheaper than diesel around me it is still cheaper to drive than the Diesel.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks chaps. Quite a significant difference in both your mpgs to say you both run the same car. Hmm..

Just out of interest, can you tell me what rpm you do at 70 and 80 mph in top gear please?

 

[pete.garratt]

Just checked:

70 about 2950

80 about 3400

 

[Anonymous]

Just checked:

70 about 2950

80 about 3400

Thanks Pete. :thumbup:

 

[Anonymous]

@ Mr S, thanks for your input. 28mpg average is a bit concerning? Do you drive it hard most of the time?

@ Pete, how did your mpg pre-remap compare with this? Generally speaking a remap sees an increase in mpg so I'm wondering if Mr S's are more typical and yours are due to your remap, or the other way round?

Are there any other '200' owners on this site that can comment?

i drive my 200 hard and with a bit of sensible driving most of the time. i see 34/36 mpg average and i got on the motorway at 77mph ish on cruise control for 225 miles an average of 40.3 mpg so im happy with that

 

[Anonymous]

Ive got the 200bhp with omoy 6k on the clock and i get 28 mpg hearing other people get 34 to 38mpg i think thats really good but on the down side worrying as i dont really push my car just the usual commute to work may have to check this one out with peugeot

 

[hanswuk]

My last few cars were Peugeot diesels (2.0, 2.2 & 2.7) so I came to the 200THP with some trepidation. From a flexibility point of view it is the best I've had from a 4cyl petrol engine and so I'm not missing the diesel low down torque as much as I thought I would. Fuel consumption is brilliant; I've never seen less than 37mpg and my average over the last 6500 miles is 41.4mpg (mainly a mix of country roads and fairly congested motorways). As you say the gap between petrol and diesel fuel is getting ever wider (often 8ppl in my area) so the cost difference between fuelling a petrol and a diesel is not as big an issue as it once was.

Having said all that I do sometimes miss the lazy driving style which is possible with a diesel - the 200THP does require more effort, concentration and revs to get the most fun out of it. I didn't test drive a diesel RCZ when I bought mine because there were none around at a price that I was willing to pay and a short while ago I looked again and equivalent age and mileage diesels were still normally around £1k - £1.5k more than even THP200's. Therefore I'm happy to stick with my petrol for the foreseeable future.

By the way I work in the motor parts industry and as you say high mileage diesels tend to have a lot more expensive issues than petrols. Also most original equipment component manufacturers are expecting an industry shift towards small capacity, high output petrol engines in future eg. the new Ford Mondeo will be offered with a 1.0l 3cyl engine! Diesels will be fitted mainly to bigger cars.

 

[Anonymous]

For what its worth driving my RCZ from London to Aberdeen I averages exactly 47 Mpg. Fairly mixed roads and weather. Guess it depends how and where you drive to!