Wednesday, Aug 22, 2007 at 14:17
Scared Cow,
Hi. I kept an Excel spreadsheet record of my fuel consumption for the trip and have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the results.
As it is not possible to cut and paste the figures into this reply so that they make sense, I have supplied the following from the spreadsheet. Hope it all makes sense.
Total distance travelled 11879K
Fuel used (towing/touring) 1716.69 Litres
Total Cost of fuel $2110.78
Average cost per litre (towing/touring) $1.232
Lowest price paid $1.115 per litre at Mt Isa
Highest price paid $1.48 per litre at
Burke & Wills Roadhouse
Litres per 100K average (towing/touring) was 15.16
Average kilometres per litre (towing/touring) was 6.60
Average cost per kilometre (towing/touring) for trip was $0.19
Worst economy while towing was 19.11 L/100 on Monday coming home down the Pacific Hwy in all the rain and into a headwind
Best economy while towing was 14.73 L/100 between Mt Isa and
Burke & Wills Roadhouse.
Best economy while touring was 10.13 L/100 going from Bagara to Mt Perry and back.
The vehicle is an 04 GX 3L Intercooled Turbo with manual 5 speed box and the van is 19' 3" tandem full height Lotus Sprint MKII that weighs 1940Kg dry then all our gear plus 2x9Kg gas bottles and 2x80L
water tanks (not always full)
As to do I feel the Prado was heavy enough, the answer is yes, and did I have any stability problems, the answer is no.
I will admit that when driving with a cross wind the van is effected to some degree, but nothing to unsettle the van or the vehicle.
All in all the whole thing worked as it should and was expected to, so to say I am happy would be an understatement.
We had a total of 29 nights where we did freebies courtesy of Camps Australia 4 and the longest we stayed at a freebie was 4 nights (twice) and I only had to use the solar panel once to top up the battery which is an 80 Amp deep cycle.
Incidently, we stayed in caravan parks for a total of 53 night at a cost of $1225.15 which averages out to $23.11 per night.
When off power we are running all the lights (not at the same time) which are 12V as
well as the pump (12V obviously) and we also ran the 12V LCD TV for about 3 hours per day.
The battery in the van is recharged via a 50 Amp Anderson plug while travelling and a smart charger when on 240V.
Hope all that made sense and is of some help.
Cheers
Cruiser
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