Hello from Thailand!

[JPD]

Hello everyone!
My name's Jonathan, I've just joined this forum to find out more about my Chevrolet Aveo which I purchased from a Chevrolet dealer in Bangkok last January, 2010.
My Aveo is a base-model silver sedan with a 1.4 liter engine. It has manual transmission, it runs on E20 fuel which is 20% enthanol and I have made no modifications. I've uploaded a picture in the 'Garage' section.
I am interested in improving the fuel economy of my car. I have kept records of all the fuel and ODO readings since buying the car and my present economy is right around 12km/litre.
Regards
Jonathan

[NYChevoo]

Welcome to the forums JPD!

[Daox]

Welcome to the site Jonathan!

What kind of mileage are you getting with the car now? We only have E10 over here in the US, but looks like we might go to E15 in a few years.

[JPD]

Welcome to the site Jonathan!<br>
<br>
What kind of mileage are you getting with the car now? We only have E10 over here in the US, but looks like we might go to E15 in a few years.

I've kept every fuel receipt and logged my mileage. It's hard to describe my commute; I live and work in the south of Bangkok, so it's some stop-start traffic but long stretches of cruising in 5th gear, not the clogged congestion of central Bangkok. Most of my driving is between 30-60 mph.
Since buying the car and filling the tank for the first time, I've driven 17,938km and bought 1,497.139 litres of E20 fuel so 11.981km/litre which is 28.17mpg. Obviously cars aren't efficient when new, so my most recent fill-up calculation was 12.577km/l which is 29.58mpg.

I'm British so call it petrol, I know American's call it gas, but in Thailand it's popular to run cars on LPG or CNG gas which confuses the issue. Petrol is know as Benzine in Thailand. You can buy normal 91 octane, and it's rare to find 95. Most people use E10 either 91 or 95, commonly sold as Gasohol. The Aveo sold in Thailand has had some parts&nbsp;completely overhauled by Chevrolet such as the fuel system to make it ready for E20 – changing seals, pumps, pipes and gauges to run more efficiently on E20 and prevent erosion from the ethanol. A car running on E20 attracts less sales tax in Thailand, but can happily run on E10 or normal fuel. The latest Aveo is 1.6l with a CNG gas system factory fitted; they only started selling them after I bought my car, which quite annoyed me but I could get mine retrofitted. CNG is ridiculously cheaper and probably the way to go to save money.

A good motor forum for Thailand is found on a website called 'thaivisa' and lots of board members claim that E20 isn't worth it as it gives worse mileage that E10 and is only 1 Thai Baht cheaper per litre. I tried this myself once and didn't notice a difference, but perhaps just doing it once isn't very scientific!
The latest fuel is E85, which my car can't run on but the face-lifted Chevrolet Captiva 2.4l can. According to Chevrolet, E85 is 40% cheaper but 20% less efficient than petrol giving a net 20% saving.

[petrified.rabbit]

your gasoline talk is about right, the less corn the better the gas.

E85 is a different animal entirely. It can be VERY good if yo build for it, almost race fuel like. But you need the compression etc to bring it up to efficiency.

[Daox]

I know most of our ethanol here comes from corn. However, thats not the case elsewhere in the world. I know Brazil gets theirs from sugarcane. Where do you guys get your ethanol from?

The big selling point of ethanol isn't that it gets worse mileage (obviously), or costs less (because its subsidized so you're still paying for it). The benefit is that it is a domestic fuel source. Every gallon of ethanol is a gallon of gas that doesn't need to be imported from some some other country. In the case of the US most of those other countries aren't incredibly friendly either.

[JPD]

Thailand produces ethanol from molasses. It's not cost-effective, or environmentally friendly, instead subsidized from levies on imported fuels. Like the US, the Thai government wants to reduce foreign oil imports. The only hope for the end to this bio-fuel madness I can see comes from a US company, Joule Unlimited, which is trying to mass-produce bio-ethanol and diesel from their patented method of using bio-engineered bugs. Good luck to them. Their system makes the current method of growing, burning and harvesting crops seem archaic.

[Phenomenon]

Since I am also in Thailand, and yes I traced your posts to see what have you faced with your Aveo. My Aveo is running on LPG since 5000 km mileage, now the mileage shown in the digital mileage meter is 164000 km and the engine is still running fine !

If you are interested in E85, and your car is set for E20, which means all the parts that are in contact with the fuel can also take E85 as they all have same requirement to endure the alcohol component, and it is just your ECU that cannot control the variable parameters to do the flexfuel set up. But if you are interested in E85, you can install a flex fuel kit called HP+, which is at the price of 6900 baht, it is the best set up system that I believe is the best and most efficient kit. However, from what I know, the only petrol station with E85 around here is the Bang jak petrol station at the 12th km of Bangna-Trad road and you wouldn't want to run that far to fill up your petrol.

If you mind about your car consumption rate, I strongly recommend you to install LPG system. A moderator in the cruzoptra.com forum has his Chevrolet optra 1.6 ltr engine fitted with LPG and has 400000+ km mileage before the valves and the valve seats became problematic, but he needs only 15k Thai baht to fix that problem so why are we scared ? I hope I am not being too offending, just sharing experiences here and if you are happened to be interested, I can recommend you an expert around here that has fitted LPG on aveo and has already been experiencing with more than 200 Aveo.

P.S. I am sorry, you all were just discussing about the petrol consumption and i misunderstood it LOL. how about I share mine, with E10 95 I used to do 14-16 km/ltr, with 100% gas i still get the same consumption just with extra power and more fun to drive, with my LPG it is 10.5 - 12 km/ ltrLPG

[Phenomenon]

And why i refer to the cruzoptra.com moderator car is because our engine is basically the same with optra, just the size of the capacity is different.

[JPD]

Hi Phenomenon, thanks for the advice about running the Aveo on LPG. My car is still under Chevrolet warranty so I may wait before doing any conversion, please do let me know or PM me about the company you recommend.
I only drive 40km/day, but I looked at an LPG company called 'Versus' as they are nationwide, but when I saw the way the car is converted, I changed my mind; the filling cap sticks out under the boot and it doesn't look very safe. Also, the Thai government plans to float the price of LPG to around 18baht this year, or so I read. Between this price rise, the LPG maintenance costs, the lower economy and the fact that you need to start the car on petrol every time, I'm not sure how much I'd save on 40km/day.
I did find those E85 conversion kits but as you point out, there are very few E85 stations.