Engine, acceleration and fuel consumption

[cj.zangerle]

hello

We have just bought a 1996 Mazda bongo. and we're coming up against anxiety about how safe it is to accelerate the engine. how safe for the engine and also the fuel consumption. we noticed when pulling onto the motorway that I didn't feel confident accelerating the engine fast enough.

Has anyone had similar anxieties?

any advise on this and also general careful ways to drive the bongos .

Best

Cj x

[JulesMartin]

From a standing start the Bongo may struggle to achieve motorway speed in the short length of a motorway slip road but this is not the case you will be doing at least 30 or 40 as you enter the slip road and the Bongo is more than capable of achieving 60-70 mph within the distance of a slip road. if you are finding that it is not achieving this then there must be an issue with the engine. you should not need to floor the accelerator either to get up to speed. agreed it would have to be greater than usual traffic acceleration but given the short time that the engine would be under acceleration I'm not sure it would affect your consumption that much to worry about and as soon as you are on the motorway cruising at 60 mph is really comfortable for the Bongo and should be pulling fairly low revs sub 2500 rpm.

[Katka]

You didn't say what type of Bongo you have. We have a 2.5 V6 and it's certainly no racer. but it'll be faster than many lorries. I adopt a different driving style / mindset, and read the road much better, so that you don't need to stop if it can be avoided, use the momentum of the van to help you through lights, and so on. It gives me great pleasure to pass fast cars at lights because they braked too hard and lost momentum or stopped, whilst I flow though. The Institute of Advanced Motorists are very keen on flowing, and you'll find lots on Youtube (try this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55tyMR_d-tc) and others to help. It also helps with your MPG. Bongo's aren't very efficient, but we'll get about 25mpg on a run.