Man reveals how he drove 1,100 km on a single diesel tank and why it 'was a nightmare'

The owner of a diesel Opel Astra decided to drive as far as the car would go on a single diesel tank.

And the car did go pretty far.

As it turns out, the diesel Opel Astra only ‘died’ after 1,100 kilometers.

And the best part is, it probably still had some range left.

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Why driving 1,100 km on a single diesel tank was a nightmare

A while back, the owner of this diesel Opel Astra GTC decided to test the fuel economy of its 1.7-liter diesel engine.

The problem with projected range is that automakers only ‘lab test’ the range by using best-case-scenario data.

Translation: you hardly ever get the promised range unless you’re ready to drive like you’re on eggshells.

And that’s exactly what the Astra owner did, but the experience ‘was a nightmare’, mostly, he says, because it was dull and uncomfortable.

The first thing to bear in mind is that in order to get the most miles out of your car, you need to forget about things like A/C or heated seats, which makes the whole experience quite uncomfortable.

Braking and accelerating are enemies, so the thing you should do is get to a stable speed – ideally lower than the highway speed – and stick to that for as long as you can.

And so this means you have to drive at a very low speed, like an aimless drone, for long distances.

Ordinarily, the owner said he’d get about 500-550 miles (800-900km) on a tank, but driving like a monk, he managed to get to 1,100+ kilometers.

And the thing is, he didn’t exactly let the car ‘die’, which means it probably still had some miles left.

The reason why it might be a bad idea to actually let a diesel car die and completely run out of fuel is that you then have to bleed out the system before you can fill up the diesel tank again, which is annoying and time-consuming.

This is why the name ‘Opel’ might not mean much to some drivers

Huge car groups always market the same car under different brands across different markets, and Opel is a classic case in point.

Opel vehicles were sold under the Opel brand in Europe, with the exception of the UK, where Opels were sold as Vauxhalls.

Some Opel models were available in the US, marketed as Saturn, and on rare occasions, some Opel models were actually rebadged Lotus cars.

Imagine that.