poor fuel consumption

[waue1978]

According to spritmonitor the best reported BMW 320 'efficient dymanics' gets only 4.36 litres per 100km which is 54MPG (cf. fuelly), so you aint gonna get your money back forking out for one of those over a 406.

I think this pretty much sums up what's happened with 2-litre diesel engines over the last 10 years: twice as much power, but no more efficient.

And as for the small diesel engines: I'm sure they're good in small cars.

You're not far wrong there mate. In the past 12months I've had the aforementioned Scenic & Hyundai & also a 1.6 HDi 308SW. I know it may sound daft, but they all felt petrol-fied as far as the power delivery went. They all felt fairly quick when pulling away at junctions, but seemed a bit gutless when asked to do any real work like motorway overtaking or going uphill. The Scenic felt great for the first couple of weeks that I had it, but certainly showed up its faults when asked to cart 4 of us up the motorway to Pontefract - I dread to think how bad it would have been if all 7 seats were used!

The only 1 that I thought was ok was the Hyundai - although it still didn't match the super-duper claimed economy figures, it was like a right little pocket rocket! I think the best car I've driven in the past 12months has to be Doggy's one.

[Bailes1992]

The only 1 that I thought was ok was the Hyundai - although it still didn't match the super-duper claimed economy figures, it was like a right little pocket rocket! I think the best car I've driven in the past 12months has to be Doggy's one.

Doggys car is a right little slut! Everyones had a go

Just had a nosey at your spritmonitor page Sam: I notice your computer under-reads by 5 to 7 mpg. It also seems to have the same favourite numbers as mine: 40.9, 47.9,...

Yeah my TC undereads too and seems to favour certain figures.
I think you obviously drive abit more economically than me. I drive it no different than my Focus and getting a good 10-15mpg more than my focus every single time

[marco2002]

My fuel economy seems to go up and down a bit. It used to be around 47mpg for a long time then around the cold snap i was lucky to get 40mpg. I did some work on the back brakes about a week ago and the mpg has shot back upto around 46. Oil change due next week so may do the air/fuel filters as well and put some redex through it and see if it makes any difference. My job as a carer doesn't help all stop start driving around town. First job 4 miles from home next one 2 miles etc then the journey home is 4 miles. In the evenings i have a trip of 9 miles to 1st job then a couple that are about 5 miles from door to door then last trip is 8 miles. Must have an effect on the fuel consumption. I would probably be better off with a small car for the job don't have the cash right now so have to make do with fixing things as they wear out or fail. I haven't done any motorway driving for ages maybe it needs a blast to clear the cobwebs away!

[defender1010]

Hi Guys
Thanks for all your help
I hade the Injectors out and sent off for recondition and they came back with no faults (as good as new the specilist told me)
Mostly town driving and a few runs over the weekend
only 91450 miles on the clock with full service from main dealers up to me buying it i always gets fully sintetic and filters changed every 6 and 12 thousands miles .

[Doggy]

The only 1 that I thought was ok was the Hyundai - although it still didn't match the super-duper claimed economy figures, it was like a right little pocket rocket! I think the best car I've driven in the past 12months has to be Doggy's one.

Doggys car is a right little slut! Everyones had a go

I think this pretty much sums up what's happened with 2-litre diesel engines over the last 10 years: twice as much power, but no more efficient.

If you've got double the power and similar mpg, doesn't that represent a huge increase in efficiency?

[waue1978]

I think this pretty much sums up what's happened with 2-litre diesel engines over the last 10 years: twice as much power, but no more efficient.

If you've got double the power and similar mpg, doesn't that represent a huge increase in efficiency?

On paper it may do, but to be honest I think the narrower power band of the latest engines negates the extra power that they are supposed to have. The Grand Scenic & 308 hire cars had near identical power figures to my 110, but I'd be interested to examine the power graphs of all 3 cars because they only felt any quicker on initial pulling away - & the Renault had the assistance of a 6 speed box for that!

[rwb]

If you've got double the power and similar mpg, doesn't that represent a huge increase in efficiency?

Well yes. What I meant was no increase in miles per gallon.

[martint]

All 3 hdi's I've owned hated fully synthetic oil for some reason. Stick to 10-40 semi-cant go wrong. Even a pug/vw mech told me not to put fully synthetic in,as the seals & deposits dont agree with it. Within 2days of emptying out some quite new fully synthetic oil & adding semi synthetic got me an extra 5mpg!!!

[grasmere59]

All 3 hdi's I've owned hated fully synthetic oil for some reason. Stick to 10-40 semi-cant go wrong. Even a pug/vw mech told me not to put fully synthetic in,as the seals & deposits dont agree with it. Within 2days of emptying out some quite new fully synthetic oil & adding semi synthetic got me an extra 5mpg!!!

Thats interesting because the guy i bought the Exec from 2 months back said he had just done a service using fully synthetic oil,looks like i'll be dropping it out at the weekend and shoving some Castrol semi in.

[Bailes1992]

It's hit an miss. Some people have used 5w40 synthetic without an issue. Others leak like Exxon Valdez.
Apparently people have lots of issues with Fuches oil.

I'm still umming and arring weather or not to drop down to 5w40 synthetic. I'd like to do it in stages and get it running 5w30 fully synth for the fuel economy.

But I think I should just be sensible and stick with 6month changes of a decent quality 10w40 semi. Currently using Valvoline something or other.