New 2.0d fuel consumption

Economy should always improve as you run your car in and you look after it. My car at new started at just over 27 Mpg on average and is now doing just over 29.

I'm afraid my 3.4 petrol Alpina engine isn't very much use for your stats though. ;) It would be interesting to see the new Alpina 2.0 diesel though.

My (old) 530D automatic 194 bhp UK touring used to give about 39 mpg overall, best being 51mpg on a 70 mph motorway journey and frequently mid

40s with my generally spirited driving - then I chipped it to 231 bhp / 370 ft lbs and it if anything got slightly better! and no doubt would have been if the get up and go wasn't so addictive....

Nick

My E91 is getting about 40/gallon as well, but i expect this to improve once I have fully mastered the gearbox (esp coming out of 6th into......3rd!) and taken it on a longer run. Mind you, I always run the climate control.

-- Jason Russell Dotcom-Computers Ltd t: 01403 784340 f: 01403 786698 e: dotcom AT dotcom-computers.co.uk

Climate control should make very little difference since cooling/heating only happens "as required" rather than "permanently on" as with regular air conditioning/heating. As its winter the heaters might be using a bit of extra fuel. On my last car (Mitsubishi Galant) I could not measure a difference between climate control permanently on and permanently off even in the summer heat. Half way through second tank, looks like heading for 42/43mpg this time. At least partly down to me getting better with the gears too! A

6th gear is taking a bit of getting used to. If I reset the mpg counter while doing 70mph with a warm engine its around 63-67mpg, which quickly drops in the first traffic jam :( 39mpg is really impressive for a 530d, especially with an auto box.

I guess we have been talking UK/Imperial gallons so far, if anyone in the US posts let us know its US gallons you are quoting. Litres/100KM will be OK too! Cheers Adrian

In our E90 330d, after about 1500 km, it's been about 5.7 l/100 km on the highway and about 6 litres all together. This is 41 and 39 mpg respectively. This is with Finnish winter conditions (mild winter this year), studded tyres and fairly slow-paced driving.

Janne

According to

5.7L/100 km is 41 miles per US gallon and 49 miles per UK/Imperial Gallon.I guess this must be slow-paced in top gear driving, a very impressivelow fuel consumption.I'll post what I'm getting when I have done 2000+ km / 1250+ milesCheers Adrian

I get 53mpg imperial @ 75mph, 2 passengers. Best 64mpg @ 75mph.

Wow, my 14 month old E46 2.0D gave me just over 40MPG at the start, but it stabilised out at 45mpg after 14 months. But in the last month the consumption has worsened by 5%, and I am not sure why. This is measured on the same trip and conditions.

-- John Perry

Cold air will give 5-10% worse fuel economy. Also you'd be surprised at how a very smal gradient will affect fuel economy. Use cruise control - it uses less fuel to accelerate.

Cold air will give 5-10% worse fuel economy. Also you'd be surprised at how a very smal gradient will affect fuel economy. Use cruise control - it uses less fuel to accelerate.

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 17:46:29 -0000, "BeerMonkey" top posted:

I don't know why that would be the case. Cold are is more dense, but that just meams you need less throttle to get X amount of power (and burn X amount of gas).

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 16:25:23 GMT, against all advice, something compelled dizzy , to say:

Cold air is the holy grail of power. One of the problems with a turbo/supercharger is that it heats the air as it's compressed. That's why god made the intercooler.

Some guys set a land speed record for a naturally aspirated engine, and used four NOS bottles, not to inject nitrous into the system (which would have invalidated the record), but to cool the intake manifold during the run.

Cold dense air is good.

Yes - for power ! But the guy was claiming it is not good for economy - if warm air promotes better atomisation and burning , then economy will be better...

IMHO, just my two cents worth, YMMV etc etc

Nick

I have also noticed that cruise control uses less fuel maintaining a constant speed on the flat and up hill, and also when accelerating back up to cruise speed. It is all to easy to push the accelerator pedal more than is neccessary to maintain speed, but not enough to actually accelerate using fuel needlesly in the process. This is particularly true up hill. I would guess that the cold air is dissapating engine heat faster through the radiator (and also running the heaters inside the car), that heat must be replaced to maintain the engines operating temperature. Only place the heat energy can come from is burning fuel. More fuel would also be used getting the engine to operating temperature in the first place and shifting cold engine oil around (more viscous).

If warm air means better atomisation wouldn't that mean better combustion and therefore better fuel economy and performace? Warm weather means higher ambient air pressure. I once had a 50cc moped which used to have 1 to 2 mph higher top speed in the summer, no fuel injection or turbos here, just carburettors.

3rd tank of fuel, thought I'd share the fuel consumption. 41mpg, 42.9mpg, 40.8mpg. This is curious, the 42.9mpg was acheived on a tank of Total Excellium diesel which they claim gives better economy, costs about 1p per litre more. Not much of a sample, but this suggests it really does as is claimed and is worth paying a little more for. Unfortunately had to fill up with Sainsbury's City Diesel this time round (no Total fuel available, possibly due to the fire at the Buncefield fuel depot), so I will have to wait until later to try this fuel again and see if I still get a better result.