300SD Mileage?

I just bought a used 83' 300SD (the one advertised here by Wingnut) which seems to running fine. What kind of mileage should I expect?

Thanks,

Paul

Reply to
Paul Valois
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about 24 mpg in commute driving, 26 or 27 mpg on trips.

Be sure the tires are correctly inflated and remember that diesels are basically constant speed engines, not jackrabbits.

Reply to
T.G. Lambach

Thanks!

24 mpg isn't bad for a big old tank like that!

I have read here something about "cetane" and when I just filled up the tank today I noticed that the pump said "40 Cetane". Some of the messages on the Yahoo boards indicate that the Mercedes diesel engines run better on higher cetane values than this. Does anyone know about this?

Reply to
Paul Valois

Don't worry about that... just drive it. You got a bargain!

Reply to
Tiger

Best I ever got was 33 on a freshly adjusted/tuned car on a 55mph trip of 100 miles. Worst I get is 25. These are imperial gallons.

Reply to
Richard Sexton

Yeah, cetane is to diesel what octane is to gas. Thge more the better.

North America has lousy 40 cetane fuel. Europe is 50+. You can get

50 cetane fuel here sold as "Premium diesel" and it has a higher heat value - you will get betere milage and performance as you get a bigger bang per given amount of fuel.

It's a little bit more expensive but well worth it. Do the math and you'll see you'll pay less per mile covered by paying more for premium.

Reply to
Richard Sexton

All above is correct. I've driven my '83 300SD for the last 110,000 miles and get around 23 highway and 26 city mpg. My highway speeds are

75-85 mph. Good luck, great car! Doug
Reply to
dkmcp

I'm not worried about the mileage for the money's sake.. I am more worried about it from a mechanical point of view.

Reply to
Paul Valois

On my 83 300SD with 112,000 mi I get 25 to 26 on the hiway and I drive the limit plus and around town I get 19 to 21mpg.

Reply to
Henry Kolesnik
26 mpg is good 28 is great 24 to 25 at hi speeds on flats

any thing below 20 you have problems

the case, minus a few cans!

Reply to
pool man

Only 33 miles per imperial gallon? IIRC an imperial gallon is equal to 5/4 of a US gallon. That would translate to only 26.4 miles per US gallon.

Reply to
Roger Shoaf

That doesn't seem right then. When I wrote 100 I meant 1000. I blamew[1] this new keyboad. Ok lemme try it another way. I get 400-600 miles per tank of fuel. Those would be imperial miles none of this funny metric stuff.

[1] See! Damn keyboard.
Reply to
Richard Sexton

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