Unexpected thirsty cars.

[TheDrBrian]

Johnnytheboy said:

My Golf R has vastly lower CO2 rating than my mk2 Focus RS, yet paradoxically returns roughly the same MPG.

This just in!
Company renowned for cheating emission tests, cheats emissions test!

[Shakermaker]

Pistonheader101 said:

Range Rover - 13mpg

That isn't unexpectedly thirsty though

[ntiz]

18.4 mpg on way back from Austria last week in RRS P400E. Definitely miles greener than a diesel doing 30 mpg

Average at the moment is 26 since I got it over 23,000 miles

[amoeba]

Range Rover TDV8, I think ~2005. 27mpg on a 40 miles motorway commute, and it couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.

In comparison my supercharged v8 Jag (S-type R) does 25 mpg on the same commute.

[stargazer30]

My old mk2 focus ST. 220bhp, 5 pot. If I drove it like I stole it, it did 19mpg. If I drove it like a granny it did 21mpg!

I had a fuel card and between tyres and petrol I think I bankrupt the company.

[zafbandicoot]

wiliferus said:

Unexpected?

beat me to it

[ChocolateFrog]

Drive it fix it repeat said:

1.6 mk2 mx5 used to average 26 mpg, normal mix of roads, not motorways. Driven fairly hard often though.

I always thought the MX5's performance to MPG rating was a bit on the painful side.

The OHs 1.2 C3 is rubbish in all respects but the performance was particularly bad and I don't think it's ever broken 40mpg.

[Timberwolf]

stargazer30 said:

My old mk2 focus ST. 220bhp, 5 pot. If I drove it like I stole it, it did 19mpg. If I drove it like a granny it did 21mpg!

I had a fuel card and between tyres and petrol I think I bankrupt the company.

What always mystified me with the Focus was the same engine in a very slightly milder state of tune in the rather heavier S40 T5 would happily return 37-38mpg on a run, and you had to do a lot of town driving and short trips to drop it below 30, let alone 20.

The extra power Ford liberated for the ST (222bhp vs 217bhp if I recall correctly) must be a contender for the most inefficient 5bhp ever produced.

[thetapeworm]

A "pepper dust beige" Meriva hire car (I'd clearly upset someone) had awful consumption on a 600 mile round trip.



The hire company didn't pick it back up for 5 days, clearly loved.

I had an Astra SRI the week before that did around 60mpg on the same trip.



I also hired a brand new, delivery miles, Suzuki Grand Vitara in Cyprus, probably in about 2005, that seemed to get about 5mpg despite not being the 2.7L V6 one, I think it was a 1.6 petrol.

Edited by thetapeworm on Tuesday 25th February 15:53

[CousinDupree]

PTF said:

Krikkit said:

PTF said:

Limpet said:

Our MX-5 NB 1.8 wasn't great on fuel considering the relatively modest engine. I don't think we ever coaxed 30 mpg out of it.

Had a few MX5 1.8. They're never great on fuel, despite the lack of power. 28mpg out of my 1998 1.8 NA. I ran that for 2 yrs and about 20k miles. Spent a fortune on fuel.

I used to get 31mpg out of my NA, whether I caned it or tried to treat it as gently as possible.

I'm quite surprised I can't get more than 30 out of my 325Ti, I was expecting 30 and change, but I'm actually at about 27.

My 130i would do about 35mpg on a run, but had to take it VERY steady

My NB 1.8 MX5 did 27mpg, half urban. Identical to my Z4M with more than twice the power!

330i N52 did 31mpg over it's life when I had it.

The worst would be an RGV250R. It did just 70miles to a tank when thrashing it. Not much compares to that for (lack of) mpg per CC, or enjoyment either. Wonderful!

Edited by CousinDupree on Tuesday 25th February 18:13

[Harry H]

Wasn't it Top Gear that ragged a Prius flat out around their test track closely followed by an M3 that wasn't even breaking sweat and so consuming less fuel to prove that "it's not what you drive but how you drive it"

Many years ago before we worried about fuel consumption it never occurred to me that my Jag XJR may not have been very economical. I only thought that the fuel tank wasn't big enough.

[TommoAE86]

Jaguar S-Type diesel, no matter how you drove it or where it was it never did more than 32mpg with a low of 19mpg on my congested commute. £105 to fill it up and it never did more than 400 miles from the tank.

If someone comes up and says my one must've been broken you're probably right, along with all the other stuff that they all do that was also broken, what a dogst car.

[DaveyBoyWonder]

My 1.6 auto Mini Clubman. Doesn't cost much to fill it up but my god, you're filling it up all the time.

[thetapeworm]

stargazer30 said:

My old mk2 focus ST. 220bhp, 5 pot. If I drove it like I stole it, it did 19mpg. If I drove it like a granny it did 21mpg!

I had a fuel card and between tyres and petrol I think I bankrupt the company.

I was fully prepared for the fuel consumption issue when I got mine but wasn't quite expecting the condition you describe above, I'm sure they just had a fuel map that sprayed the same amount of petrol no matter what the car was doing, it was nice when you went down a hill off the gas and the "real time" consumption showed 99mpg... yeah right, even at idle it was probably doing 20mpg.

Fun though and I'm sure trying to encourage those little pops from the exhaust had no effect on the lower figures

[anonymous-user]

2018 Volvo V90 D4. When we got it it did high 30s urban and about 52mpg on a run at a reasonable speed.

A few updates since and after 20k miles its doing low 30s in town and high 30s on a run. Bloody awful!

[Cbull]

BMW F10 2.0D. They say 60+ mpg combined I get just less than 40, 44 if plenty of motorway mileage is on the commute.

I later found Honest Johns website which has true numbers there.

[quimbles]

fiat seicento 20 -25, mainly b roads at slow speed.. not much stop starting.

[anonymous-user]

I was unfortunate enough to have a rental fabia 1.2 htp a few years ago to drive from Bydgoszcz to Gdansk, at 180kph the thing absolutely hammered fuel whilst sounding like a cement mixer. (3 cylinder job I think) It barely cracked 20mpg.

Our mk1 RAV4 2.0 automatic I'm not sure how many mpg it does but doing exactly the same journey in our 93 hymer - Poland to the UK in the Hymer and then UK to Poland in the Rav4 the RAV4 used more fuel than the motorhome. Bearing in mind the motorhome was flat out almost all the way (flat out meaning an indicated 65-70 mph)

My wife's XC90 3.2 petrol. I managed to get the economy down to 14.6 mpg on a motorway run between Bydgoszcz and Warsaw. (140-160 kph) Hateful thing. Takes ages to get to those speeds too.

On the flip side my LS430 does 28-32 mpg on gas regardless of what I do with it and how I drive it.

If you want economy buy a V8 or at least that's what my fag packet man maths seems to prove. (At least if you do lots of long motorway runs)

[TameRacingDriver]

Another vote for the MX5 here.

I remember going out for a hoon with an old mate, him following me in an E36 328i, and me in my Eunos RS Limited. At the end of the session, we both topped up the tanks, and rather frustratingly the Eunos had actually used MORE petrol than his car despite being about 400 kg heavier, having an engine with 2 extra cylinders, an extra 1000cc and an extra 60 bhp and travelling at more or less the same speed.

To this day the only car I've owned that was worse on fuel than that Mk1 MX5 was a Nissan 350Z! The thing is it didn't seem all that much better if you drove slowly, still struggling to get much better than about 28 MPG at the very best (I once hit 30 MPG in the aforementioned 350Z).

[M1C]

CDB1983 said:

I was unfortunate enough to have a rental fabia 1.2 htp a few years ago to drive from Bydgoszcz to Gdansk, at 180kph the thing absolutely hammered fuel whilst sounding like a cement mixer. (3 cylinder job I think) It barely cracked 20mpg.

But what else did you expect? Thats 111mph! A 1.2 doing 111mph will be screaming! 20mpg is therefore expected.

Edited by M1C on Tuesday 25th February 17:11

Edited by M1C on Tuesday 25th February 17:12