Mpg....

[T5Rdragon]

Guys,

As you know, I have an 850 T5R auto, bought only last weekend, but I am already having concerns. The car is fitted with the Rica305 mod fitted.

What sort of MPG _should_ I be getting?

I'll tell you what I _am_ getting - now bear in mind I've been getting used to the car and most of the time during the week it's been wet, so most of my week has been spent in econ mode and driving frankly like a grandad. The I've only really seriously let rip twice in this time, and for no more than a few hundred yards (i.e. showing the acceleration rather than doing any fast distance) - let her semi go a few times to chavs off lights etc, but I really have been pretty conservative with my driving on this tank of fuel (partially to see what kind of MPG it returns, specifically.)

The tank was pretty much dry after getting her home last Sunday, and to be sure, I risked the 20 mils journey to Sheffield to make sure the tank was as empty as safely could be done without actually running out. I then filled up with Optimax - despite the guage suggesting a 70 litre tank, it took 58 litres, which was suprising to me, especially as when I put the ignition back up the needle went all the way to point at 70 litres! But that's by the by - the car had super of some form in before, and I filled to the brim with Optimax.

So after only 5 days, the tank is virtually empty I reckon there's maybe 30 miles left (which is the basis of my calculations) - by which time it'll only have done 230 miles. A quick calculation reveals that my car is returning only 15 MPG! Surely that's not normal? My T4 returns 20 on a BAD tank (i.e. me driving like a nut most of the time), and on _average_, 22. I shudder to think how far I'd get if I drove the car as I'd like to, now I'm getting to grips with it...

So I need the collective experience of the group to tell me whether this is normal for my setup, or whether I need to start looking at this?

The car is 3k away from a service, but the oil looks like it's due now to me. I don't know when the sparks were last changed - I'll be going through the service history later today to try and find such things out.

But 15MPG... strikes me as being a bit poor, especially as it translates to an entire tank every 5 days just to do the 35 mile round trip to work and back...

Any ideas?

Also, with the Rica305 - does the petrol have to be 98RON (or better), or can it run happily on 97RON? (There's more 97Super places than there are Optimax/98Ron, so need to know if 97 can be used if there's no alternative)

[JUDGENINJA]

Based on the fact that I have run out of petrol before I never managed to get a full 70litres in the car.

around 67litres was the max for me.....I travel 54 miles every day to & from work extremely fast most days when I'm late...mine has been as low as 15mpg but as high as 30mpg. it's been even lower when do track days.

Also my fuel warning light comes on very early I can safely travel 60miles (at normal speed) before it would chugg to a halt..I reckon there's about 2.5 - 3 gallons in reserve.

There could be something wrong but with out checking you driving style. You'll use a loads more fuel playing with chavs at traffic lights than cruising above the speed limit...

[Redbrick]

My daily drive is now a 106 and I am again scared of my Volvo so I'm getting 25mpg. When familiarity had bred contempt about 20mpg.

Your 15mpg is bad

I was running 16mpg for a while along with a really cold cabin even when the car had warmed up. Changing the themostat solved the temp problem and gave me an extra 5mpg, could be something as simple as that!

Probably best to get it back to VT and ask them to look at it, it will pay in the long run if you can get it back to mid 20's.

Is yours an auto or manual as that makes a difference.

[TangoDeltaSierra3]

I've always had at least 300 mile a tank in my S70, even more in the S60, so i'd say summatts a miss.

[Andrew]

With the car and a heavy right foot - I'd get about 250 miles then I'd fill up. I rarely waited until the fuel light came on. Computer said 19/20mpg and yes it had optimax since the RICA.

btw Tescos has recently started doing 99RON @96p - our local Tescos seems to have got it this week.

Andrew.

PS> Our of the new V70R - I've just drove 6 hours round trip with an average of 22mpg on a manual Autos suck a little more juice than manuals... so will aircon, so will cruise control.

[aeroresh]

I seem to get between 400 to 430 miles out of a tankful of Optimax on my Ricad S60 T5....about 27 mpg average so I think something is definately amiss with your car!

[Andrew]

I seem to get between 400 to 430 miles out of a tankful of Optimax on my Ricad S60 T5....about 27 mpg average so I think something is definately amiss with your car!

I wouldn't think so - there was another thread and 18-22 seemed normal for these 10 year old cars. I would hope a S60 would be much more fuel efficient and lighter.... modern technology and all that.

[steveT5]

The Wife does about seven miles to work, and seven back (obviously !!) per day. The terrain is extremely hilly on country roads. At the end of the week the average MPG tells us about 18.5.
When i have the car, and on the odd occasion that i have driven like a grandad, it still only returns about 22-23 (around town)
I personally have come to the conclusion that the only time a T5 is economical is on the motorway over long distances. During a trip to Cornwall in the summer we managed 27-28 @ 80-90 MPH.
Is 27-28 MPG economical ??
Not really, it's just something you get used to.

[S60D5]

I've got a T5 Auto - not modified and I get a return of about 26mpg calculated which is around 27mpg on the computer. I do a lot of shortish journeys circa 10 miles and do sit in traffic, most of my driving is conservative but I do use the acceleration at up to the NSL at least once every time I take the car out.

To put it another way, the trip is currently showing 322 miles since last fill up, and the computer reports an extra 55 miles till I run dry (light has just come on) - but I'll fill up tomorrow.

[S60D5]

PS> Our of the new V70R - I've just drove 6 hours round trip with an average of 22mpg on a manual Autos suck a little more juice than manuals... so will aircon, so will cruise control.

Yeah, cruise control does use more doens't it!

The A/C doesn't seem to use any more fuel on my car, if it does, it's so little difference that its undetectable - I religiously record and calculate my MPG every time I fill up, total averages, moving averages...

My auto T5 is more fuel efficient than both my manual T5's day-to-day. Why? Cos although the manual is better in town, the auto will cruise at a lower RPM (about 400rpm difference at 70mph) from about 50mph up, so if you do quite a bit of motorway cruising or light weight driving in top gear, the auto works out more economical!

If you commute into traffic day in, day out, I daresay the auto would murder the fuel economy!

[mat562be]

15 mpg?? Not good.

I run a BSR-modded 2001 V70 and I get, routinely, between 24.5 and 26 mpg as indicated by the grandly-titled "information centre." The mk 1 method of brimming it and doing a bit of mental arithmetic confirms this. I only have a 10 mile each way commute to work each day, and a third of that is through speedbump-hell 30 limits. The rest is open B roads, so, effectively, it's as bad as it gets for mpg. On a run, eg one of my regular runs to the south coast, it returns 29mpg or so, sat at motorway speed the whole way. Even when I toe it a bit, it rarely drops below 20mpg on public roads.

15 is awful.

Even in work cars, driven on the A1 and suchlike, 15 is rarely seen, even after a busy shift with a fair bit of briskness.. 15 in your own car says summat's up to me.

[S60D5]

15 in your own car says summat's up to me.

I managed 9.6mpg once!

That was, however, only for 50 miles and it was a "how low can you go" competition, with me and a few mates with large engined cars trying to out-do each other seeing who could be the least economic over 50 miles of motorway driving, in France.

[steveT5]

Surely though guys, the P2 V70's and S60's are bound to be more economical than ageing 850's and P1 V70's ?

[S60D5]

Surely though guys, the P2 V70's and S60's are bound to be more economical than ageing 850's and P1 V70's ?

Yeah, but not by too much. I'd only expect a difference of 2-4mpg total.

I want D5 fuel economy

[dave]

Surely though guys, the P2 V70's and S60's are bound to be more economical than ageing 850's and P1 V70's ?

spot on!

my s60r weights more, has 4wd, and more power, but returns 24/25mpg average, never had it under 20mpg!

dave

[Al115]

My average is about 27mpg, calculated between fuel stops, for a modded V70 T5.

If I tickle the car along on on the motorway I will get over 30, if I'm ragging it around the bends then more like 25. If it goes below 25 and I haven't been on the 1/4 mile strip then I start to cry.

[mat562be]

My memory is that the 'old shape' Volvos - i.e the 850s and S70 and V70 P1 models) were slightly more greedy on fuel than the new 'uns. By slightly I mean 1-2 mpg. Autos were noticably greedier - albeit we didn't have many - and were 2-3 mpg worse off.

Incidentally, I ran an import Scooby (no jokes please, it was good while it lasted, and when I had mine they were still comparitively rare) and never ever saw 20 mpg on road or track. In winter, it regularly did 15 mpg in sedate driving conditions. We had them at work too, albeit standard UK spec cruddy ones. They did about 17/18 mpg, and often had to be filled up again mid-shift due to the thimblesque tank. Glad I wasn't paying for the petrol (or, sadly, the inevitable 70000 mile engine rebuild)

Ahhh... Volvos, and their comforting 150000 mile mileometer displays... That means plenty more thousands to go for me...

[T5Rdragon]

Thanks for the replies - really, 95% of the time I have been driving like a grandad - no aircon on (and no, the knob hasn't been in demist either), not using the cruise control.

My daily journey is a straight 4 mile journey to the M1, then 16-17 miles down the M1, then 2 miles across the city. My return trip this week has been the exact opposite (normally I need to go via my horses on the way home, but not this week). FWIW, the morning journey is fast until about 7 miles away from Sheffield then gets start-stoppy until into the city. The return journey has been the middle of the night and so very empty roads.

So most of my driving has been light footed (pulling away so slowly it hurts a lot of the time), and over 75% of it has been on the M1. I filled the tank on Monday, and today, the fuel warning light came on and I'd done 244 miles. I filled up again with optimax (and again, it only took 56 litres).

So, given that the concensus seems to be that yes, autos and 10 year old engines will return less MPG than the P2 V70s etc, not _this_ much less.

So I'm after ideas of what might be amiss and what might be worth looking at?

Thanks

PS: The Tesco 99ron thing - need to check that out - I know they were doing limited trials of it "down south" - need to see if it's become a full on, every store thing now.

PPS: Noone answered me question about whether 97RON would be OK for this Rica'd car?

[Andrew]

*shrug* I just assumed 19/20 mpg was fine.... given the performance. Have you reset the computer as my previous results and heavy foot may be effecting. Have you switched to economy on the box rather than sport?

If you look in the folder for the last rolling road it shows an air / fuel mix which is nearly perfect - I remember Adam @ VT commenting on that fact so I don't think the problem is mechanical.

As I said I'm only getting 22mpg from the V70R... not that much difference.

[T5Rdragon]

*shrug* I just assumed 19/20 mpg was fine.... given the performance. Have you reset the computer as my previous results and heavy foot may be effecting. Have you switched to economy on the box rather than sport?

I'm not using the computer to tell me (in fact the infocentre hasn't been away from outside temp since I collected the car) - the calculations are what the car has actually given me in a tank of fuel (i.e. 240 or so miles for a 60 litre fill) = 240 miles/15 gallons or 15/16 mpg... Car has been in econ mode except for the few times mentioned previously.

EDIT: Unless you mean reset the ECU data? In which case I'd also be
booting it to make sure the car was responsive after learning mileage

In fact, 60 litres is 15.8 gallons, so it's 240/15.8 - 15.1MPG. Given the comment about how much fuel is left when the light comes on, lets say I could do an extra 10 miles on that, so lets say the car did 250 miles to that 60 litre fill - that's still only 15.8MPG (and still 100 miles less than the T4, for comparible driving style) - please, someone tell me the maths here is wrong...

19/20 mpg probably would be fine, given the performance, but unfortunately I'm neither using the performance nor getting mpg that high.

None of this is a slight against you mate - just aware that the car may not be doing as well as it could

Unless someone's gonna tell me I need to drive it a bit more assertively as grandad driving is renound for eating fuel? Anyone? (I'd love for that to be true!!! )

Thinking of replacing the 1 pod with turbo guage to a 2 pod with turbo and A/F guage, just to keep an eye on it over the years.