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Poor Mpg


Jcoventry
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I have recently covered about 76 miles in my car and it seems to have used about 15 litres of fuel for this, which works out around 20-25 MPG. My car is a 2008 Ka 1.3 Style Climate, so it should be averaging 40 MPG. Admittedly it was a mixture of city/A road driving, lots of braking involved, but surely 20-25 is very low?

I have had the car from new ,and its covered just over 7,000 miles since new. It's never been driven hard, I keep the revs low, change gear as early as possible, very cautious with my acceleration/braking, so cannot see where this extremely poor MPG is coming from.

The last service was its 1st service at around 3800 miles in June 2009.

Dirty injectors?

oil change needed?

Coil pack?

...?

Is it possible that the fuel gauge is vastly inaccurate for some reason?

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I have recently covered about 76 miles in my car and it seems to have used about 15 litres of fuel for this, which works out around 20-25 MPG. My car is a 2008 Ka 1.3 Style Climate, so it should be averaging 40 MPG. Admittedly it was a mixture of city/A road driving, lots of braking involved, but surely 20-25 is very low?

I have had the car from new ,and its covered just over 7,000 miles since new. It's never been driven hard, I keep the revs low, change gear as early as possible, very cautious with my acceleration/braking, so cannot see where this extremely poor MPG is coming from.

The last service was its 1st service at around 3800 miles in June 2009.

Dirty injectors?

Oil change needed?

Coil pack?

...?

Is it possible that the fuel gauge is vastly inaccurate for some reason?

sounds perfectly normal with a mix of driving remember official mpg is a waste of paper we dont drive in labs or on test tracks so by the time you add the electrics you had on the traffic the hills the speed humps stop starting etc etc that figure will drop drastically also the fact that the colder weather means the car takes longer to warm up the needle may be sitting in the middle b ut that can mean youre at say 86/87 degrees not the 90 that it runs at when warm so that will increase the fuel you use till the car is really warm the figures seem normal to me bear in mind that due to price increases in fuel you get less bang for the buck also if youre driving with a full tank thats more weight in the car and more fuel needed to haul it along i never fill the cart up and i get good mpg ide say 15 quids worth at a time is what goes in my tank thats a 1.8 so all these factors increase fuel usage.

when ford do it the car has a set amount of fuel and the tests are done over a few miles of driving at 30mph then at 70mph then some start stop the rest is doine in a temperature controlled lab since we dont drive like this the figures are a estimate of the potential mpg the car can do not the eral world mpg. top gear and the prius got 50 odd mpg over a week they tested it and foundf a diesel was better than the prius yet toyota in optimal conditions claim a lot more mpg youre 30 mpg is based on optimal conditions

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You are probably right, I have managed around 50 MPG on the motorway so I doubt there is anything wrong with the car.

Shame that it does get such low MPG on anything other than a motorway though!

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You are probably right, I have managed around 50 MPG on the motorway so I doubt there is anything wrong with the car.

Shame that it does get such low MPG on anything other than a motorway though!

sad but true fact is all of our cars are better on the motorway than in town the fact you got 50mpg suggests that as i said its just the conditions no matter what we do we need to put petrol in.

so many debates like were advised in heavy traffic if you sit for a while switch the engine off yet a new test said dobnt as it uses more fuel to start the car than if you were to just sit and idle you cant win me i just stick £15 in the tank and do my best to avoid the traffic thats about all we can do

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Is your boot full of stuff too? the more your car has to haul around the more fuel it will use, throw out all unecessery weight, get your passengers to walk and that should help

also, when pulling up to traffic lights dont knock the car out of gear or apply the clutch as your slowing down, use the gears to slow the car down until you absolutely have to break and disengage the clutch, a modern engine uses very little to no fuel as you decellorate whilst in gear

also if you mainly drive on duel carriageways in your town or city, find a big truck and drive behind that, not only does it reduce the wind resistance on your car, but (most) truck drivers are experts at driving, after all, it is their job, they will try and keep to a constant speed through the traffic and will keep moving, it really does help!

Turn your heater off when the cabin gets warm, likewise use the demisters only when neaded, the rear windscreen heater only if necessery, likewise in summer with the air con, if your averaging below 20mph (in traffic for example) wind the windows down rather than use the air con.

using all of these combined methods, i managed to get an average fuel consumption (mixed motorways and city / commuting) of 41.3mpg from the 1.6L sportka, when the official figures say i will struggle to get anything better than 35

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

Hi have a look at the brakes as we had to have new discs and pads 18000 miles 3 year mot full service year1 and 2 brakes had been binding for a short time told this is comon on low milage ford KAs.

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I think you need to brim the tank and zero the mileometer, then fill it up again to get a proper measure of how much fuel you are using before calculating the mpg.

Our old KA2 Collection used to do over 40 mpg no matter how it was driven. The SpotKA os another story though.

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  • 5 years later...

I'm getting 15-20 mpg no matter round town or long distance driveing out of my SportKA - modified with a Steve Wyindom St 120 racing kit, and no idea what the problem is also the engine management light is on - even though it's mapped for a lamba sensor delete - the air filter is fine - so im replacing bank 1 lamba mixture sensor in the manifold with the hope that solves the issue, if not the ill get the car on a dyno.
Anybody got any other ideas ?
Cheers

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

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  • 2 years later...

Just bought a 51 plate Ka for£350 after my Focus died on me. Great little motor but just done 99 miles on £20 petrol!! Wtf! 

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  • 10 months later...

I have a 2004 ka with same engine only 30,000 miles on it  here in spain. with careful driving around this area no traffic lights very quiet roads I still only ger 24mpg. 

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  • 3 months later...

i also have a bmw 525d on a 2004 plate , 37 t0wn 50/55 on motorway, the car i am working on is for my son 2008 1.3, seems he will use more fuel, so mine must be better green wisecarbon footprint wise

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