Hi all i recently purchased a focus tdci 1.6. I filled up with £40 which took it to 3/4 full. i have been doing town driving and its now dropped down to 1/2 tank after only 80 miles. is the fuel gauge accurate? I dont have mpg computer on car so cant view mpg etc. but if it is accurate then it means its doing about 24mpg...that cannot be right surely? My work is about 3 miles away and i use mainly 40mph road and a 30mph road but i thought i would be getting at least 40mpg. My old alfa romeo 1.6 petrol did 30mpg for same journey.

hope someone can help

thanks

Working off the gauge like that won't be accurate. You need to:

1. Fill up

2. Reset your trip counter

3. Drive for some miles or for a few days

4. Fill up again

5. Work out your MPG from the amount of litres you put in against the miles you drove

Working your MPG out from needle positions on the gauge will not give you an accurate view.

Run car till the fuel light comes on.

Fill the car to the brim, reset trip.

Run car till fuel light comes on again.

Refill car to the brim. (Note how many litres to fill).

Check miles on trip. You know approx. how many litres you've used to cover this mileage.

Divide no. of litres by 4.54 this will give you no. of gallons.

Divide total mileage by number of gallons to see approx. mpg.

Yup agree with above.

I generally stick 8 gallons in which is roughly 36 litres which is also roughly £50 depending on the garage.

I fill up as soon as I can when the fuel light turns on. I reset the counter and then just divide the miles it's on when the light comes on again by 8.

If you have a smartphone, there are plenty of free Apps that will work out the MPG for you and show how it tracks over time etc.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I use one called Road Trip Lite - but there are others available.

However as stated above the only way to get accurate numbers is to fill up to the brim every time, and read the litres off the fuel pump - a fuel gauge simply isn't accurate enough.

you have to remember its a diesel and being used for town driving which in a diesel will use a lot more fuel.

diesels take longer to warm up and due to the torque etc are happy on a motorway in town you wont see good returns at all its a common mistake that people doing town driving and short distances buy a diesel thinking they will get super mpg unfortunately i learnt that mistake after my first diesel the points made above are fair also remember the gauge may have dropped to halfway but in my petrol that equates to a good 200 miles of fuel roughly

thanks everyone for your replies.

well after doing what you said it appears it is doing around 28-29mpg.

i have done 180 miles all of that driving has been short distances each day 3 miles to work and back, in this weather most times when i have got to work the temp gauge still hasn't moved.

would you say then that a combination of the very short trips plus cold weather, is this mpg roughly right or should it still be higher?

take it if i were to drive around once the engine was warmed up, the mpg would also increase?

i would say tht sport on for a cold diesel also be aware that (if its fitted) you could be in for a massive ! dpf repair bill, i get more to the gallon out of my 1.2 pertrol clio going up the shops and back etc then in my dads 1.6 tdci focus as my clio has warm air coming out the vents at the end of the road my dads car takes up to 7 miles just to get warm air coming out.

thats great, at least its set my mind at ease as wasn't sure if something was wrong at first as was expecting 45 mpg, but understandable i suppose being a cold engine to get less mpg than that.

the dpf, i am still not sure if mine has it, although i am 99% sure it does. the code on the door reads V (read somewhere on here that if it says V then it means Euro IV with dpf). i understand if its used for mainly town driving that every 300-500 miles its best to just take it out for 15 mins or so along the motorway or something which will clear the dpf, is that right?