[Perrycas]

Hi, I did look through other posts but didnt find anything that specifically covered my question. I recently bought this car which has only 40k kilometers and am a bit surprised at the fuel consumption. At the moment gentle driving - at 60kmh @1500 revs mostly) around town is giving me only about 11-12L /100km. As per the log books it's been serviced at the required intervals. It has the standard ngk plugs not the iridiums, and they appear to be burning slightly lean if anything, the air filter appears spotless.  Is it possible its got some odd computer setting, or maybe it wants higher octane fuel perhaps - anyone  have any comment on this and or how to improve it, or is this normal. The road tests i read suggested significantly lower for town driving.

[Dazzler]

Welcome, Sounds a bit high to me .. You could disconnect the battery for about half an hour which will apparently reset the CPU and also put a fuel injector cleaner through. Shouldn't need to use Hi Octane fuel.

[Perrycas]

thanks dazzle I shall try it.

[Dazzler]

Sorry you haven't had more replies.. I am surprised, although the most active Members with Autos have the 1.6 CRDi motor which generally gives between 6 and 8 LPH (I would have thought yours would be in the range of 8 -10 around the city) 

[Phil №❶]

Greetings Perrycas and welcome aboard,

As an owner of diesel i30's I can't offer much advice on this problem, however things to check wold be feeling all wheels at the end of a long drive 30 mins, and see if the rims are excessively hot, could be a binding brake.

Remember it's an auto, so there will be losses due to transmission inefficiency.

Driving style will obviously have an effect. Avoid harsh accelerations & braking.

What were the road test figures that you have read about, how much difference are we talking about ?

I see you're in Sydney, so just how much stop start idling are you doing? Unfortunately in a petrol engine it makes a huge difference. My Commodore returns around 9.5 l/100 on the freeway but quite happily rises to 14.5 if I'm waiting at traffic lights. Naturally, I try to avoid that as much as possible.

Hope I have helped you in some way 

[Perrycas]

thanks for replies.
I tried disconnecting the battery, without much faith. If it did do anything the memory of what was there before would return, but given there were no error messages on the dash it was difficult to see that there had been a problem. I did talk to the dealers and discovered that plugs only got changed at the 45K service which struck me as rather a long time for a relatively standard plug. I found that the gap on mine was about double, so replaced them.
Curiously i spoke a gent at the shop who also had a 2L auto petrol with 40K who was also disappointed with the consumption and was getting about what i was getting using 95 octane. I think the running of plugs that long is a bit ... 'optimistic'.

Its hard to say what has an effect when you do several things at the same time, whether it was the eye of newt or the wing of bat that made the difference,  but i did a tank of 98 ultra with a new set of plugs after having 'reset' the computer and it got 10.45. Still not stunning but better.

Thank's for the driving info I cant say that i am still taking it as easy as i was but still hardly lead-footing it. I do realise that its an auto, and the limitations involved, but the statistics released suggested better than this .Hyundai claimed mid 8's - I expected mid 9's, not mid 10's. Choice says 10.
Our 20 odd y.o. 1.6 corolla auto actually does better.
I am presently trying it with a tank of 95 to see where that goes. I may put it in for a diagnostic as i have found a place that will do it for around $90 in Alexandria.
P

[Dazzler]

You have plenty of KM's up so can't say it is still getting run in