Mpg- Alicante To Rotherham

[Jaspersilus]

Hi Chaps

Just got back from Alicante in my 2001 RX300, laden to the rafters with wife, 2 kids, tent, all camping equipment, and all the paraphernalia for 21 days camping in southern Spain including an Air Con unit to keep said tent cool.

Got the ferry to Santander, on the 500 mile drive to the site, taking it very steady got a very pleasing 30.4 mpg, for the first 400 mile, then the car seemed noisier, turned out the exhaust has rusted through on the connection between the manifold section and the next section, reset MPG and saw it dropped to 27.4.

On the way home with exhaust blowing, driving steady due to exhaust only managed 27.7 ( doing the sums not relying on trip computer 27.3, on each calculation computer reads 0.4 over the true MPG).

Also noticed in UK and abroad, high octane fuel, particularly Shell v power Nitro, though Tesco Momentum 99 is very close does seem to give between 2-3 mpg more than standard supermarket fuel.

Strangely Shell Fuelsave petrol gives worse economy than cheap supermarket fuel???????????

Just my thoughts and findings :)

Cheers Jason

[ronnaybarkay]

very jealous. The best Ive managed on motorway with cruise at 68-70 is 24 ish... And like you say that has been with a full roof box, towbar mounted bike rack and laden with kids n gear.

[Jaspersilus]

HI Ronnay,

24 with roof box and bikes seems pretty good, we had everything in the car, no extra drag.

I ran a few bottles of fuel system cleaner through a few months ago after my motorway average dropped to 24, worked wonders and can now get 30 mpg at at an indicated 70 mph!

cheers Jason

[digitaldecks]

Hi ,

im picking up my rx400 tomorrow and will go straight to get fuel. i have near me tesco, sainsburys, bp and shell

I've been trying to read up on who's fuel is good and Tesco Momentum 99 came up ok.

As i tend to have access to more supermarkets should i just stick to the momentum 99 or would i be better with someone else. i know there has been many threads but nothing really conclusive.

[Duncan Roberts]

HI Ronnay,

24 with roof box and bikes seems pretty good, we had everything in the car, no extra drag.

I ran a few bottles of fuel system cleaner through a few months ago after my motorway average dropped to 24, worked wonders and can now get 30 mpg at at an indicated 70 mph!

cheers Jason

Which cleaner?

[Jaspersilus]

Hi Duncan,

I used Redex Petrol Injector Cleaner purely because it was on offer at tesco for £2 a bottle, I was sceptical to be honest and rather than half a bottle per tank I put a full bottle per tank in ( as was advised on some other forums), but it did the business, I reckon I had some build up on the injectors. A friend used it on his Laguna after I told him, his motorway MPG went from 32 to 37.

I know the main difference between most supermarket fuels and premium fuels (shell,esso,bp), is the amount of cleaning agents used, so for the sake of a few pence per litre ! ( pre Redex I used the cheapest 95)

Cheers Jason

[Jaspersilus]

Hi,

update, just been to Tesco, Redex petrol injection system cleaner is back on offer at £2 a bottle! :hohoho:

[Duncan Roberts]

Hi Duncan,

I used Redex Petrol Injector Cleaner purely because it was on offer at tesco for £2 a bottle, I was sceptical to be honest and rather than half a bottle per tank I put a full bottle per tank in ( as was advised on some other forums), but it did the business, I reckon I had some build up on the injectors. A friend used it on his Laguna after I told him, his motorway MPG went from 32 to 37.

I know the main difference between most supermarket fuels and premium fuels (shell,esso,bp), is the amount of cleaning agents used, so for the sake of a few pence per litre ! ( pre Redex I used the cheapest 95)

Cheers Jason

Interesting, thanks.

I have to say that I do not use supermarket petrol - neither on my RX300 after about 5000m and now RX400, both from new. The former improved from 16 when I was less careful to 20mpg on a diet of BP and the latter was typically over 30. It has slipped slightly hence my interest. I'll try it, thanks.

[malibu]

I poured a whole bottle of Redex injection cleaner into a full fuel tank last weekend prior to my trip to London.

Today at Hope Cove in Devon I reset my MPG. I drove up hill and down dale through the Devon countryside to home. The distance was 34 miles and the computer declared an astounding 40.4 MPG.

[Sparky999]

Went to the lexus meet at the national heritage car museum yesterday (only RX there)

My RX 350 has had an LPG conversion and managed to get 23 mpg at 59p a litre don't think I did to bad

The on board trip showed 28 mpg on the return run as I had to contend with slow traffic up the M6 ( nothing new there)

Is any other RX members up for a meet somewhere as yesterday was mostly IS & LS members saying that a bigger variety of models would have been nice

[DanD]

To compare...

Just returned from holidays in France. Car was fully laden with 4 people on board, aircon on auto, and various gadgets on charge (iPad, iPods, phones...). Covered 1,400 miles, driving "normally", but respecting speed limits, i.e. 80mph on motorways and appr. 60 on A roads and making the most of the cruise control.

Average consumption over the whole trip was 28.2

[ronnaybarkay]

Im definately going to run a couple of bottles of redex through over the next few fill ups to see if it helps the mpg. Ive bitten the bullet and booked in at Lexus for the 60 K service. Quoted £305. Ive had the plugs and timing belt done a few months ago, so will not doubt get a good assessment of the car. A boost to the mpg would definately help.

[Boxbrownie]

Interesting thread, my RX300 '03 has 115K on the clock now and has been very reliable for the 70K or 6 years I have owned it, always getting a steady 22-23mpg in around town and countryside driving. I recently had a code pop up for the oxygen sensor on the forward bank (the rear sensor was replaced about 2 years ago), being the easy one I ordered a Denso from ECP and fitted it myself in about 15 minutes........the fuel consumption is now a regular 24-25mpg in the same conditions, funny though when the other sensor was replaced it made no differerence to the consumption! Best I can get when trying now is about 28mpg on country roads.

I recently bought a 2010 Mercedes ML350Cdi not expecting much better around town but surprisingly I have been getting 30mpg around town and on a longer run along country roads from Essex to my daughters farm in Norfolk I got 37.8mpg......now thats a result!

It was still going up, I reckon on a longer run I'd be nudging 40mpg easy.......much, much better mpg than I thought I would be getting from the ML, very pleased.......but not getting rid of the RX just yet, it our "lifeboat" :)

[Boxbrownie]

Ah yes while I on it I recently drove the 3500 mile run to southern Spain in my neighbours new Freelander HSE 2.2 diesel auto, four up with roof box and his disability cart and gear jammed in the trunk, was mostly cruising along the autoroutes and the car returned 30.4 mpg........now I thought it would get much better than that, quite surprised.

[Jaspersilus]

Hi Box,

had a 57 plate Freelander 2.2 d HSE Auto as the pool car in my last job, I used it often and driven normally got 24 round town and 28-30 on a run, could get up to 36 round Derbyshire but only changing manually, always seemed the gearbox changed up too late, like it was stuck in sports mode.

Ive spoken to a few other Freelander owners with Auto gearboxes and they tell the same tale, not sure about the facelift cars though as they claim improved MPG!

[Boxbrownie]

Jason, I understand the 2.2 in the new FL isn't the most economical unit, I had a facelift '03 Auto from new for a year or so and that used to return around 35mpg on average, that was the BMW 2L diesel engine, nice unit.

I reckon without the roof box I might have got to 35mpg in the new HSE......but it would only have been cruising at 70 along motorway, anymore and it looked like it destroyed the economy.