Hi all,

I was just wondering what sort of MPG people are getting from their SDI's.

I ask this as I'm sure ours doesn't do as many miles to a tank as it did when we first had it a year or so ago.....sadly I've slept a few times since then and my memory isn't what it was so I thought I'd ask what others got to a tank.

To start off, even with the distance to go at 5 or 10 miles we can still only fill it with about 41 litres. Usual fillup costing 52 quid (ish).

Seems we are currently getting 475 ish down to the beep and then another 50 on top of that.

Last time we filled up at the pump (some of you will recall we actually run 50/50 diesel and SVO) and divided the litres into the miles on the trip we got 57.3 to the gallon. Sounds about right to me.

Just seem to have this nagging thing in my head that we were getting 600 to a tank when we first had it..................probably just early onset dementia! lol

525 miles from 41 litres is nothing to complain about. It's almost 21 km/l.

I've just got 570 miles from my vRS with around 30 miles still to go according to the display, just ticked past 138k miles aswell

Fuel prices are rocketing upwards again, been using a light right foot!

Run a tank of super diesel through it and with any luck it will give

the injectors/fuel system a bit of a clean over 500 odd miles.

Thanks guys. 570 and another 30 from a VRS seems mega!

Its probavbly just my imagination and paranoia to be honest. Oh and running a highish concentration of oil tends to give dubious MPG readings on the computer so that too is probably messing with my mind.

I have been reading up on this water injection to periodically give the rings and injectors a clean, but somehow my brain really doesn't like the idea of spraying a mist of water into the engine despite its long history of use!!

I've just had a look back and I posted this back in april before I started using veg.

"The long term average shows 64mpg but in real terms ie fill up and check mileage method, it averages 61mpg so near enough for me."

Last tank we did showed 57mpg and I dont think the long term trip is quite as high now as 64 but will reset it and monitor it for a while.

I love the idea of running 50/50 derv and veg oil, specially as I'm currently getting the clean new veg for free (long story but totally legal I might add) but useful to monitor things as I don't want to cause damage. I'm no fool and wouldn't risk killing an engine to save a fiver a month, but this car has covered 20k miles in its first year with us and using 50/50 means a fill up costs aroun 27 quid so hefty savings to be had here.

It would be great to have some more veg users on here so we could share information!

For the record the engine still sounds good and runs fine. It fires up on the button first touch every morning with no cranking so thats all good too. I do keep thinking its a wee bit down on power, but with only 64hp its probably me just getting used to the lack of anything happening when I pin the loud pedal into the carpet lol.

I just like the idea of keeping the engine clean on the inside so have a bit of a bee in my bonnet currently about glycerol build up and how to remove it.

Just rambling away...............

Edited 18 August, 201213 yr by capriman

More rambling from me tonight.....

Light came on this morning and we had a good trip to do today. Also discovered this 'trick' to get extra fuel into the fabia tank by flicking the lever in the filler neck.

So off to Tesco we went first for some sunflower oil. 30 litres duly purchased for £20 after vouchers. Then it was poured in, in the car park before it was off to morrisons to fill up with derv. Another £20 parted with and the tank is bulging its so full!!! Approx 57 litres.

We have just got home having covered 199 miles......the needle is just about unbending itself off the full mark on the gauge and the trip computer is suggesting another 510 miles on its range.

I put 20 litres of SVO in from Costco £18.99, seems like it's having problems starting, I understand that it may have clogged the fuel filter, so I have bought a new one to replace it, but I'm concerned that the cold weather is making the oil cloud and not feed the engine, anyone else had any problems like this?

I used to run our Pug 306 on veg oil (it had the nice strong Bosch pump).

Used mainly 50/50 with diesel and the odd neat veg in the summer time.

Covered about 12k running like this an no problems.

We even once filled up in winter, drove across to Germany and into some mountain regions with temps down to -15c (about -5 while starting up in the morning) and had no problems at all. Started first turn of the key.

If you are having some running problems you might want to put some diesel in on top. I used to get a "surging" from time to time. more noticeable when accelerating flat out onto the dual carriageway. Topping up with some more diesel usually sorted it out.

Phil

big bobz around corner from me gets 57mpg overall on a full tank working environment. On a long journey he had we worked it out to be well over 70mpg

I always struggled getting good economy from a N/A diesel.

Maybe because I felt the need to thrash it everywhere I went to get it to move at a decent pace! lol

No way did we ever get even 60mpg from it I doubt.

I only make these comparisons, by the way, as the engine in the pug is pretty similar in design and tech to the SDI engine.

Phil

my 1.9d berlingo struggled to do 45mpg

my 1.9d berlingo struggled to do 45mpg

Ah right. Probably the same engine as was in the Pug then.

Ours used to do about 42mpg doing 80mph. It makes us laugh that we can do tripple figures in the new car and do the same MPG. lol

Phil

I filled my tank last night and even done the breather trick thing to get extra in.. it came to around £50, but my fuel computer says i'd only get 390 from my full tank...

This seems far short of everyone els saying they can get over 500 and some closer to 600!

I filled my tank last night and even done the breather trick thing to get extra in.. it came to around £50, but my fuel computer says i'd only get 390 from my full tank...

This seems far short of everyone els saying they can get over 500 and some closer to 600!

It calculates that based on the last so many miles driven/how it's currently been driven.

On a gentle motorway cruise after town driving the miles left on my car goes up. Also works the other way round.

Drive steady for a few miles and it will probably increase.

Plus the trip computer can't know if you've brimmed the tank using the vent space so it won't include that in the calculation. If I vent the tank in ours and fill it right up it can read 500 miles left for about 100 miles! lol

Phil

Anythings better than the 80 mile i used to get from £20 in my 1.2 12 v Fabia! It was awful on fuel.

Yeah lofty is right on of my tankfulls was nearly all motorway and i averaged 74mpg great car dam sight better than my focus

W reg SDI with 105K always gives over 70mpg. Daily Italian tune up, but few attempts to accelerate faster than a zimmer frame.

Can I ask a dumb question, as I'm confused.

What's this SVO? I'm guessing it's some kind of Vegetable Oil?

Edited 5 November, 201213 yr by Jim H

Can I ask a dumb question, as I'm confused.

What's this SVO? I'm guessing it's some kind of Vegetable Oil?

Stands for Straight Vegetabe Oil. Meaning getting normal veg oil and chucking it straight in without any treatment to lower the viscosity etc.

Phil

Normally round town I'm looking at around 50MPG, but that's on a TDI.

Hi all, not been around for a while but nice to see this thread still chuntering along nicely in true SDI style

I'm very impressed by those claiming 70+ MPG from their SDI's. Any clues to how you drive it? I know you say motorway work, but what sort of cruising speeds are you travelling at as the last time I saw a sustained 90mpg for a few miles I was about 15 feet off the back end of a coach for a while late at night!!! Without the aid of a 'tow' I'm lucky to see mid 60's.

Still running up to 50% SVO or sunflower oil (whichever seems to be on offer at the time) but now the colder weather is here I have dropped that to around 30%. Not an exact science, I look at what the trip is showing and roughly work a percentage. To the fellah who had starting problems, ours has run as high as 80% in warm weather and now 30% ish but the average is 50% and it starts first touch of the key come rain or shine and never cranks. Maintenance wise all I did was change the fuel filter quite quickly after running the svo as I'm told due to its thickness it tends to pick up every tiny bit of rubbish in your tank like glue and drag it through the system and into the filter. After that no further change to the fuel filter has been done and I'm doing an oil and filter change about every 7k miles. Thats it.

A few numbers. The car has now covered 90k miles with 27k of those in our ownership of just over a year. At least half of that has been running a mix of diesel and sunflower/SVO. It runs much quieter and smoother running the mix than it does on straight diesel and of course smells better than that 'bleachy' smell from straight diesel. Seems to average circa 60mpg or 100 miles to a 'tenner' tank after tank.

Hope you guys are well and chugging along cheaply!

Edited 18 November, 201213 yr by capriman

It runs much quieter and smoother running the mix than it does on straight diesel and of course smells better than that 'bleachy' smell from straight diesel. Seems to average circa 60mpg or 100 miles to a 'tenner' tank after tank.

Hope you guys are well and chugging along cheaply!

The fact that the engine runs quieter isn't a good thing btw...

This means that the timing has being retarted once it's warmed up. The ammount it retards is based on (the much thinner) diesel fuel. When running on veg it's thicker and needs longer to ignite but the timing is retarted so you don't get a complete burn of the veg oil and so you don't get the diesel "knock".

Phil

I'm on my first tank of fuel after bying the car and it's done about 150 on the first 1/4 of the tank.

MPG is averaging 55 which is a good mix of town, A road and motorway. I think the computer indicates about 60 at 70mph and about 70 at 60mph.

One thing I thought about is that some cars have 165mm wide tyres and some have 185mm wide tyres. I would imagine this might make 5-10% difference

One thing I thought about is that some cars have 165mm wide tyres and some have 185mm wide tyres. I would imagine this might make 5-10% difference

Virtually no difference at all due to different profiles.