300tdi mpg

What MPG do you get from your disco?

Ours is a 95 300TDI auto, with 125,000 on the clock. We are running Insa Turbo Sahara tyres (granted, not the best tyres for road work, but fantastic off-road) and we average 23 mpg off-roading and general running about.

When towing our caravan (1000kg) at the weekend - 240 miles round trip we only got 17mpg! we were only doing a max of 50-55mph as well!

What do you recon?

Shaz said:

What do you recon?

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Reckon you're ready for a service!

Actually thats not too shabby... I'm getting roughly 27-28 with running about, with a fresh filter kit, de-EGR and de-cat.
I try to cruise at 55-60, saves dropping below the knock off for the TC.

Will be doing a nice run oop norf to scotlandland on friday night, so we'll see what the best i can get is...

Here's hoping for nice long empty motorways and dual carriageways!

We have only just serviced it, as we haven't had it long we treated it to lots of TLC -

Gear oil
Diff transfer box oil
Engine oil
Slick 50
All new filters - air, oil and fuel
Brake fluid
Cam belt
Battery
Greased everywhere that we could!

Ours has de-EGR, but hasn't had de-cat - does that make a big difference?

around 300 miles to a full tank, mostly town driving tho. not sure what that is in mpg

Mark Disco said:

around 300 miles to a full tank, mostly town driving tho. not sure what that is in mpg

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Sounds like ours isn't doing too badly then - ours does about 425 to a full tank.

There seems to be a big variation in people's fuel consumption. I usually get 30mpg out of my 200tdi. Could do better but I like to welly it sometimes and hate hanging about. Last weekend I did a 200 mile trip with my 16ft flatbed trailer, half empty then the return with another disco on the trailer so worked it pretty hard. After running around all weekend and going to and from work today it appears I've had pretty much the same mileage out of a tankful as I usually get without the heavy towing. I was expecting a lot less but for some reason it's about the same.

We tow a caravan most weekends, with off-roading and/or green-laning as well and always get more than 300 to a tankfull. If we don't tow we have had 450 to a tankfull, but it's almost always a mixture of solo, towing and off-roading so usually between 350 and 400 to a tank. We never, however, run it low and always fill up sometime after it's got to only a quarter full.

Only time we ran it from brimming to almost completely empty we got about 470 miles to the tank ...

All fluids changed (oils etc) at 5000 intervals, 120k on the clock, kept in good working order, with a de-cat exhaust, no egr plumbing, and stiffer air pipes to turbo etc ... made about a 50 mile to the tank difference on mpg's ... for the better ...

I towed my 1200 kg van with my 94 auto down to cornwall from Manchester and back and got 22.5 m.p.g stuck to 55 /60 mph.Ive got de-cat pipe and tyres are standard road tyres.Whats yours like on the hills? Mine slows down a lot and struggles a bit .Think its only 110 bhp.early 300 tdi

It does sound like de-cat exhaust might be the way to go? Think I'll do some investigating, especially if it can make that much difference!

Thanks. :

must admit that my town driving is never really slow driving, i really should stop buying shoes with lead soles!!

ive also just fitted a de-cat pipe and removed the egr system, and just cleaned out the intercooler and scrubbed the inlet manifold clean so im not sure if all that will affect the mpg next time i fill the tank. il report back in a few days and let you know

Depends ... If I stick to 60 it barely notices hills ... if I'm pushing it it will drop to 60, and sometimes I drop to 4th if I'm really pressing on.

Only places I've struggled is the long drag on the M5 near Bristol, but just stayed in 4th and 50 mph, and there's a couple of long uphills on M62 that I have to drop to 4th and occasionally 3rd to keep at 45/50. Caravans a Sprite Musketeer 4 berth and weighs about 1400 kg fully laden ... but we usually have four people, three bikes, an awning and a pup tent etc with us, as well as off-road gear so pretty loaded.

Mark Disco said:

must admit that my town driving is never really slow driving, i really should stop buying shoes with lead soles!!

ive also just fitted a de-cat pipe and removed the egr system, and just cleaned out the intercooler and scrubbed the inlet manifold clean so im not sure if all that will affect the mpg next time i fill the tank. il report back in a few days and let you know

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When I first did mine the mpg's dropped a lot, but that's 'cos I liked the power !!! Now I'm used to it and keep the right foot steady ... and get much better mpg for it.

rollin danny said:

I towed my 1200 kg van with my 94 auto down to cornwall from Manchester and back and got 22.5 m.p.g stuck to 55 /60 mph.Ive got de-cat pipe and tyres are standard road tyres.Whats yours like on the hills? Mine slows down a lot and struggles a bit .Think its only 110 bhp.early 300 tdi

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Ours struggled big time on the hills - got down to 20-25mph at one stage! I think our tyres will make quite a difference as well, they are more suited to off roading than tarmac! - I think de-cat pipe sounds worth while.

We were did get concerned about braking with the caravan on, cos, when braking doing 50ish mph we got quite a swagger on the caravan, which we had not experienced with the honda civic we usually tow with. Do you get the same problem when towing with your disco?, or could this be down to our tyres, do you use a stabalising bar? :crazy:

Both my 300 Disco's seem to end up doing ~28. This includes driving to work and a dive trip to Permbroke with 4 people and 4 sets of dive kit. Constant 70-75 right up till the wheel bearing let go. De-EGR'd the current one and it didn't make any difference to anything much. One run across Ireland got me 36mpg. Almost constant 55ish.
Bear in mind you've got a lot more axle articulation than a Honda Civic so you will get more movement. Try upping the noseweight on the caravan. Often helps but don't overdo it. I've never used towing stabilisers and I do a lot of towing but only boats. They tow a lot better than caravans.

I know what you mean about swagger.Whats really scary is when those big h.g.vs overtake and the air stream sucks you towards it.Ive got anti snake bar but havn,t got round to fitting it yet.Im off tommorow in the van down Derbyshire so will let you know how it went.

With a mix of M/Way, A & B roads with a bit of town driving I'm getting around 26mpg. I do take it easy but the auto box does'nt help.

diver said:

Both my 300 Disco's seem to end up doing ~28. This includes driving to work and a dive trip to Permbroke with 4 people and 4 sets of dive kit. Constant 70-75 right up till the wheel bearing let go. De-EGR'd the current one and it didn't make any difference to anything much. One run across Ireland got me 36mpg. Almost constant 55ish.
Bear in mind you've got a lot more axle articulation than a Honda Civic so you will get more movement. Try upping the noseweight on the caravan. Often helps but don't overdo it. I've never used towing stabilisers and I do a lot of towing but only boats. They tow a lot better than caravans.

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Thanks for that - maybe we will try and pack the caravan weight differently next time, or maybe we will tow with the Civic - we get around 35mpg towing with that. Civic is no good for the green lanes tho!!

rollin danny said:

I know what you mean about swagger.Whats really scary is when those big h.g.vs overtake and the air stream sucks you towards it.Ive got anti snake bar but havn,t got round to fitting it yet.Im off tommorow in the van down Derbyshire so will let you know how it went.

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Have fun in Derbyshire , look forward to hearing how you get on :car:

I've just sold a '98 TDi300 auto EDC and over 12,000mls it averaged 33mpg.

This mileage included a trip to Morroco, daily running about, towing all sorts of trailers and caravans.

I generally cruise at about 60mph as I found that above that the mpg dropped significantly.

My car was well maintained, De-catted, de-EGR'd and on AT²'s.

When i first got the Disco I drove really carefully but now I have a lead right foot and still manage to get about 470 miles to a tank. BTW, I have Safety Devices rack fitted and AT2's and they don't affect the MPG, not that I measure it that often. If it's empty it gets filled, if it's full it gets driven.