Faulty fuel gauge/phenominal deisel thirst/all Freelander guages lie?!

bukko said:

I just worked mine out at around 20mpg.
That's with the prop on and doing mostly motorway at about 70-80.
Glad I have a mileage allowance!

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That's what mine does on my Cornish B road commute. If I could drive at 60 it would be better on fuel.

Well, third tankful and the warning light has just come on at 570 miles. Will I make it over the magical 600mile mark? This did include a low gear little shufty around in the storm t'other night looking for firewood...

My red light is on, but I think I'm well under 400.......a fuse blew during this tank full and I 'lost' maybe 50 or so miles on the trip.... But as I go on the odo, it will record the correct mileage, it is just I don't remember what it was :lol: it is recorded on Fuelly though.

dougjoy said:

I average around 30 mpg or 6.5 mpl in my TD4 with synergy and K&N air filter. The driving is semi rural with occasional motorway drives. I'm not lead footed but am not slow. I cannot get near to others MPG. god knows what I'm doing wrong.

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Must be the country roads. Mines standard and is lucky to get 30 mpg, going to look into a Ron box to help though.

Third tank and I bottled out at 592 miles! I will crack 600 on the next tank!!

Got 43.7mpg out of that and that included a leak at the beginning and a night of low geared crawling about looking for firewood...

Spacemonkey... said:

Third tank and I bottled out at 592 miles! I will crack 600 on the next tank!!

Got 43.7mpg out of that and that included a leak at the beginning and a night of low geared crawling about looking for firewood...

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That's great. I bottled out at an indicated 365!!!!

I know it was more. Need to check when I put it on fuelly when I get home.

errr- 435 miles, 61.3 lites and 32.2mpg. at a guess 70% town driving with quite a lot of short trips.

Having filled up to the brim, driven 300miles on motorways and the rest on A or B roads I've worked out my car is doing 32.3mpg. In the motorway I'm usually doing 75-80mph, only once or twice did I creep over that to 90mph by when getting out of people's way.
Is that about average for a 2001 Td4?

duncanpage4 said:

Having filled up to the brim, driven 300miles on motorways and the rest on A or B roads I've worked out my car is doing 32.3mpg. In the motorway I'm usually doing 75-80mph, only once or twice did I creep over that to 90mph by when getting out of people's way.
Is that about average for a 2001 Td4?

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I'm not surprised at those speeds. It has the aerodynamics of a barn door. Slow down to legal speeds or even 60-65 and you should see a massive difference in your pocket.

Personally, I can't see the point in driving that fast. Down here in the South East the roads are so congested, I just let all the others race about the place. They rarely get anywhere much quicker, because they just get caught up in traffic. If they are earlier it is only by a few minutes, but they have spent so much more in doing so.

I am really surprised people can afford to drive fast. With the price of fuel, it is my biggest expense. The slower I drive, the more there is in my pocket to pay for food etc.

Basically, what he said...

I used to race around but that was when fuel was cheaper and my cars were faster. A lot faster......

Anyway, I remember getting VERY stressed as the roads were very congested and there was always some idiot blocking the way for no reason who obviously missed the bit about keeping left unless overtaking... And no, I NEVER had an accident. Or caused any. Believe me, in my job I see the end result of crashes all the time (and despite what traffic cops tell you, THEY don't scrape you off the road I do, and I can think of better things to do in the middle of the night..) so I'm very observant and cautious- also 25 years of motorbikes kind of sharpens the senses. Trouble is, no matter how good a driver or how observant you are, there's always some other idiot who can do something totally random and end it all. Just watch any Russian driving vid.


But commuting 200 miles a day taught me to slow down to save fuel and I discovered it was a lot less stressful, a lot cheaper and I wasn't that much later. In the real world, doing my commute at 80 in the Golf compared to now doing it at 65 in the FL takes me an extra half an hour a day. But less stress. I'd like to say I save money, but the reality is the 180bhp Golf did 57mpg at 80 over the journey, and 75mpg when I did it at 65. The FL does it in 44mpg average. If I drive at 70 or more, the FL uses a lot more fuel..

I also use Diesel Rhino additive which works out at about an extra 1p or so a litre but means I can chuck the cheapest nastiest diesel in and get the benefits and mpg of running the top fuels that cost over 10p more a litre. I used to get about 5mpg more in the Golf using the Rhino. Not sure how many more int he FL as I've always used it.

Well I'm stumped now. I used to average 400 miles per tank.But on my last fill up, to the brim, my needle sat at just over the 3/4 mark. I'm just about to fill up again and It's reading only 242 miles. Logic tells me that there is far more diesel left in the tank, but 20 years of experience with Land Rover's tells me to err on the side of caution.
Incidentally I managed 592 miles to the tank when I went on holiday this year in my Td4.
A few years ago I topped 600 in my V6 !! Ok, that was with a full tank of LPG and a full tank of unleaded !

Yes I do drive too fast.
I think it's a combination of being used to riding motorbikes the majority of the time, that and being annoyed when someone on a motorway pulls out to over take another car but will only pass them 1mph faster than the car they're overtaking! So I end up sitting behind them for the next 3 miles before they pull in again!
When I overtake and someone is coming up behind me I speed up a bit so I can pull in again before the other car is on my bumper, but then my instructor taught me it was against the Highway Code not to cause others to have to change their speed or direction.

This last few days I've stuck to the speed limits and mostly stayed out of the outside lane and the fuel gauge has been dropping less rapidly.
Will have to retrain myself to sit in the inside lane and allow more time for my journeys.
Saying that, with the stereo & speakers upgraded and the Freelander being so comfy it's not going to be a problem adding 30 minutes to a journey!

Haha! It takes time, believe me, but it can be done. Give me a fast car and someone else's fuel though, and it will be another story..