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

Hello again

Just wanted to ask if Freelander TD4's were juicy or just have rubbish fuel gauges?

Since collecting the car on Saturday I've spent £65 on diesel and driven 310 miles.
275 miles of that was motorway, mostly at 75mph but occasionally I did hit 3 figures when the person I was relying on for directions got bored and put her foot down!
If my maths is correct that's approximately 30mpg? Is my TD4 drinking more than it should or is that about right?

I must also add that when the fuel gauge reads almost empty (on the red line but fuel light not on) I put in £40 of diesel (at 136.9) and the fuel gauge read 3/4 full!

I've got to buy myself a fuel can so I can then fill the tank to the brim and run it until the fuel light comes on and know I have 10 litres to get me to a garage should it run out!

get a synergy 2 box mate

All them figures sound about right around the doors I get about 400 miles to a tank which would cost just under £80. Did a road trip the other day down to Birmingham so lots of motorway miles, sat at 65 and got 500 miles to my tank buzzing! But aye it would be nice if the fuel gauge were faulty. Did you get a top speed out of it?

And slow down a bit... best speed for economy on motorway is about 65, above that they drink a bit due to aerodynamics of a barn door. But you need a light foot to get the economy. Mine does 42mpg easily.

42!! That motorway driving I hope? Hell I dream of mpg like that.

Mostly, but a bit around town too. That was with knurdled injectors, clogged EGR and shot MAF running like a bag of dog poo. Second tank gave 41.2mpg and that was half with new injectors, new MAF, new Ronbox on top setting, and EGR delete, but ****ing diesel out of the injector unions...

Sorted the leak (hopefully!!) and refilled today so third tank will be with everything running at it's optimum. I'm hoping for mid forties.. There's definitely a skill to driving economically. Resisting the urge to give it some beans every now and then is the hardest part. I do give it ****e once in a trip to clear things out. Round town I don't hang about but still don't floor it. I've had lots of big engined thirsty cars since I was 17 so learned to drive them economically or walked!!

I don't think the fuel gauge is too bad - once you learn to read it.

Mine goes something like this…

From brimmed to just starting to cross the full mark - 100 to 140 miles
then it falls at a rate of approximately 110 miles per quarter mark until the last quarter.

The last quarter seems to vanish quite quickly although it's well into the red before the light comes on. I'm currently getting an average of 540 mile to the tank which is around 40MPG.

The overall average over 12,600 miles in the past 13 months has been 36.9 or so.

Looking at my stats on fuelly.com my worst tank was 27.1MPG (pulling a trailer down the M6) and best tank was 42.3MPG. The car is bog standard.

I get about 460 miles to a tank, my commute is half very quick roads over the Peak District (A635) at about 65mph and the other half city driving into Manchester.

That includes pre-warming the car with the FBH most mornings.

I'm getting about 400 ish miles to the tank, but I am driving too much around South London with quite a lot of short journeys. Long journeys I have got about 40mpg out of it.

Im on 518 miles its not on red line yet and lights not on.. It was brimmed on the last fill.

illy

TD4

My fuel guage is a lying bastard.

I run it til the red light comes on, stick £15 (petrol) that gets me quarter of a tank. Ill do about 50 miles and the needle wont move, then Ill park it up, turn it back on and the thing says Im barely above the red line! Then that last 2mm of guage lasts about another 30 miles or so.

I dont really pay much attention to it, £15 gets me about 80 miles. My MPG is horrendous because Ive been using my hippo lots for stop/start town delivery driving and its really starting to **** me off, getting painful filling it up so often. Really wish Id bought a diesel and could stick one of those magic Synergy or Ron box thingies on it.

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!

Spacemonkey... said:

And slow down a bit... best speed for economy on motorway is about 65, above that they drink a bit due to aerodynamics of a barn door. But you need a light foot to get the economy. Mine does 42mpg easily.

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Agree with S M , how you drive it , and its service level is a major factor in mpg

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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Whats in it a V8

Close - it's a V6, but that figure is with regular unleaded.
I think it's better at that speed with super unleaded but I haven't used that for a while.
Might try it again though just for curiosity!

Hi
Sory for not replying sooner!
I actually thought everyone was ignoring me as I didn't notice I had to subscribe manually to the thread!
Anyway, thanks for all your replies and suggestions.

When I initially collected the Freelander I sat at 80mph ish, and occasionally hit an 'indicated' 105mph when trying to catch up my cousin who got bored behind me!
But having left her place and driving home to mine I sat at 70-75mph.

I ride a Kawasaki ZX9R so although the acceleration of the Freelander isn't what I'm used to it still feels quite torquey but I try to resist the urge to put my foot down!
Also trying to resist the urge to carry corner speed as I don't want to destroy my tyres!

Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to fill up and get a better idea how the fuel gauge likes to play!

I struggle to get 30mpg out of mine, but have the right foot of an overweight elephant

SES88 said:

I struggle to get 30mpg out of mine,

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Me too, but South London traffic congestion and sometimes 1-2 miles journeys don't help. :lol:

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.

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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Manual? Auto?

Mine is an auto which are always less economical.

Is everything else working okay. It does depend on the length of journey you do. Is the car getting up to temperature? it appears that most need a new thermostat as so many people are mentioning it and it seems to make quite a big difference to the economy.