low MPG or rubbish fuel gauge?!

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum having just bought my first Land Rover - a 2004 Freelander TD4 so just thought I'd say hi and hope you can help me with a weird problem. Just got my Freelander last Friday so only had it 6 days. As usual, the garage only put a sniff of diesel in, so filled it up on Friday. I've only done 60 (urban) miles since then and seem to have used about a quater of a tank. I've worked out a rough MPG based on this and it only seems to equate to just over 20 MPG. I've been driving it like a Sunday driving nun, so deffinitley not down to being heavy footed or anything.

The strange thing is that when I park it up and then come back to it later, the fuel gauge seems to have dropped significantly. I'm pretty sure it hasn't been siphoned!, so is this a common issue - perhaps the fuel gauges are just a bit rubbish?

I realise of course I'll need to use the rest of the fuel up and do a proper MPG calculation, but it just seems to have dissapeared very quickly for only having done 60 miles.

I know on a previous car I had, the first half of the tank seemed to dissapear quite quickly (ie from full to half) but then from half to empty seemed to last much longer - I'm hoping this might be a possibility?

other than this, I'm loving the Freelander so far!

thanks in advance,
Mark

if you just brim it off again, you can do a quick mpg check now, just in case there is a problem, you can then take it back to the garage sooner rather than later.

should be looking for at least 30mpg from a td4.

I certainly find the fuel guage very non-linear although mine does the opposite in that it is slow to drop at 1st and dissapears at the end.

As has been said the only accurate way is to brim out the filler neck, run most of the tank off and refill to the same point. I used to get very low 30's but I have now fitted a Synergy 2 and it is up to high 30's instead. A shot of Millers has helped as well.