Frustratingly low mpg

Hello everyone.
I'm George and I recently bought a 2012 freelander 2 SD4 with 69.000 km on the odo, from the dealership.
It was initially a demo car.
The thing is that since i bought it, the average mpg I get in town is something near 16 mpg, driving normally. I live in a hilly town but I don't think that should be the norm.
I cleaned the MAF sensor, the air presure sensor and did a forced Particle filter regeneration, and the only intermitent DTC that SDD showes me is B100A-15.
The funny thing is that right after the forced Particle filter regeneration, the mpg climbed up to 26 mpg but droped slowly afterwards.
I'll take a trip to the dealership next week (some 150km away), but I thought that some input from you guys woldn't hurt.
Some ideas on what to check/try until then? What's the absolute worst mpg you've gotten?

Oh, also did a Turbine/Maf/Egr/Something else.. test in SDD and that also came out OK. :|

Is it an automatic?

Nodge68 said:

Is it an automatic?

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Yes. I forgot to specify that.

petregeorgian said:

Yes. I forgot to specify that.

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The auto is worse on fuel than the manual by quite a lot. However 16 MPG seems very low, as most owners seem to get high 20s. My D3 gave me about 23 Mpg, which is a lot heavier than an FL2.

Nodge68 said:

The auto is worse on fuel than the manual by quite a lot.

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The thing is that I have a friend that bought his wife an identical car, sd4, auto, with more miles on it, and she gets 22mpg constantly.
Also, the tester shows a MAF fault on her car, and still.. 22mpg..

Mine is 08 auto and is worst on local runs in cold weather about 23mpg but in warm on motorways about 40mpg so I would say there is something wrong unless you are constantly driving up a mountain. It will be interesting to hear what is wrong, hope its sorted soon.

Poor fuel economy from diesel Freelander 2 is a more frequent question on here than what oil to use in a service or what size tyres can I fit.

There are lots of threads on it.

Getting to the stage where it needs a sticky I think.

I thought on the F2 that the economy figures for auto should be quite similar to the manual.

GrumpyGel said:

Poor fuel economy from diesel Freelander 2 is a more frequent question on here than what oil to use in a servic

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It's looking that way GG.

GrumpyGel said:

I thought on the F2 that the economy figures for auto should be quite similar to the manual.

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Not really. Automatic boxes always burn more fuel, especially at low speeds, or climbing hills. I use 4th in mine, while I'm going slower than 50 Mph. Holding the box in 4th allows the TC clutch to lock, so the engine is spinning slower than it would in 5th, with the TC clutch open. This means that in 5th, with an open TC clutch open, fuel is being burned to heat the box fluid, instead of moving the vehicle down the road.

Over what sort of distance are you measuring your mpg? It's only worth doing once the engine and gearbox have had a chance to warm up.
Suggest you do a fill from 'Low Fuel Warning@ to brim full, zero the odometer, and do your sums when the warning light comes on again. My FL2 computer tallies nicely with the tank-full check, but I suspect not all do.

I did a recheck this morning and it seems that this time, the tests came with an error.
@GrumpyGel There are other topics but I didn't find anybody getting an mpg as low as mine.

@Rank Amatuer , I tried doing that last fuel-up but I changed the car battery and the service guys didn't have a battery support unit, so...

So, here's the follow up:
I went to the dealership and changed the oil, the filters, antifreeze, etc.
And because my country is consider to be in the "harsh driving condition zone", they also changed the distribution, water pump and accessories belt. Servicing cost: ~890 Pounds
The SDD test came clean as they said, AND today the fuel lamp came on so I calculated the fuel consumption:

553km - 343 miles - driven in total
320 km - 199 miles - outside of town
233 km - 144 miles - in town
Last fuel up: 60.6006 liters - 13.33 gallons
So I got something near: 10.96L/100km - 21.46mpg

I'm curious if I'll see any improvements after the filters and oil change.
Also, the service techs said that the fuel consumption doesn't seem odd to them. :|
I'll update the thread periodically.

My 2010 auto does low 30s normally but on a long run in warm weather it has hit 40.
I often see a big change depending where I fill up, filled it at Tesco last week and mpg dropped by 4 or 5 in the next couple of days.

What my gps tracker says:
Time spent driving: 13h 56m 5s
Time spent stopped with engine on: 7h 39m 45s
Average speed 37.92km/h - 23.56mph

Sounds about right. You spend >50% time stopped with the engine idling and the rest of the time in 2nd or 3rd gear, maybe 4th.
Either you're trolling or you have the wrong vehicle for your commute.

At first glance, 21mpg is poor fuel consumption. Sure I'd have gotten better out of my old (auto) Disco 300TDI. Would definitely get a 50% improvement on those figure in my (manual) F1.

However, I wouldn't get 50% more Ks for that amount of fuel!

Checking those figures, it actually comes out at 31mpg - which isn't great, but not to bad for that type of driving.

Rank Amatuer said:

Either you're trolling or you have the wrong vehicle for your commute.

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Not trolling, but I just realized that the time spent with the engine idling is less. Time is off because of the way the tracker is wired. That's the time spent with the contact on.
The car is used for carrying my big dog and light merchandise between two stores + going "greenlaneing" Might not be the greatest choice when it comes to fuel consumption but I actually really like the car.


@GrumpyGel Thanks for the input!

Is that dog collar legal? It's a choke chain with spikes!

Rank Amatuer said:

Is that dog collar legal? It's a choke chain with spikes!

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Very legal. The spikes are very blunt. I actually manage a couple of pet stores.

petregeorgian said:

Very legal. The spikes are very blunt. I actually manage a couple of pet stores.

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So designed to merely inflict pain rather than injury then?