My father in law has just bought a 3 month old, new shape Ford C-Max 1.6TDCi Titanium, and is delighted with it in every respect, apart from fuel economy.
Even on a long, gentle run, he can't quite get 50 mpg out of it, and "round the houses", it's well down into the 30's. Best tank average so far, calculated brim to brim, is 43 mpg, which included 300 miles of gentle motorway use.
The engine is still very tight, having only 2000 miles on the clock. I know this has an effect on economy on modern diesels, but the figures seem alarmingly low to me.
Does anyone else have one of these, and what do they get economy-wise? Do these figures seem acceptable? I know I would be very disappointed by them if it were my own car.
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Italian tune-up?
Edit. How come I can post this and I doubt if anyone will take offence, but we're pussyfooting around the word Asian?
Last edited by: bathtub tom on Wed 22 Jun 11 at 09:44
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>> Italian tune-up?
>>
>> Edit. How come I can post this and I doubt if anyone will take offence,
>> but we're pussyfooting around the word Asian?
>>
Because some people have more human rights than others.
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That does seem low, could be pootling about with a 2.0TSi for those economy figures :-D
There's a couple of similar cars on spirit monitor, but they're averaging nearer the 50 mark, e.g. www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/214127.html
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A tight engine can have quite a dramatic effect on economy, so I would expect thats the main cause.
My wifes Sirion was posting a steady 38mpg when brand new, since it hit around the 10k mark its been coming in close to the combined figure of 44mpg.
My Ignis, although it had 22k on the clock when I got it, it had done very little mileage and when I first got it, was very thirsty, around the 39 mpg mark, but now after 6000 miles its easily returning 46 mpg everytime.
The advice is to be patient tbh and stick some miles on it.
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>> A tight engine can have quite a dramatic effect on economy, so I would expect
>> thats the main cause.
>> The advice is to be patient tbh and stick some miles on it.
>>
I agree, I have owned many diesels and believe that they need about 10,000 miles on them before they are fully loosened up, as long as they are used properly and not treated as though using their power will break it.
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...as long as they are used properly and not treated as though using their power will break it...
Sound advice from the old sea dog.
The C-Max is a biggish car and has the aerodynamics - and looks - of a house brick.
I agree it should do more than 30mpg around town, and I think it will if it's loosened up properly.
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The drag coefficient of a rounded cuboid like the C-max is about 0.3. A streamlined object had a drag coefficient of about 0.1, if not better.
I'd just wait on judging fuel consumption until you've done all kinds of journeys; tootling and motorways.
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DP
Our 1.6TDCi Fiesta used to do 39 on a motorway at 70+ up untill about 10K then it improved to about 44ish , now at 24 k it returns 53mpg at 80+ and 66+ mpg at steady 65MPH
We got very impatient with ours but it just took a long long time to loosen up.
Now averages 53-54 running around town, 72mpg if you drive it on a steady run like a nun or normal return on a good steady run is in the 60,s
What we have found which has been laughed at many times before on here when I mention it is that on Supermarket fuel there is a noticable drop in both performance and economey !
If I fill it up with tesco's which i have just tried two tank fulls in sucession it drops to around 47/48 local and struggles to get 60 driving like a nun. Once filled back up with BP much more low down power , crisp sharp and economey comes striaght back.
My wife can tell me which fuel I have filled with as soon as she goes off to work as the difference is that noticeable ! having said that my other diesel there appears to be no difference !
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This annoys me about diesels, the time it takes to loosen the engine up. On checking my economy over 4 years it hasn't reakly changed too much but there is a noticeable couple of mpg difference since the early days.
When you buy a diesel they don't advertise "here are the economy figures you can get after 15000 miles". If you change a car every 3 years it could have a huge bearing on the costs and the petrol vs diesel decision.
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"Even on a long, gentle run, he can't quite get 50 mpg out of it, and "round the houses", it's well down into the 30's. Best tank average so far, calculated brim to brim, is 43 mpg, which included 300 miles of gentle motorway use.
Too many "gentles" as in Just A Minute.
Modern cars need to be driven with mixed revs and occasional hard treatment. Gentle driving when new is a waste of time...
My Yaris D4d has doen 50k miles and is just run in : averaging 61mpg...
Last edited by: madf on Wed 22 Jun 11 at 12:26
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>> Too many "gentles" as in Just A Minute.
>>
>> Modern cars need to be driven with mixed revs and occasional hard treatment. Gentle driving
>> when new is a waste of time...
X2
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>> Too many "gentles" as in Just A Minute.
He pootles about. That's how he drives, like most people of his age. 60-65 on motorways, gentle acceleration and sticking to posted limits elsewhere. I've never known him drive any car he's owned hard.
To give you an idea, we set off 20 minutes behind him on a recent (99% motorway/dual carriageway) journey, and less than 40 miles in, we'd caught and passed him. And although not hanging around, I also wouldn't say I was particularly caning it.
Maybe time to speak to him about changing his driving style, although I can't see it happening somehow.
Otherwise, it seems a question of just being patient and putting the miles on it.
I already told him not to buy a diesel for the 6000 miles a year he does, but was completely ignored. He likes the characteristics of the engines.
Thanks everyone for the replies :-)
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>> He pootles about. That's how he drives, like most people of his age.>>
Oi, I hope he is a lot older than me! :-)
I did see the "most" in there.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 22 Jun 11 at 12:43
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Sorry, should have said many, not most! :-)
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I resemble the remarks about elderly drivers...
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Why not swap cars with hime for a while, DP? He gets one of your Golfs for a week or two while you run the C Max in for him on your commute.
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>> Why not swap cars with hime for a while, DP? He gets one of your
>> Golfs for a week or two while you run the C Max in for him
>> on your commute.
Good idea!
The only potential problem is the mother-in-law, who has arthritis, and struggles to get in and out of ordinary height cars, hence why they bought an MPV. I might suggest it though.
He does like Golfs. He had a mk1, two mk2s, two mk3s and three mk4s in succession over the best part of 30 years. The taller car route was driven mostly by the mother-in-law, (who doesn't like the Golf Plus or Touran).
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Agreed tight engine.
My 123d is averaging around 44mpg against a combined 55mpg though I put it down to a tight engine, 6k when I got it, 8k now.
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Not to mention BMWs are tuned to get great emissions results - how often is a car actually at rest with the start-stop in 'stop'?
Not as often as during the emissions tests generally.
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There seems to be an element of luck in the economy of new diesel engines, I've heard of these 1.6 TDCi engines delivering good economy from the start and also of experiences like this with poor economy.
It might be worth checking with the dealer whether there are any ECU updates pending since it's a relatively new model albeit with a tried and tested engine.
My own experience is that my BMW 330d averaged 45+ MPG from day one, regularly bettering 50 MPG whereas my 170PD A4 averaged 39 MPG (worse to begin with) despite numerous ECU updates and 33K miles to loosen up. I could conclude that BMW make much better engines than VAG but perhaps I shouldn't....
From my Audi experience the dealer will try to blame the driver, persevere and ask them to check the ECU and whatever else a more informed/expert might suspect could be causing this.
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Think I'd rather be driving a 330d but I'll have to make do with the Skoda 2litre Diesel! It's taken nearly 30k to get a regular 51mpg overall and I can coax 53-55 on my commute now, which was simply impossible when it was younger. There seem to have been a few stories about the Ford 1.6d giving less than ideal economy, along with the relatively recent VAG 1.6d being similar. I think the 2 litre car is preferable - economy when you seek it and pace when required. Incidentlly, I had a bit of a thrash in a C-Max 2.5 petrol turbo a couple of days ago including some fast A road work. My god, the juice used. Glad I'm not running a petrol car.
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... I think the 2 litre car is preferable...
Car makers seem to be wringing lots of horses out of smaller engines, particularly petrols.
But I'm with Woodster on this one, there's no substitute for cubic capacity.
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>> But I'm with Woodster on this one, there's no substitute for cubic capacity.
>>
>>
Me too. My 2.0 TDCI Focus and 1.6 CRDI Ceed have similar fuel consumption.
Smaller engine, similar weight car = more work for engine.
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For the first 10K km, my Isuzu D-Max achieved 1l/10km. Listening to all the advice I waited for the magic 10K km mark. Over the 2nd 10K km it did ooh, 1l/10km. Maybe the economy will kick in after 20K, but it didn't. Nor did it improve after 30K. Funnily enough, it's now done 45K and it's still the same.
Do you think it will get better come 50K km?
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No!, but then I would have expected the Skoda to have shown best by 10-15k, but it didn't happen until well after that, so who knows?
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Years ago I read somewhere that once run in, diesel engines marginally improve their emissions and fuel consumption throughout their life.
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Ours is the same engine in the Focus averaging about 54 /55 mpg.Engine done about ten thousand miles.
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>> Years ago I read somewhere that once run in, diesel engines marginally improve their emissions
>> and fuel consumption throughout their life.
>>
Yes: over the past 5 years our Yaris D4D has gone from an average of 57mpg to 61mpg..
(Or perhaps the driver is one of the "most" who "pootle" along? :-)
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>>
>> Too many "gentles" as in Just A Minute.
>>
>> Modern cars need to be driven with mixed revs and occasional hard treatment. Gentle driving
>> when new is a waste of time...
>>
Gentle running in isn't good for the long term oil consumption either is it? Might end up with glazed bores.
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If the engine is the same as this:
TinyURL not working...
Check the plastic mixer box the two rubber pipes from the intercooler goes into for leaks.
We've got the same engine in a C4 Grand Picasso, we also only got mid to high 30's until oil vapour started condensing on the plastic box where it was leaking out. The fix from Citroën is to open the box, apply some (what looks like) bathroom sealant, close and refit.
Since that was done the car now gets the official fuel consumption.
Last edited by: gmac on Mon 27 Jun 11 at 18:15
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Does it look like this: tinyurl.com/65vhmpn ?
It's the two pipes below and slightly to the left of the dipstick go to/from the intercooler to a plastic mixer box under the plastic engine cover.
Last edited by: gmac on Mon 27 Jun 11 at 18:20
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The intercooler pipes are worth checking.
It's a known fault on the 2.0TDCi.
A clip mysteriously became loose on the CC3.
Symptoms were lack of power, although it still revved cleanly.
Bound to have been using more juice, if only because some was sprayed on the engine.
The pipes are about the size of your forearm, and there are around six or seven hose clips dotted around the engine.
A long screwdriver or hose clip driver is needed for one or two of them.
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Ford C-MAX - 1.6 TDCi fuel economy question - bathtub tom
