[paultoner]

Hi there,
I've just bought a 1994 T4 KOMET 1968cc Petrol, 72,000 miles on the clock.
To my newbie's eye she seems to be in near perfect nick. However I've been very alarmed at its fuel consumption... on a long run averaging at 60 mph, she was doing at best 17 mpg. This seems to me like a very poor performance. What sort of expectation should I have of an engine of this age on the vehicle of this type? I've just had the tracking realigned, (it was 8° out), a new exhaust and a tuning and am just about to do a trial run to reassess its new performance, but I want to have realistic expectations so that I can decide what to do next.
Any tips, warnings or advice would be gratefully accepted.
Thanks
Paul

 

[Peel]

It's been a while since I did proper calculations, but my 2.0 petrol Auto-Sleeper Trident (high-top) does 25-27mpg

 

[d-9]

Coolant temperature sensor is the likely cause for this, fit a new genuine one (aftermarket ones are pap) for about £20. Failing that, there is a long list of stuff that breaks on 2.0 petrols, vacume lines, etc.

Or if its a coachbuilt, that might just be the aerodynamics, but change the sensor above to be on the safe side.

 

[d-9]

Coolant temperature sensor is the likely cause for this, fit a new genuine one (aftermarket ones are pap) for about £20. Failing that, there is a long list of stuff that breaks on 2.0 petrols, vacume lines, etc.

Or if its a coachbuilt, that might just be the aerodynamics, but change the sensor above to be on the safe side.

 

[paultoner]

It's been a while since I did proper calculations, but my 2.0 petrol Auto-Sleeper Trident (high-top) does 25-27mpg

Thank you Peel. On a 249.5 mile round trip from Brighton, trying to average 65mph, but ended up spending loads of time in tailbacks on the M25 and a section of thick foggy and hilly B roads between Pangbourne and Princes Risbourough averaging 25mph... basically a very mixed bag of speeds... it took 10.606 gallons. Giving me 23.52mpg. I'm very pleased with that. I've another long round trip where I'm hoping to successfully run at approx 65mph and anticipate even better performance.

 

[paultoner]

Coolant temperature sensor is the likely cause for this, fit a new genuine one (aftermarket ones are pap) for about £20. Failing that, there is a long list of stuff that breaks on 2.0 petrols, vacume lines, etc.

Or if its a coachbuilt, that might just be the aerodynamics, but change the sensor above to be on the safe side.

d-9... Thanks. I'll definitely be looking at that one. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm up to 23.52mpg at the moment. Any little extra I can squeeze out makes me feel good

 

[d-9]

TBH thats probably not far off the mark, be worth giving it a bit of TLC (plugs, leads, cap/arm, temp sender) and make sure the vacume hoses are clean, especially the one going to the ecu - apparently it can fry them if they get oil into the ecu.

For comparison, my 2.5 petrol reliably did 23-25mpg with a standard LWB van, dropping as low as 18 on LPG when I was thrashing through the lanes. It now does 26mpg with a 1.8t, which is a little juicy!