Thread: Awesome Fuel Economy NOT!!!!

Hiya Babs. Welcome to Puma-land, where fuel tanks are small and fuel thirst is large! My D90 definitely got better as it got a few miles on it. It started out getting 11.5lts/100km and improved to 10.4. Then I added roof rack & tent, bullbar & winch and sill tanks and it went back up to 12 - 13. You'll also come to find that headwinds and speed have a massive effect due to the "aerodynamics of a small apartment building". Your 14.8 does seem a little too high though.

If you're barreling along at anything over, say, 80 km/h, then aerodynamic drag is going to be a big issue.

Drag is exponential, that is, doubling the speed does'nt double the drag, - it's FOUR times.

The last chart I looked at indicated that around 80 km/h is when the curve gets serious about heading upwards towards "vertical".

Which is a long-winded way of saying that your figures will get markedly worse with every 10 or so km/h over 80...

Then there's your particular driving style which other more experienced heads will happily advise you on.

PS, My bottomless pit of a V8 Classic is looking better, around 20 litres per 100km suburban/freeway use. Yes JaBo, the Classic also has a ridiculously tiny tank, giving me only 400 safe km. If that...

What sort of driving are you doing? I can get 10.0L if I dont go over a 100km/h. If I go over 110km/h I get 15.0L. I must say I did better in a Patrol that weighed 1000kg more and had a bigger engine. It did improve a little as it wears in, but I am not impressed with the fuel economy at all. I think ripping out the Cat Conv and making it breath a little better with a chip may help immensely, but there goes he warranty.

Originally Posted by carlschmid2002

What sort of driving are you doing? I can get 10.0L if I dont go over a 100km/h. If I go over 110km/h I get 15.0L. I must say I did better in a Patrol that weighed 1000kg more and had a bigger engine. It did improve a little as it wears in, but I am not impressed with the fuel economy at all. I think ripping out the Cat Conv and making it breath a little better with a chip may help immensely, but there goes he warranty.

They would not know the cat is missing if you ran a pipe straight through. And from my research so far it's a no no to put a chip, apparently remapping is the way to go.

Either way you have a point, this could possibly help.

My 2011 puma 130 gets pretty consistent 11-12l per 100km sometimes better, sometimes worse if i do a bit of beach driving. Typically its driven to and from work, through traffic and lots of stop start, some cruising at 80-100, through in a few little runs up the beach and some light off road and that 11-12 is what i get.

I also run 33s, a bullbar etc, and a fairly hefty alloy canopy that doesn't do a lot of wind resistance.... i have also removed the middle muffler but still have the cat for now.

Babs, because your economy is so bad I'm going to throw something out there that might seem real silly ... but ... aahh ... you have discovered it is a 6 speed box haven't you? The gap between 5th and 6th is quite large so travelling at the much higher rev's in 5th at, say 110kph could explain the large difference between yours and others economy.
The aerodynamics of these things is so bad that they're actually more economical around town than on the open road - unlike most "other" cars. It's part of the price of owning a car that most "other" cars can't go.

Originally Posted by JayBoRover

Babs, because your economy is so bad I'm going to throw something out there that might seem real silly ... but ... aahh ... you have discovered it is a 6 speed box haven't you? The gap between 5th and 6th is quite large so travelling at the much higher rev's in 5th at, say 110kph could explain the large difference between yours and others economy.
The aerodynamics of these things is so bad that they're actually more economical around town than on the open road - unlike most "other" cars. It's part of the price of owning a car that most "other" cars can't go.

Yeah, I'm pretty conscious of the revs and noticed the gap between 5&6 but all those klm I've done were from city driving. If anything I would have thought some highway driving would improve it. ??? Anyways I'm leaving this morning for a 4hr run to a property I go to east of Scone, going to take the kids camping, and see how the Deefer goes mountain climbing. I'll keep you posted on the economy there and back.

I remember when I bought my wife a jeep back in 2004 it was a KJ Cherokee the one that replaced the old square shape Cherokee. Anyways the fuel economy was horrendous, I know, I know it's a jeep they are thirsty. But this was excessive 26L p/100 far from the 14L they claimed.

I kept taking the jeep back to the dealer service dept time after time but although the consumption did not seem right to them they could find nothing wrong. It got to the point at one stage I dropped the car off gave them the keys and told them to give my money back, the service manager gave us his new car and said he would drive the Jeep for a month. I had been there so many times I ended up becoming good mates with the service manager.

Anyways, the reply we got back from Jeep was after we put at least 20,000klm on the engine the fuel economy would drop, I thought they were just buying time.

Long story short, we moved house over a year had passed the jeep had about 20,000klm on the clock and the fuel economy dropped down to a consistent 18L p/100. Huge drop.

We worked out that before we moved my wife would drive to either shops or her Mums all within 5-7klm of each other, after we moved she was driving 30-40klm each way. Before the house move, no sooner the car would heat up it would get turned off. True story, true consumption figures.

So I'm hoping the same is going to happen with this Puma. Time time time

Mine gets a regular 14ltrs per 100,I'm getting a remap soon that'll turn the EGR off which will help,staying around 100 and not 120 helps also. Pat