Thread: Awesome Fuel Economy NOT!!!!

Just took a run up to Scone and back this weekend. Hello to everyone I had seen, I had the custom camper style trailer.

Anyways, I averaged on the way up around 14.8 sitting on around 100-110klm p/hr but on the way back it was SHOCKING 16.45L p/100klm admittedly at times I was doing around 120klm p/hr but sat on 110klm most of the way.

Weight of trailer being generous probably around 1.150 Tonne and had myself, father in-law and two of my kids, with just light gear packed in, sleeping bags, clothes, toolbox.

So overall not a lot of weight, shocked.

I think at the end of the day you can't beat bigger capacity or extra cylinders.

My concern is not so much the economy but the range, I just ordered a rear 45L 1/4 tank of Daniel (Mulgo) expecting to get at least a 1,000klm range. This is going to be far off at these figures.

1000k is a push anyway we did it on our Kakadu trip only once! With our rear quarter tank, you need to get a proper sill tank if you actually want long range. But in all honesty there is not a massive amount of places you go that doesn't have a fuel stop somewhere or can have fuel dropped to you and you can carry jerry's for the rest.....

So I don't know why your so hooked on range anyway to be honest.

16 to the 100 is not that bad if your pulling a ton and a half of trailer at 120!!! Especially with 2 adults and two kids with stuff in the back.

Measure again when you've got 5,000 or 6,000Kms on it.

Initially I was disappointed in the economy (coming from a 300TDi - which was pretty rock steady at 10.0 to 10.5L/100), but after putting on a few thousand KMs it improved greatly.

Started out around 13L/100 when it was brand new. Has now come down to 10.5L/100. Towing stuff is obviously going to make it worse, but check again in a few thousand KMs.

Our trip up to see the Eclipse (yes, it deserves a capital letter!) netted us around 13 l/100km.

We have an '02 110, with 35" MT MTZ tyres, a full-length roof rack, which was loaded with a full roof bag. I would expect to see a huge difference with standard or AT tyres, and the roof rack with a full bag pushes a large amount of air out of the way.

I cruise at 95 kph, times I've sat at 100 kph or over have pushed the economy down, and she's a handful enough at 95 on some of our roads, with our combination of tyres and lift.

Speed is your enemy. Land Rovers are as aerodynamic as a brick and if you push the speed then your lack of economy follows it. That is why when you see the grey haired pensioner nomads with a caravan behind they are travelling slowly (80 to 90kph) because they don't want to pay for too much fuel.
There is only one way to improve your vehicles economy. ease up the right foot and slow down to just under the 100kpa and it will improve. If you came into a workshop I owned this would be the first question I would ask.
My old V6 Navara petrol was the same. stay under 100kph and get 10s or do 110kph and get 12.5s it is as simple as that.

I don't know what weights people are carrying, but we have gotten around 10l/100km on pretty much every tank since new (2007). City or highway and even with off-road stretches for an hour or so at a time on the property. Last fill on all city + freeway driving was 65l reading 660km on the trip odometer. I hardly carry or tow anything so I know that makes a difference and a lot of people here tow small buildings of stuff around.

In the city, where most of my mileage is done, I am almost always in 5th with fairly low revs. All I can suggest is be gentle with he throttle and use the torque. Don't rev the nuts off it.

The only variations I have noticed with economy seem to be related wo the type of fuel I put in. Caltex Vortex diesel gets me maybe 0.5-1.0l/100km better economy that standard Caltex diesel.

Originally Posted by Babs

Anyways, I averaged on the way up around 14.8 sitting on around 100-110klm p/hr but on the way back it was SHOCKING 16.45L p/100klm admittedly at times I was doing around 120klm p/hr but sat on 110klm most of the way.

(

What sort of fuel consumption do you get when you drive at the speed Defenders' aerodynamics are designed for?

If you drive at 110 -120 with a trailer, you will never see the sort of fuel consumption figures that more patient Defender drivers regularly achieve.

My worst highway consumption was a trip west from Dubbo into gale force headwinds. Even though I slowed down almost 20%, I still used over 20% more fuel. I worked out that even though my road speed was around 80km/h, I was pushing through the air at around 130 to 150km/h. Consequently I used about 12.5 litres/100km.

By contrast, my best consumption with the camper on was 9.5 litres/100km in Tasmania. The roads (and the beautiful scenery) didn't allow the speed to get high enough for wind resistance to be significant.

I have no doubt that the comments about the consumption improving as the engine gets a few more kms on it are correct, but I bet you can get a bigger improvement by accepting that the Defender's shape is not designed to be aerodynamically efficient at speeds above 100km/h. Try a few trips at 95-100 and see how much fuel you use then. If you can't bear to drive at 10km/h slower than the rest of the traffic on the freeway, find a road where 90km/h is about the safest maximum speed. There are plenty of those roads around.

That's a bit high for an unloaded Puma - I get around 10.5l/100km on my home-work-home drive, and that's with a full roll cage and roof rack. that's usually stop start trip on the way to work, and 80-100kph on the way home. I have seen better than 10l/100km but that's doing some gentle 90-100km cruising down to

On our recent trip 7500km around NT/QLD, we averaged 14l/100km, but that's fully loaded with about 500kg+ of food, spares, water and stuff, 33" KM2s, Roof top tent, and 30kph headwinds etc. We were trying to keep between 100-115kph on the tar ( 4000km), and about 80-90kph on dirt roads (3000km) with about 500km of slow sections of 20-30kph.