Thread: D2 V8 economy pain

An average of 26.7lt does not sound right to me

the car will use alot more fuel during short trips when the engine/gearbox(es) havent had a chance to warm up. if u try the same route a few times with the car at operating temps it should improve a noticable(although still v8 thirsty) amount. in your first post it sounds like this is a different route than the one you did in the old d2.

Assumption is the mother of all **ck-ups as they say, and I assumed cos this car was dealer serviced and low kays it should all be tip-top. Yeah, right.

Had some time to take a proper look in the dark under the bonnet tonight and the lead to cyl 1 is tracking like crazy and the connection to the spark plug is badly corroded. No wonder it's chewing fuel - and airfilter was filthy, too. Car has done 2000km since its last service (abt a year ago).

Any truth to the rumour that only OE leads suit the Champion OE plugs? I don't know where I got that from, but I'd like to look at Magnecor leads to replace the originals, which are the originals judging by the 98 date stamp on one lead, at least.

So new leads and new Platinum plugs for starters, and I am going to stay away from the Trive oops, the service centre that has serviced it all its life. Am going to try the mob in Homebush, they look like they might be okay. Just wish I had more time to service it myself. It ain't rocket science, but I'm a pedant and really slow. I'd do no work and go broke but have an excellently maintained Disco.

BTW, anyone know how long the platinum plugs are supposed to last? I have tried digging thru Rave and my owner's book and seemed to think it was 120,000km. Someone told me today it should be 80,000km.

I worked it out to about 4 years inbetween plug replacement,,(80,000)
which is probably long enough to save up for the next set of platinums and magnacores



(FWIW I wouldnt put a champion plug in a lawnmower,,)

What's the best deal on Magnecors in Aus? I can get them from the US for abr $120 plus shipping abt $40 but if it's not much more may as well go local.

Pedro, you're talking Bosch Platinum? No-one likes the OE Champions?

Just got some fault codes come up on the ScanGauge. PO171 and PO174 - which according to a website I found in the US, it means both banks are running too lean.

Hmmm...

I've found that the Mass Air Flow sensor can degrade over time to the point where the engine is just running poorly, typically very rich. Same goes for the O2 sensors - the Bosch system will default to rich running if the sensors are out, yet no "check engine" light ever comes on.

So you can try replacing the O2 sensors as well as the MAF sensor.

The other area could be a stuck thermostat running, running the engine cool all the time? Only way to really tell is to put an OBDII scanner on and check the water temperature.

Buy a SCANGAUGE II and you'll be able to get accurate water temp readings. It should be fully warmed up around 92 to 98 degrees C.

Is your radiator fan viscous coupling siezed? You'll be able to hear a roaring fan and that will yield poor fuel consumption due to unnecessary load on the engine.


Lawrance

PO171 and PO174 according to Rave is actually running too rich, not lean as I posted before. Don't trust a random googled fault code website, obviously.

I've just replaced plugs and leads so hopefully that's fixed it. the lead-to-plug connection for cyls 1 and 2 were badly corroded.

TempestV8, I do have a ScanGauge and I am running 91-93 degrees cruising and temp creeps up from 96 to 100-102max fairly quickly when in traffic or parking. I tried holding revs at around 1800rpm at the lights and temp dropped fairly quickly from abt 98 to 96 before the lights changed. As I moved off, of course temp drops to 95 or 94 almost straight away and settles to 91 or so as I keep cruising.

Anyway, I am getting a LR mechanic to look at it next week - he claims the radiator needs to come out at those temps as it suggests a blockage. I'm too paranoid about slipped liner risk to leave it any longer.

Interesting what you say abt the MAF sensor and 02 sensors. If this doesn't fix it, I may have to look at those items...