18.4 mpg - is this the worst ?

[Northern Bongolow]

4 wheel laser alignment really helped mine, being a 4wd, and change all the lubs in everything.
also what engine oil are you running on. if its above 5w it could be dragging/sticky.

[Cosmic Bus]

Without wanting to hijack the thread, I had a look for the alignment figures the other day. Do you have them handy at all NB?

My local tyre place said he would do -1. Not sure what that means when it's all 4 wheels. Might try to go up on pressure then. 215/70/r15 all round at 34F and 36R atm.

[Northern Bongolow]

no i dont have the figures but my guy made it sound real complicated,but he would he charged me £40 (bargain as its saved me that on fuel)as far as i know there is no setting, its just set up straight. but all 4 running straight. and i would run aout 40psi at least, maybe more.

[missfixit70]

Tracking/wheel alignment - http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... g+handbook

[sdsk]

Tyre pressures - I run on 40 front and 45 rear ( current tyres are coming up to 40,000 miles)

Can I just add a small note of caution about tyre pressures?

Our Bongo came with Toyo 195/70R15 92S J30 tyres on the front and Toyo 215/65R15 96S J30 on the rear.
As these were clearly Japanese tyres, they had no, "Maximum Inflation Pressure", stamped on the side walls.

After contacting a very helpful chap at Toyo UK, I found out the maximum pressures were 35 & 36 psi respectively.
So, 40-45 psi would be excessive for my tyres.

I've no idea what's stamped on other peoples tyres, but it's probably worth a check.

Darron

[mentaliss]

just filled her up after a measly 323 kms to tank full [ approx 200 in mormal short runs , shops etc and 120 odd motorway at steady 65-70 ]. so 49.4 litres equates to 18.4 mpg.

Any suggestions before i look for an alternative?

i'm used to 23/24 mpg and late 20's on good run so what's changed ?

surely my elite conversion and bike rack/side steps cant have added that much weight/wind drag ?

we are now delving into ridiculous , i get 17.5/18.5 mpg from my 4 litre petrol xk8 doing same driving !!!!

__________________________________________________________________________________

Sorry, I previously missed this post however I have a similar situation with my 2.0 Ltr petrol, just came back from venice, my issue is that I could/cant never get more than 32-38 Ltrs of fuel in my Bongo even though the fuel gauge is reading empty... the point Im making in your case, is the tank actually empty? in my case I recon there must be at least 4-5 gallons of fuel still in the tank

[nigelgibson]

Not empty but the 49 litres is what i put in so the calculation remains correct [ unfortunately ! ]

[mister munkey]

May/May not be relevant but I've leapt from 230 miles per tank to 270+ (Well over 330 on a gentle long run) since sticking a 2wd box in my 4wd motor.

Same van, same driving style on the same regular routes.

That extra 40 miles is like getting diesel at 20% off!!

[tallbongo]

There must be something wrong getting 18.4mpg.

We've just filled up (nearly £80 - ouch) and got 28.49mpg. This is poor for us, but the bongo has been subjected to just about the worst conditions for decent fuel economy:

1. Mostly sub 10 mile runs. In the 326 miles it did, I can only recall 4 runs of greater than 20 miles.
2. A lot of running to defrost/warm it up - often without driving. I've re-started work on the conversion and have slept out in it in sub zero temps.
3. It's filthy from all the road grit.
4. It needs a service.
5. Wheels still need balancing or aligned. I'll get around to it sometime!

Ours is a 4wd but a manual. The latter does seem to help as we normally get >30mpg and these sub 25mpg figures sound horrific to us.

[Velocette]

Alternator load is something people often don't think about, electricity isn't a free by-product, anything electrial used is going to use fuel including replacing anything taken out of the Leisure Battery.