MPG figures for fiat ducatto

[carioca]

sorry to do this but can anybody tell me how to get 27 to 30 mpg as advertised in test reports in magazines?

i own a 2005 carioca656 2.3td the best i have ever got is 24.5mpg this was doing 60mph on motorway, if driving about 70 to 75 mph iam down to 17.5 to 18.5mpg no where near the claimed figures i have now covered 9500 miles so engine should be loosened up by now

[Bill Ord]

I've had three Ducatos now and I never have bettered the kind of figures you're quoting. 24 mpg seems about what I get overall. I'm currently running a 2.8 JTD and 5.5 miles to the litre is my average. Magazines test lightly loaded and mostly don't do enough miles to really assess the real life situation. Recently MMM complained about a Ford based 'van getting low 20's but that was on a continental run cruising at 70mph. If I run at 60mph I get about 5.5 to the litre at 70mph the figure drops dramatatically to around 4.5/20mpg. I tend to cruise at 60mph as not only is it more economical but on long runs it actually is quicker as there are less stops for fuel!!

[Guest 656]

I also have a 656 2.3 JTD 06 model. I get around 29.7 @ 55mph on cruise control. I have done 9578 miles since April this year. :-D 8-)

 

Dave

 

656

[Brian Kirby]

Don't know where they get their figures! 

Ours is a 3,400Kg 2.8JTD "Power" (146HP) Ducato base with a Burstner low profile body.  I have logged its consumption since new and over 20,000Km it has averaged 11.45 litres/100 kilometres or 24.65 mpg.  French mags typically claim around 12-13 L/100Km, so it is doing quite well. 

The mpg scarcely alters whatever the speed, whatever the road.  Have cruised at 80mph on autoroutes and bumbled along at 50mph on secondary roads.  What you loose through increased speed on the motorway you seem to get back through the more efficient steady speed cruising, and what you gain on the secondaries by driving slower, you seem to loose in the gear changing and stopping and starting for junctions, towns etc.

[spartan3956]

I had a Kontiki 2.5 turbo and regularly neared the 30mpg even towing a Motorcyle achieved 27 mpg. cruising at 55 to 60mph. After that it drank fuel.

The 2.8 i did notice higher fuel consumption mainly caused by 5th gear being really high and unable to engage until around 45mph the engine felt really flat on hills resulting in many gear changes to keep the speed. i know cruise at 60. Towing it was a nightmare.

I have noticed a vast improvement fitting cruise control but again the fifth gear problem kicked out the cruise regularly due to loss of vaccum.

Ive overcome this problem by fitting a electronic fueling devise to the common rail. it cons the engine basically by extra fuel being supplied, claims to give you 25% more power and best of all more torque.

You must think more fuel less economy but its the opposite a much better vehicle to drive has loads more get up and go, cruise control works better and from my recent outing to Norther Germany more fuel economy the vehicle has the power to pull when in fifth so there less gear changing = lower revs. Towing is much better.

Fitting consisting of plugging it in and soldering a wire to an ignition live,

15 minutes max and can be removed in minutes.

 

 

Pete

 

 

Pete

 

[Mike Chapman]

Hello Carioca,

 

From my experience of the Fiat 2.3 JTD (and most other diesels) as a start point it depends on how you run the vehicle in. A vehicle run in at speed may well be well loosened up and more economical at 9500 miles against a vehicle run over this mileage at relatively slow speeds. My previous experience with VW's was that they needed 25000 miles before they fully loosened up.

 

I have experience of two 2.3JTD's one in a Sundance 590RS with overcab Luton where the average was 24 mpg and the best mpg I managed to obtain was 28 mpg lightly loaded and after 15000 miles. The other is in a Trigano Tribute van conversion which regularly does 32 mpg best 36 mpg with 5600 miles on the clock. I have never experienced a mpg figure as low as 17 to 18 mpg with either vehicle even fully loaded but then I did not drive the Sundance at 70 to 75 mph. Are you towing a trailer, carrying a scooter or perhaps have a large top box installed or maybe travelling with full water tanks all of which will have an effect on economy?

 

Bill Ord has made a valid comment on Magazine Road Tests. I often wonder if they actually do a valid economy test using proper measuring equipment such as the 5th wheel and fuel measuring tank, I would seriously doubt that they do.

 

Hope this is of assistance.

 

Regards,

 

Mike.

[Stuart]

With 1999 2.8l, usually get 27ish running "light" and 25 with the car on the back. These figures compare closely with previous 2.5l 1995 Ducato.

 

Only time I've been in the teens was in the 2.0l petrol days.

 

Stuart

[derek500]

We run 3400kg low profile McLouis on a 2.8jtd 146hp. Since new in March this year I have kept a log and we have achieved 10.16litres/100km or 27.81mpg over 7236km.

 

Very rarely go over 90kph (56mph).

 

Hopefully as the engine gets older these figures will improve.

 

Derek

 

 

[ROND]

We have a Autotrail appache 700 with the 2.8 engine and over the past 2 years we have done several long trips down to Portugal 3 times and Italy and have kept an accurate log of all fuel used and it has varied between 26.2 to 27.9 per gallon except for the last trip when we were driving a bit faster than our average of 55/60mph we were touching 65 to 70 at times and were down overall to 23.4mpg.

[Keith T]

Hi...have a 2002 Rapido 710 low profile. at 30k miles, we seem to average around 26 over a say 100 mile check. However, if you take shorter runs specifically, we can seem to fun anywhere from 20 to 28...the former on a run from Plymouth to Cornwall, mostly hilly, the latter on a good drive trying to keep 'down' to 60 on French Autoroute, mostly flat, of course.......I guess some latitiude has to be allowed as to whether the tank is totally filled from fill to fill, as we find the pump stops quie often well before the tank is full, and although I do tend to fill slowly from that point, often the fuel meter os not quite to the top.

[mikemoss]

Our current 2.5TD (1998 vintage) in Bessacarr 695 is returning an average 28mpg over all sorts of roads and with various loadings. Previous 2.8JTD (2001 vintage) in CI Riviera 181 only managed 24mpg. The older engine might be slightly noisier, and have a little less grunt, but I guess the higher fifth gear on the 2.8JTD meant we spent much more time in fourth, to the detriment of economy.

 

To be honest, I'm amazed at how a relatively unsophisticated 2.5TD manages to haul a 3400kg van along so well, and so economically - it does better than by Merc 320 estate (which managed a miserable 15-17mph when towing!).

[Mel E]

You will never get the mpg claimed for the van version with a coach built motorhome. You will also not get claimed mpg at anything above 55 to 60 mph.

 

The mpg you actually get depends on so many things that test reports can only be a guide. For example, factors affacting it include:

 

- body shape: with the same chassis an A Class will always do better than the more draggy shape of a C Class, and the van version will do best as it's least draggy

 

- speed and revs: get out of the 'sweet spot' for the engine and you'll drink fuel. Where this is depends on the engine and number of gears, but, for a diesel, it's rarely much above 2500 to 2750 revs. For my Master it's around 2250 revs.

 

- acceleration: if you are light with your right foot, it really will make a big difference, even with a diesel

 

- weather: you'll be amazed what a difference a tail wind or head wind can make. I regularly add 2 to 3 mpg to our Renault Master van conversion with a tail wind and lose the same with a strong head wind

 

- weather: really wet roads increase substantially the rolling resistance of the tyres and reduce mpg by up to 5 mpg.

 

However, I consistently find that hills make little difference, the 'down' bits compensating for the 'up' bits, but only if you drive gently.

 

Our 4.2 tonne Iveco never varied from 20.5 to 22.5 whatever we did with it - even towing a car or glider trailer made no difference. And this is basically the same engine - but lower geared - as the older Fiat 2.8. Even driven extremely gently it never got better than about 23.5. But it was very low geared and wanted an extra gear at the top (since added to this model). The new 3.5 tonne Renault Master is much more economical and, driven gently, cruising at about 65 on the clock (c. 60 mph actual) it manages over 32 mpg. Hammer along at 80 (and it's very, very happy to do so) and you're down to around 26 mpg.

 

But at 65 you get there almost as quickly, and also get chance to see the scenery which is surely part of the point of having a motorhome?

[Vixter]

Reading some of the mpg from the above thread we are quite relieved to be getting 18mpg average from our big old Clou with 6.9 ltr MAN diesel pulling a 7.49 tonne slab fronted A class. We think there is a trade off somewhere between smaller engines working hard and relatively larger engines barely sweating.

 

Perhaps tonne miles/ gallon might be a more accurate way of getting a true measure of vehicles performance.

 

Vixter + VoH

[Don Madge]

Completely off the topic but yesterday we did a 360 mile round trip in our Renault Scenic 1.9dCi to visit my mother on her 96th birthday.

 

On the return trip on the A1 as it was fairly quiet we drove at a steady 56 mph on the cruise control and the on board computer showed an astonishing 61.9 mpg, I could not believe it. If it hadn't been so windy we might have done even better.

 

The car has only done about 3000 miles since June.

 

Don

[Philman]

I have a Fiat 1.9TD in my Swift Royale and I average 25 mpg on motorways driving at between 60 and 65. If I keep the speed down a bit to between 50 and 55 I usually get just under 30 mpg. Driving around towns and sightseeing etc I also get around 30 mpg. The engine has done over 130,000 miles so is well run in I think. (lol) (lol)

Phil.

[fred grant]

Don, how do you link your computer up to your car to get mpg - is a job to get our compoter to spell proper in the first place, never mind measure how much fuel id going fron the feul tank

Fred and Alice

[Mike Chapman]

Hello Fred,

 

I think that what Don is referring to is the in built Mileage Fuel Average (MFA in VW speak) device fitted as standard on many vehicles especially cars. Not many of the commercial vans have these fitted at present but this is gradually changing.

 

I suppose it would be possible to fit sensors to measure fuel useage and distance and connect these to a laptop computer carried in the vehicle but I have not seen this done except of course as electronic tachographs on LGV's and HGV'S.

 

Regards,

 

Mike.

[Mel E]

My Renault Master has a superb on-board computer that shows just about everything and average mpg. It can be a major help in getting higher mpg from any vehicle. Ours slightly under-estimates the actual mpg we are getting (compared with the cumulative tank fill to mileage calculation), but, if you have one, use it.

 

Try resetting the average when you get onto motorway and see what happens to it as you increase speed. It helps enormously in finding that 'sweet spot' for the engine I referred to above.

[Vernon B]

I've had two Fiat Ducato's both 2.8s the latest version being the JTD version supporting a Pilote 3.85t A Clbottom; all in all I've completed about 45k miles from new in these two vehicles. My observations, for what they're worth, are as follows. Firstly I'd say you'll need to get at least 15k under your belt before you'll notice a big difference in the looseness of the engine. Secondly like other contributors 60mph appears to be an optimum maximum for the best mpg return. Like others my overall average is about 24.5mpg but having kept detailed records over several 3,500 mile tours to Spain other interesting factors appear to emerge.

 

1) Not surprisingly, given the slab front profile of an A Clbottom, that average of 24.5 can soon become 20 or less if you're driving into the wind

 

2) When abroad I can get quite different results with different brands of Diesel (all other factors being equal) and generally, surprise surprise, I get at least 10% better results when abroad than in the UK. My best returns have been 28.5mpg over a distance of 300 miles plus

 

3) It's also my impression that higher mpg figures abroad may be partly due to the gradients of their roads, an impression supported by a sense that I'm running in fifth gear for longer stretches than over here. By the way I believe I'm right that Fiat supply different final drive gearing on the Ducato which might explain why I have not experienced the problem of rapidly running out of steam in fifth like others. Even when pulling a fully load 3.85t.

 

All in all I'm pretty satisified with a 24.5 mpg overall given the load being carried and compared with 33mpg from our Zafira.

 

 

Vernon