Why Is My Gt So Thirsty?!

[Amjad]

Surely this isn't right? Just been doing some testing on private land to make sure the car is running ok after it's recent service and it's done 78km to £10 of Tesco 99 Momentum fuel! I thought I should get at least only a bit less than the 80 or so miles my N/A gets on £10 regular unleaded!

I'm pretty sure it's KM and not MILES, as the Speedo definitely doesn't read speed in MPH.

Is it possible the odometer could be reading in MILES but not the Speedo?

Car seems to be running okay, pulls strongly and tires pressures are all fine but I can't figure out what it is

Here's the current spec:

- Just been serviced with 10w 40 Semi-Synthetic Mobil One oil & Blueprint filter

- Brand new Heat Range 7 Iridium Spark Plugs

- Ported Manifold & Wastegate

- Gutted Catalyst

- HKS actuator estimated at 0.7-0.8 Bar (has never hit fuel cut)

- AC Removed (Connection bridged for Rad Fan to prevent constant running)

- Rad flushed and filled with water/blue coolant mix (I know the car takes Red Coolant, which I've recently received through the post but haven't had time to change)

Whenever it's been driven I've let the car properly warm up and cool down, have only hit full boost on a handful of runs; but generally driven at normal cruising speeds 30-40mph, gently accelerating to 3000 rpm eac gear at most so my driving can't be at fault in this sense right?

Another thing is the fact that I KNOW the exhaust is blowing somewhere, there seems to be a blow just before the backbox, would this affect economy, even a bit? Also, I can EASILY smell stinky exhaust gases when walking around the car when it's running, however there doesn't seem to be any fuel leaks as far as I've seen..

Could it possibly be the fuel, should I try V-Power or something?

Any ideas guys?

Amjad

[scot-ish]

firstly, i dont believe its only been on high boost a few times, its a new car to you, and you will be giving it some.

secondly, starting and stopping of a car often, uses alot of fuel,

£10 of V power, is what, 8 litres or sumit at current price, or for easy sake, say 2 gallon. 78km, is 50 miles, so 25mphg in a gt, being stopped and started all the time, and given a few boost runs, thats pretty normal fuel consumptions.

[Sparky]

It wont be reading in miles if its still in km's dude

Mine has a mph fascia but the odo and trip still ready km's.

If your on private land and doing general town driving speeds economy wont be the best mate.

Cant remember what I used to get it was something like 220miles to a tank or about 75ish to a tenner?

[Jozinobi]

Your GT could also possibly be running a bit rich which will affect fuel consumption.

Stinky gasses usually come from running rich or unburnt fuel, which mine does.

Any breathing mods will usually cause this i.e decat, gutted cat, mani, uprated exhaust system.

I'll be getting mine tuned by emanage soon but the car runs fine and pulls as it should, when it should.

The stop/start treatment will consume more fuel but it can't be avoided really.

I'd say I drive similar to you (town drivng), warm up and cool the car down and give it full beans on private land, using 3rd to overtake when needed on normal roads and sticking to national speed limit.

Joz

[pig666eon]

well im going to give you a few things to consider may not be the case

Bad fuel mix - A bad fuel mix can occur in several ways:

The air intake might be clogged, so there is fuel but not enough air.

The fuel system might be supplying too much or too little fuel to the mix, meaning that combustion does not occur properly.

There might be an impurity in the fuel (like water in your gas tank) that makes the fuel not burn.

Lack of compression - If the charge of air and fuel cannot be compressed properly, the combustion process will not work like it should. Lack of compression might occur for these reasons:

Your piston rings are worn (allowing air/fuel to leak past the piston during compression).

The intake or exhaust valves are not sealing properly, again allowing a leak during compression.

the timing could be off.

Lack of spark - The spark might be nonexistent or weak for a number of reasons:

If your spark plug or the wire leading to it is worn out, the spark will be weak.

If the spark occurs either too early or too late in the cycle (i.e. if the ignition timing is off), the fuel will not ignite at the right time, and this can cause all sorts of problems.

have you notice any smoke from the back at all?

[scot-ish]

or you could just look on www.howstuffworks.com.

kina like what some1 above has done.

[pig666eon]

or you could just look on www.howstuffworks.com.

kina like what some1 above has done.

and so what? i wasnt going to write all that out so i found a site who had already. lets all give scott here a blue peter badge for pointing that out

the first thing i would check if you feel like the fuel consumption is bad is timing my car was slightly out for a few months and i noticed a big increase in fuel consumption. i had a friend who had worn rings and same thing noticed bad fuel consumption. both of these probs tho will be accompanied by smoke as partially burnt fuel

[scot-ish]

i aint scott, and im sure the fella has access to google aswell.

his consumption is nothing out of the ordinary, and i would say he has no problems.

Like ive stated the car is being started and stopped alot, and as the owner has said, the car has been warmed up properly, now to warm a car up, at idle, which might i state, never warms the car up properly, the oil doesnt get anywhere near warm. but the car is sitting there, combusting away, whilst the wheels arent turning, thus using fuel, but not putting anthing on the odometer.

[pig666eon]

i aint scott, and im sure the fella has access to google aswell.

his consumption is nothing out of the ordinary, and i would say he has no problems.

Like ive stated the car is being started and stopped alot, and as the owner has said, the car has been warmed up properly, now to warm a car up, at idle, which might i state, never warms the car up properly, the oil doesnt get anywhere near warm. but the car is sitting there, combusting away, whilst the wheels arent turning, thus using fuel, but not putting anthing on the odometer.

man i know its not scott i have seen the " my name is not scot " sig. i was just taking the piss

as i have stated above its something to consider, if he genuinely thinks its using too much fuel and no prob to report. my car was completely normal with no problems to report until it started to get worse and found it was the timing. got it sorted and the fuel thing was not a issue.

yes you are right on what you say but the amount we are talking about is very little. he should do the test again he has done at a much larger scale to get better results. a tenners worth of petrol is not enough and he cant base his assumptions on that.

[Amjad]

firstly, i dont believe its only been on high boost a few times, its a new car to you, and you will be giving it some.

secondly, starting and stopping of a car often, uses alot of fuel,

£10 of V power, is what, 8 litres or sumit at current price, or for easy sake, say 2 gallon. 78km, is 50 miles, so 25mphg in a gt, being stopped and started all the time, and given a few boost runs, thats pretty normal fuel consumptions.

I know my N/A likes to drink when I floor it in 1st, so I don't, and haven't in the GT either. It has hit full boost only a few times in 2nd/3rd year, I'm a student so can't afford to piss out fuel lol believe what you will

50 miles to £10 sounds pretty shit to be honest, I remember reading a thread where most of the Turbo owners said they were getting 30mpg+ even on TD04s

Cant remember what I used to get it was something like 220miles to a tank or about 75ish to a tenner?

It that 75 miles to £10 Spark? Or 75km?

Your GT could also possibly be running a bit rich which will affect fuel consumption.

Stinky gasses usually come from running rich or unburnt fuel, which mine does.

Any breathing mods will usually cause this i.e decat, gutted cat, mani, uprated exhaust system.

I'll be getting mine tuned by emanage soon but the car runs fine and pulls as it should, when it should.

The stop/start treatment will consume more fuel but it can't be avoided really.

I'd say I drive similar to you (town drivng), warm up and cool the car down and give it full beans on private land, using 3rd to overtake when needed on normal roads and sticking to national speed limit.

Joz

The thought that it's running rich did cross my mind, my mate's Auto GT smells the same and he's definitely running quite rich (black smoke)!

I didn't think it would run rich without a RRFPR though? I thought it would be lean if anything with the ECU alone

Yeah that's exactly how I've been testing the car, how I would drive it day to day and I can honestly say that I won't be able to run this car if this is what the consumption will be like from now on

well im going to give you a few things to consider may not be the case

Your piston rings are worn (allowing air/fuel to leak past the piston during compression).

The intake or exhaust valves are not sealing properly, again allowing a leak during compression.

the timing could be off.

Lack of spark - The spark might be nonexistent or weak for a number of reasons:

If your spark plug or the wire leading to it is worn out, the spark will be weak.

If the spark occurs either too early or too late in the cycle (i.e. if the ignition timing is off), the fuel will not ignite at the right time, and this can cause all sorts of problems.

have you notice any smoke from the back at all?

the first thing i would check if you feel like the fuel consumption is bad is timing my car was slightly out for a few months and i noticed a big increase in fuel consumption. i had a friend who had worn rings and same thing noticed bad fuel consumption. both of these probs tho will be accompanied by smoke as partially burnt fuel

as i have stated above its something to consider, if he genuinely thinks its using too much fuel and no prob to report. my car was completely normal with no problems to report until it started to get worse and found it was the timing. got it sorted and the fuel thing was not a issue.

yes you are right on what you say but the amount we are talking about is very little. he should do the test again he has done at a much larger scale to get better results. a tenners worth of petrol is not enough and he cant base his assumptions on that.

I dunno about piston rings, there's no dodgy noises or any smoke whatsoever, the engine seems to be running sweet bar this fuel issue!

Thanks dude that's a good idea about the timing, I don't have a timing gun myself but I could get it checked I suppose!

I've actually filled up twice to £10 and first time it did about 75km, so it's pretty consistent. I know the car did do around 250 miles to a tank though when we first bought it, but it was completely standard then and in dire need of a service!

Like ive stated the car is being started and stopped alot, and as the owner has said, the car has been warmed up properly, now to warm a car up, at idle, which might i state, never warms the car up properly, the oil doesnt get anywhere near warm. but the car is sitting there, combusting away, whilst the wheels arent turning, thus using fuel, but not putting anthing on the odometer.

I know what you're saying, but the fuel gauge doesn't drop when I let it warm up, the idle is not very high and surely it wouldn't be sensible to start driving a GT Turbo from cold??

[scot-ish]

can drive it from cold if you want, people are lettin the oil warm up, and this doesnt happen properly sitting still,

sitting at idle for 10 mins uses fuel, now say youve took it out 5 times, thats 50 mins at idle, plus whatever time you let it cool, thats an hour, just for arguments sake, thats a few litres of fuel.

your roughly averaging 28mpg. but your happy to accept others getting 30mpg with a td04. just cause its got a bigger turbo, makes no odds really, not if your granny driving.

what rpm does your car idle at?

[nazzurro19]

I use v power and get between 200-250 miles on city driving and the odd thwack

My 1st quarter tank goes in about 40 miles then it gets better im now on 130 miles n half a tank

[Asad]

I wouldnt sit there for 10min waiting for it, just drive off boost (low revs for the N/A) till shes warm and the temp gauge is nothing to go by oil heats up slower than water

do a compression test, diagnostic test and youll know a little bit more about its health...i have a terrible feeling my CLTs is gay and throws 10x extra more fuel in than needed on start up lol

[Sparky]

I know I could do abour 100km on a tenner but the prices might have been slightly lower then.

Calculated about 42mpg on a run before

[enots]

i get about 250km to £20 depending how i drive...

[Revo]

Standing makes a difference I have auto and turbo timer.

19mpg - with black smoke - city short trips , some hills and stop start boosting

24mpg - after adding a safc2 - city short trips , some hills and stop start boosting

39mpg - driving at 62- 68 mph - mostly express way , - 5psi ( off boost ) at 62mph ( overdrive ) & some 22psi around 68mph

[james@cjperformance]

doesnt sound all that bad to me dude to be honest,i used to get 82 miles to around £20 with the same sort of mods as you and that was driving sensibly.my car was in tip top condition too.regular service etc etc.compression was healthy and no smoke.

as said above iff you are concerned about it that much do a compression test and get your timing checked.as for comparing it to an n/a, there is no comparison beetween them they have different compression ratios one is turbo one is not.i would say that is quite normal.

you could allways sell the car to me if you cant afford the fuel bill lol

[Steve GT]

78km to a tenner dont sound too bad to me mate for start/stop driving and turning on and off all the time. thing you have to remember is dude the tubbys are a lot thirstier than the n/a's so you'll have to get used to more trips to the petty station lol

[SR17]

Just think of all the time it is warming up and cooling down mate.

When I had my glanza i used to sit there thinking how much fuel it's using and im not actually going anywhere!

For example I would let the car warm up for almost 5mins and the journey I was doing was only 5minutes. In theory you are doubling the length of all journeys (Fuel wise) if your not going very far.

But mine used to do about 29MPG if I boosted it quit a bit on short blasts.

33/34 MPG day to day. Mix of dual carriageway, backroads and town.

36 MPG on a longer run

adam

[Asad]

1) Compression test + diagnostic test

2) dont let it idle just drive off boost till shes warm

let us know how you get on