Meriva 1.4 poor fuel economy

ShandyAndy_2

I bought a 2006 meriva 1.4 about a month ago. Just used my first tank of fuel and worked out my average mpg over the tank of fuel and it equates to 36.8 mpg.

Me and the mrs have been sharing the car and have done some short journeys from 2-6 miles and some longer journeys 11-20 miles. The urban mpg in the book is 34.9 if I remember right and combined 44.1 , extra urban is 53.3, so I am miffed at the low mpg, we have been driving the car very steadily and changing gear at 2000-2500 rpm mainly. I know the weather has been very cold of late and the car has the 16 inch alloys from factory with 205/50 r16 tyres which might explain the low mpg.

I am now thinking of driving briskly for the next month and see what the return is. I know it sounds daft but I have got more mpg by driving faster in the past on previous cars.

Apples2

Doesn't seem too bad but working out economy after one tank of around town driving is pretty pointless.

http://www.fuelly.com/car/vauxhall/mariva

Syman

It's about the same as i get from my 1.4 2006 meriva.

mattyprice4004

ShandyAndy wrote: »

I bought a 2006 meriva 1.4 about a month ago. Just used my first tank of fuel and worked out my average mpg over the tank of fuel and it equates to 36.8 mpg.

Me and the mrs have been sharing the car and have done some short journeys from 2-6 miles and some longer journeys 11-20 miles. The urban mpg in the book is 34.9 if I remember right and combined 44.1 , extra urban is 53.3, so I am miffed at the low mpg, we have been driving the car very steadily and changing gear at 2000-2500 rpm mainly. I know the weather has been very cold of late and the car has the 16 inch alloys from factory with 205/50 r16 tyres which might explain the low mpg.

I am now thinking of driving briskly for the next month and see what the return is. I know it sounds daft but I have got more mpg by driving faster in the past on previous cars.

You've bought a 7 year old car, any large number of things could be wrong with it that'll hamper MPG.

Anyway, book figures are always a little 'pushed' so nearly 37MPG sounds OK to me, it's the short urban journeys that'll knock it down.

worried_jim

Sounds okay to me. Try it when you do longer journeys and there will be quite an improvement. I am only getting 17.5mpg on short journeys at the moment in my Saab- I'll gladly swap with you!

addyboy1982

Has it had new oil and air filter recently? Amazing what a difference it makes.

spacey2012

Cold starts are a killer, is it warming up quickly ?
If it is a bit slow warming up
A service, new oil, new air filter, throttle body clean out and a new thermostat + coolant flush, new spark plugs should push it back up a few mpg.
A cold car is a guzzling car.

BossSkill

On the short journeys your engine will be barely getting up to temperature, so getting slightly higher than the urban figure is good going given your driving. Plus the cold weather will knock it down further, so see how it goes when it starts to get warmer.

Knowing the split of your driving is important.

But you really need to look at a few fill ups as a minimum, and ensure the car is serviced with fresh oil and filters with tyres correctly inflated.

cb1979

Don't believe the figures in the handbook, they are obtained on a test track at steady speeds and in perfect weather conditions, and probably with a set of narrow tyres on, Cold starts as previously mentioned eat loads of fuel, when the weather warms up things will improve a bit
You may be lucky to get the combined figure of 44 on a steady motorway run at 60 or 70

oldagetraveller

It's too small an engine for that model. There was also a 1.6 petrol and 1.7 Diesel version produced.
A smaller engine doesn't always mean more m.p.g. because it usually has to work harder to achieve similar results to a larger engine in the same car.
There was a 1.3 Diesel too. I've driven both the 1.7 and 1.3 Diesels and the 1.3 really needs to be pushed hard to get anywhere, no doubt similarly the 1.4 and 1.6 petrols.
As post 9, the manufacturers figures are definitely cloud cuckoo as they are on most cars!

andygb

The problem is that the OP is doing all short journeys (even his longer journeys are only up to 20 miles), so the car is not warming up, and therefore not running economically.
Cold weather has a pretty marked effect on economy as well.
When my OH uses our Octavia for work, it averages around 50mpg. I have been using it for the past two weeks, and when I topped up, I had averaged 56mpg. Driving too slowly can be as uneconomical as driving too quickly.