530 Xd touring:
Driving town area (Cardiff) all week long and quite often one round trip on M4 to Heathrow. Average mileage is 7.6l/100km. I drive most of time in DS or manual mode as i find the engine too lazy below 1800rpm...On M4 I am more like 6.9 to 7.1 l/100km driving 140km/hr to 160km/hr when traffics allows. In town car does more like 8.1 to 8.4l/100km. At full speed (tachometer at dead end) on german autobahn while driving to Frankfurt, I was around 13.5 to 15l/100km. As I have now made 40k with the car in 1 year, and tires are good for change, I cannot say tire wearing up as help or handicap in anyway.

I do not try to be fuel savvy at all, nor do I drive aggressively as I try to respect engine temperature ramp and idling...

Yet I have seen improvement of figures after BMW updated the whole soft in the car after a persistent 'oil low' level alarm that was not real (see my post on this). Upgrade was to CIP29.

I am planning to remap car in January with 'evolve' in Luton and from what I heard mileage expected to improve slightly.

So i would go for soft upgrade and remap, (after having all other potential items checked like air filter, and do a re-calibration of fuel consumption, and maybe few other things check by BMW). Oh yeah, forgot: reset the trany too. Many post on how to do this. it makes driving better and prevent some spike of consumption when car gears down. Not sure why but I noticed that. So now every month I do a reset. Became an habit.

 

Yes driving in London traffic- morning and evening peak. Consumption is back to 18 mpg (imperial), so looks like software update didn't improve consumption that much.. :-(.

 

Something to bare in mind here is that a diesel can take 10 miles or up to 15 minutes to get to temperature when it is below 5?c, combine this with sitting in traffic doing 0 mph and you can easily see sub 20mpg.
My 535d would do 16mpg in London traffic from cold during the winter.

Combine this with an early morning start in Norfolk during the summer where it used to get 27mpg, big difference!!
Same car, just different location and temperatures.

 

I'm another 04 E61 530d Auto seems pefect but staggered by 23 imperial around town (not London) I uses to get 28+ from my 330i. Will be looking at all the options listed and will report back.

 

Im a tit

I was on US MPG<

I thought I would not fall foul to that one as I was sure I had setup the menu properly already, clearly not.

That means I seem to be getting anywhere between 30 and 40 european MPG, worst and best.

Sorry


( Thank god for that - was starting to think I had made a mistake with the 530d engine - ie "shoulda bought the petrol maybe ? " syndrome )

 

As has been pointed out elsewhere on the forum, the big turbodiesels are also most economical when run hard / on boost to get to your target speed as quick as possible and then settle into cruise mode. One just can't do that in city start-stop driving and this is reflected in the mpg numbers. Basically, when in town, our 530d's and 535d's ar no different from any other large-capacity 6-pot engine slurping away ...

 

My -04 E61 530d has ~ 11.5L in average of 37km/h and at highway speeds around 6,7- 7 liters. Those numbers are in connection in figures which BMW presents in manual.

I really don't believe those 4L figures which are over 2L under BMW's own consuption figures. If it is true the is a problem with the car, propably faulty MAF

 

i also have a 525dse auto and i live in a hilly area of uk but average 26 to 27 mpg urban 36 to 38 on a run on mtorways but that is with quite heavy footed driving i have owned the car for 1 year.i was dissapointed with fuel consumption but yours is terrable their must be something wrong

 

I have to agree, good summary.

 

Since my original reply here in this thread my average increased to 40mpg and long runs on motorways etc anything up to 45.7mpg which I think is astounding for such a big luxurious powerfull car, I also have a tuning box fitted atm and have changed my driving style to suit, ie the quick squirt technique to cruise speed.

Very very impressed, and very happy with my change from the old pre common rail E46 320d I used to have, ever cheaper to run on fuel than that was...........unbelievable.