Nopointsyet

I would be interested to learn of other owners experiences.

I am very happy with my 525d apart from the fuel economy. My previous car was a 330d which on my regular commute in and out of Central London consistently gave me 26 m.p.g. After 9 months of ownership, my 525d, doing exactly the same journeys, is still giving me only 22 m.p.g. This is very disappointing especially with the price of fuel at the moment.

So, is the engine of my car in need of some work or is this the best that I can expect? The commute is stop-start with the occasional dash between lights - I do not drive gently, but I did not in the 330d either.

I would be interested to hear from other owners.

Thank you

NPY

wales34part

Assuming your findings are taken from the OBD have you checked that the car settings are configured for uk not usa gallons? If it is set to USA gallons you will see an instant increase in the MPG when changing to the larger UK gallon.

My 520d returns very poor MPG on very short journeys however as i recently found on a long motorway trip the MPG return at a steady 80-85mph trip over 600 miles returned 46mpg so i'm happy with that.

These new diesels take a good time to warm up properly and time to run effiecently. I reckon 10-15min before their running true to form.

My advice would be to get the car warmed up find a quiet stretch of motorway and reset your mpg meter and record over say 20 miles.

If its not around at least 37-40 i'd get your motor checked out.

gIzzE

I agree with the above.
The guy I just sold my A6 avant to has a 525d auto that he uses to go up and down motorways all day and he is getting 36mpg.

Look at it like this, if he is doing motorway driving (60,000 miles a year) and getting 36mpg I would say that is pretty much what you can realistically expect from one at best. He is getting 44mpg in the 1.9TDi multitronic for reference.
Now the 525d is great on a cruise for economy, but it actually drinks alot round town as it has not got the extra torque of the 530 and 535d engines to get the car moving quickly.
It also takes approx. 6-8 miles for the engine to get to full temperature and work at it most economical, and while it is getting to temperature it can consume as much as 40% more fuel in a diesel.
Everytime you are sat there you have to remember you are doing 0mpg, so it you are sat on a 30 minute journey doing 0mpg for 15 minutes to get to the 22mpg your obc is showing you need to doing 44mpg for the remainig 15 minutes of the journey, which in town is not easy.

I reset my 535d coming out of Berners St NCP the otherday and by the time I hit the A12 my OBC was showing 16mpg, but by the time I was back in Norwich it was back up at 29mpg. If you never leave the city 22mpg is all you are going to get on a heavy car like the 5 series I reckon.

Mambo

My average over the last 6 months in my 535d has been around 29mpg, but then I do drive it hard The best I have got on a long run is 38mpg....

needforspeed

My previous car was a 320cd with official combined cycle economy figures of about 49mpg. I used to average 42mpg pretty consistently (I had it for 45000 miles / 18 months).

On paper my 530d should return 40mpg on the combined cycle. I'm not doing as much long distance driving as I used to at the moment, but I am finding that on a long run, I'll average about 33mpg, but that this will drop to an overall average of 28mpg around down.

With the 320cd I could see that the 49mpg figure was achieveble, but only if you drove VERY smoothly and cruised at 70mph in 6th (without cruise control and AC). I honestly cannot see that I will ever get anywhere near 40mpg from the 530d.

With regard to the figs posted by nopoints yet the official urban cycle figs are:

Manual 330d - 31.7mpg
Auto 525d - 26.6mpg

So sadly - for your London commute I don't think you will do much better than this, but if you reset the computer and go for a long journey it will probably cheer you up

KAF

My 530D turns in 30mpg, but the OBC puts it at 27.4, I shall be adjusting the 'compensation number' in that shortly.

It does seem that different people get very different results.

Everything from 25mpg to 38 mpg have been reported here. The amount of stop start driving you do really seems to eat up the juice.

j9sht

What do you mean by saying you will be adjusting the "compensation number"

KAF

Within the instrument cluster software are a series of entries that you can browse.
One of them relates to a multiplier used by the OBC to give you your fuel consumption readout. It is factory set at 1000.
But if you find your real fuel consumption is different to that given by the OBC you can adjust this figure.
Reducing from 1000 will give you a better mpg readout, increasing it from 1000 will give you a worse mpg figure from the OBC.
So by adjusting it you can get your OBC to reflect your real consumption.
Have a look at this thread to see what I mean

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=22155&hl=OBC

j9sht

Thanks KAF off to adjust mine now.

KAF

Few points of caution.
1. Check your odometer is reading correctly. If it is short changing you on the miles you are doing your brim to brim fuel calculation could be wrong.

2. make sure you run a fuel consumption check over at least 1000 miles so your margin of error is small.

3. Don't over compensate on the recalibration, if the OBC starts to give you flattering mpg, it will also be telling you that you have more miles before you hit empty than you really have. Better to set it with a slightly conservative mpg level than run out of gas.