Low MPG issues??

[guest1885]

Hi

I'm a newbie and thought I would just check to see if I should be concerned about the MPG figures my Honda Jazz trip meter is reading (2004 SE 1400CC).

I purchased the car (UK) in June 2010 from a Honda Dealer and the MPG meter read about 33.1MPG over the course of the next few months it steadily rose to about 39MPG (I didn't reset the Trip computer on purchase).

In December 2010 I had to take the car in to have the Drivers Side rear door panel membrane replaced due to water ingress in the rear passenger footwell the  seals on the roof due to water getting into the spare tyre well and as a matter of course they reset the trip computer.

For the last month the car trip has been displaying between 31 to 33MPG, I admit I don't do allot of the driving its mostly the wife doing short journeys in and about town with the odd bit of dual carriageaway, journeys being no more than than say 10 miles at the most .

I took the car to the Honda Dealer who reset the meter and took the car for a spin and the trip read about 55MPG (though be his own admission he was driving economically and on a dual carriageway at an optimum speed to return the best figures). They have  made a note of the mileage and asked me to go back to them after 250 miles if the MPG is below mid 40's.

The car has in total now done about 26 miles since the trip reset and its already down to 39.7mpg.Tyre pressures are OK, spark plugs were last replaced in SEPT 2009, mileage is less than 45K, are these figures about right for this time of year in the UK with cold stops / starts and the car maybe not getting up to ideal running temperature , or are there any pointers (beside perhaps the wife's driving) that I need to look out for / be aware of. We often do get our fuel from Asda. I don't know if anyone has had an
experience of lower MPG figures from the same.

Any help or heads up would be appreciated.

Brapford

[guest1844]

See this link:
http://clubjazz.org/forum/jazz-gd-2002-2008/anyone-getting-the-manufacturer's-quoted-mpg-or-more/

35mpg for the first 3 or 4 miles. Then you should get over 40, 45 hopefully by 10 miles. You can easily get the readout to say 55 if you reset it when the engine's warm and you're already up to speed.

Does the car roll easily - by which I mean at the end of a journey, when the tyres don't have a flat spot and the gearbox oil is warm, you should feel you could push the car yourself easily. Or from stopped just inch forward at 1mph then let it coast to a stop. You might even feel it roll back 1/2 an inch. Any resistance other than a bit of springiness in the tyres suggest a brake is sticking slightly. I had a back brake sticking only a bit which yielded 3mpg when fixed. One trick is to feel the wheel bolts' temperature after a trip, looking for a hot one, but this won't show up a small bind.

[guest1883]

I just bought a 2004/53reg 1.4 i-DSI SE Sport from an independent (not Honda) dealer, and am horrified at the first half tank of petrol usage/MPG.  The trip computer said 38mpg, which I already thought was low, but it was down to half a tank after just over 100 miles.  I filled it up again just now, worked it out and it's 25.2MPG!!

Has anyone got any idea what might be causing this?  Would a sticky EGR cause this much drop?  I was expecting 40-45MPG at least...

Not feeling happy right now - bought the Jazz for the reliability, and after the turbo on my diesel Golf blew up, so really hoping this isn't serious....

[guest1885]

Bazzer

thanks for your reply, using your formula for the sort of journers we are doing the best we could hope for would be about 40MPG whats with it being winter / cold engine for quite  afew short journeys and driving around town.

The sticking brake thing is interesting, I see other people have mentioned such an issue when discussing about MPG, I will try checking the bolts, other posts mention checking the rim, is this the rim of the wheel or of the brake discs (sorry I'm not much of petrolhead / techie person by nature). I will give this a try at the weekend.

Gmullan I had wondered if the EGR valve might be a problem, is there any obvious symptoms of such a problem that someone could flag. 

Thnaks for responding.

brapford



   

[guest1885]

By Way of update I decided to take the car for a run this morning of 50 miles (mostly dual carriageway / motorway).

When I got into the car the MPG read 32.9 after 66 miles (all urban driving). Today was dry but reasonably cold 1/2 degrees C.

I didn't leave the car to warm up and pretty much drove straight away, both myself and my wife have noticed that when its cold, the car has a distinctive low note (not unlike the exhaust blowing) for about the first 200/300 yards which we have always assumed to be just the auto choke working with the cold which goes away (don't know if this is normal) .

After the journey the MPG had risen to 37.9 from 117 miles, so it went up by exactly 5 MPG over a 50 mile journey. I checked the rims / bolts (as best as I could as we have hubcaps) I could not detect any real warmth from any of the hubs, there may have been a slight bit of warmth (hardly anything) from both of the front hubs (perhaps I was imagining it).

Concerning  the EGR valve I have noticed that there can be some slight hesitation /stalling feeling in the car when I drive as I initially pull away from junctions. I have put this somewhat down to hardly driving the car and my mind still being dialled into the bite point on my old car and perhaps I'm sort of snatching a bit on the clutch as I drive off. The wife has said she has had no problems in this area and no coughs or misfires from the car when she drives.   

I don't know whether we should be expecting more MPG from the car or this is about standard for the year, the dealer clearly thinks it should be in the 40'S. Any further advice /assurance would be appreciated 

[DV]

What speed did you drive (last time), what is your tyre pressure? I`m always setting the higher ones because I mainly driving on the motorway and my boot is full with tools (33 psi all the way around).You may clean with carb cleaner the EGR valve, doesn`t take longer than 5 minutes. How much loaded is your car?

[guest1885]

I was doing on average about 60/70MPH. Tyres pressures are 32PSI all round though at the most its usually on x 4 people in the car (2 adults 2 kids) so I dont know if thats too high. On that trip it was just me.

MPG is now at about 38.3 after 137 miles.

[DV]

At any petrol car if you rev the engine over the 50% rev the fuel comsumption rises suddenly. The other thing is if you frequently pressing and releasing the accelerator pedal rises the fuel consumption too. I`m always trying to keep the pedal on the same position to maintain the fuel saving.

[Boanerges]

Last weekend I did my first long journey in our Jazz from Dorset to Yorkshire and back and the fuel consumption figures were as follows for three adults plus luggage driving at 70mph on the motorways and dual carriageways that make up all but 15 miles of our route.  I brimmed the tank each time.

1. On filling up just before we set off from home: 49.9mpg (used mainly around town and for short local trips)

2. On arriving at our destination 265 miles away plus about 100 miles of local driving: 46.73mpg

3. After we got back home: 46.22mpg

(The trip computer was approximately three mpg more optimistic)

I had serviced the car and done the tappets a few weeks earlier and I also treated her to a bottle of injector cleaner in a tankful of fuel.

I must say that I was absolutely delighted both with the way the car performed and with the Tardis like way it swallowed our luggage without my having to drop a rear seat.

It might be my imagination but the car now seems to run more smoothly after its run.

[guest1885]

Last check MPG was down to about 36.6MPG at 166miles since last reset, the reality is the majority of runs being done in the car are between 1 to 7 miles which I must mean the engine cant be getting up to ideal operating temperature or returning the best MPG.

A friend drove a similar route to the ones our car would normally do of about 4 miles in a 2002 Skoda Fabia which appeared to have a better and responsive trip computer and it averaged about 30MPG.

Boanerges - interesting - I'm assuming that you did not reset the trip computer before you set off on your journey. Logically if the trip isn't rest then as the mileage builds up its going to take a lot of driving to boost the figures up to the mid 40's suggested by the dealer. Perhaps a service might help things

what I'm really keen to avoid is referring the matter to the dealer on "wild hunt" at my expense if in all reality things are as best I can expect for a car that is primarily undertaking short journeys.

   

[guest1844]

I've got VPower in this tank - mpg after 150 miles of motorway commutes @65mph shows 43 this morning. Sped home tonight as late for something, its gone up to 45! Crazy eh? It is 9C outside though...

My Volvo doesn't have a mpg readout. Bliss. Just drive it. Same range per tank - twice the price to fill up!

[guest1809]

Hello,

I bought my Jazz (1.4 2005) 2 months ago and average consumption over the 800km a drove with it is 10 liters / 100 km which is i believe 28 mpg.
Car has allways been maintained by the official dealer, i use no airconditioning, tyre pressure is ok, mostly i drive short trips to my work and thats it. Last week i took it for a drive to rotterdam, 200 km over the highway at 120km/h (65mph) and onboard computer was showing the average of 8.1/l/100km (35mpg) and since i have noticed that this computer is too optimistic and shows 1l/100km less my cars mpg on the highway is 31 mpg.

I've called the Honda dealer here in belgium and he couldn't believe it when i said what the mpg was. First thing he said was "have the tappets been adjusted" and my answer was "no"..Next thing he said was, well come to us we will do it but i can't guarantee that the fuel consumpion will drop"...whatever

it drives me nuts , i could have bought an 2.0 liter accord and have same consumption...my honda prelude 5th gen did  23 mpg in city traffic...so what to do what to change to increase the mpg...

Or maybe my fuel is leaking somewhere 

Cheers

[Boanerges]

Boanerges - interesting - I'm assuming that you did not reset the trip computer before you set off on your journey. Logically if the trip isn't rest then as the mileage builds up its going to take a lot of driving to boost the figures up to the mid 40's suggested by the dealer. Perhaps a service might help things
   

I reset the trip computer before I set off from home, when I filled up in Yorkshire prior to returning and again when I got home to Dorset and filled up.

I should add that I'd checked and adjusted the tyre pressures before the trip and had also cleaned the EGR valve when I did the tappets.

[guest1897]

 ;)Hi all i've just entered the world of the jazz.

Bought a 2005 1.4 HE. yesterday 03.02.11

Reset the MPG trip before leaving the honda dealer, travelled through the traffic in Cambridge to home, about 2 1/2 miles and had 36.5 on the mpg.
Nipped out today for my son to have a drive (about 8-10 miles, mixed traffic) now showing 45mpg.

Compared to my 2 ltr Xtrail that is amazing.............

Pat.
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    now up to 45miles completed and up to 52.4 average mpg.

As some have suggested, to achieve this figure I've had to make great efforts not to waste any fuel.
you really do need to coast up to all the lights, and stopped traffic, but it works.

At 60mph it was still able to maintain and slightly rise on mpg after 50mpg. I suspect that 65-70 would see it fall a little at a time. I will let you know as this experiment continues !!!

What a great little car this is (so far anyway)

[guest1885]

I reset the trip computer yesterday and took it for a small drive of about 35 miles there and back, it was showing 49MPG on the out trip and 48MPG on the way back and that was allowing for speeds of 65/70MPH - certainly if you coast where possible it makes a difference to the trip readings so it looks like nothing to worry about.

Only down side we had the rear door sealed on the drivers side repaired by the honda dealer in december and there are still traces of water ingress in the foot well - so something else to sort out.