Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank

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Sun 17 Jul 2011 22:11
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - badapple

I have the above vehicle but am getting really poor performance on miles per tank. I fully fill up the tank and the on board indicator stated 640 miles BUT reliaty is I only seem to get about 330 miles from the full tank.

I have checked this carefuly several times & seem to the best I can get from a full tank.

This cannot be right!!! Any advise?

The vehice is fully services with 120,000 miles

Edited by badapple on 17/07/2011 at 22:18

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Sun 17 Jul 2011 22:43
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - oldtoffee

How many litres/gallons does it take to fill up? Some reports on Volvo sites claim a 3 gallon reserve tank. So say you use 45 litres (10 gallons) for every 330 miles it doesn't look good but that car doesn't get good economy reports and/or it may be your driving style, high speed, aircon always on, high level of town driving? Your car has done 120,000 miles - is everything in the fuel system in good condition?

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Mon 18 Jul 2011 19:56
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - badapple

Thanks for the replys guys.

Last week I fill up with 44.3 litres of diesel from Shell garage. This fill up was right to the top, as overflowing. I have driven the vehicle CAREFULY, local & motorway & have managed to achieve 335 miles before the diesel warning light came on.

The vehicle is fully serviced, last service 25.06.11. 4 new quality tyres & full exhaust fitted in beginning of May.

Last service, Quality oil & filter change, Diesel filter change, Air filter change, Pollen filter change. I also added 4 bottles of injector cleaner into the diesel tank, thinking the injectors may be clogged.(but car drives fine, no problem there.)

Its also had a new battery & alternator fitted 3 months ago. There is no roof rack bars fitted bar the standard. I have been using the AC a little lately, but I noticed the low milage even before using the AC.

There is no heavy load being carried in the vehicle, just me most of the time.

Surely this is not right if this is the norm for this vehicle?

Dont know what else to do, except put it up for sale!

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Mon 18 Jul 2011 21:43
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - unthrottled

That's only 35mpg-not right at all!

Is it manual or automatic?

It's actually not that easy for diesel to pass through the engine without being efficiently burned or producing either obnoxious levels of smoke or clattering. Since you don't seem to be suffering from these symptoms, I don't think the fault lies with the engine. If you've managed to drive on the motorways I don't think it can be a dragging brake caliper because you would have cooked the disc/pad and probably the brake fluid as well.

have you had a really good look for fuel leaks while the engine is runnning? Can't think of much else to suggest!

Edited by unthrottled on 18/07/2011 at 21:48

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Mon 18 Jul 2011 22:25
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - badapple

Hi m8, This is a 6 speed manual vehicle.

As far as I know there is no leaking of diesel as I have already had this checked when the battery & alternator was replaced, also the MOT was in February & full pass.

The calipers, discs & pads are in good condition with no sign of damage. Just cant understand why it drinks sooooo much.

When the vehicle is being driven. even at high speed, there is no problems that I notice. Is there a engine test that can be performed to determin the problem? Suppose this only from dealers, who will charge a kings ransom.

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Tue 19 Jul 2011 14:25
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - unthrottled

I wouldn't waste your time. Dealers or garages never take complaints about poor fuel economy with no other symptoms seriously I'm afraid. They'll 'look at it' for some of your money, but I doubt they'll try very hard.

One thought: Is the car fitted with a DPF? Are the oil levels ok-not rising or anything silly?

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Wed 7 Sep 2011 21:48
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - badapple
YES the
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Thu 8 Sep 2011 14:57
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - badapple

YES the vehicle is fitted with a DPF. No warning light/messages for the DPF but other warnings have showe. 1) break service requires. 2) power sterring service required. But dosent seem to be a peoblem with either of the above. If the DPF filter is clogged, this will cause the low milage proble? Can the DPF be cleaned or needs replacing?

Thanks for advise.

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Mon 18 Jul 2011 13:10
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - TheOilBurner

badapple, don't mess about trying to quote miles per tank, do a brim-to-brim test and calculate your mpg, and then let us know.

In the meantime, have you checked the obvious stuff like tyre pressures, roof box left on etc?

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Mon 18 Jul 2011 13:21
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - unthrottled

don't mess about trying to quote miles per tank

Quite. This meaningless measure has a first cousin-miles per round demonination of currency. ie "I put £30 of petrol in and it only went 130 miles. i don't think my mpg is very good..."

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Tue 19 Jul 2011 08:33
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - craig-pd130

Reminds me of the old joke about fuel prices: "Petrol's always been a tenner, hasn't it?"

But seriously, can you check any easy stuff, such as the air filter being fitted correctly and not blocked with debris?

Edited by craig-pd130 on 19/07/2011 at 08:37

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Tue 19 Jul 2011 10:09
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - Paul G1pdc

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/specs/Detail.aspx?deriv=29396

I like the parkers site, look at mpg, thats the target you should be looking at.

shows your fuel tank size is 55 litres. at £1.37p/litre thats a max of £75 per tank.

may-be its worth dropping the car at a volvo specalist for an hr or so and see if they find something wrong, my local volvo place charges £49/hr plus vat. (run by 2 ex-volvo chaps)

my brother in law has a v50 D and gets mid 40s out of his estate, and he drives it hard, at least you have an old model like my relatives as newer versions are fitted with the liquid dpf system meaning a £800 service at approx 75,000 miles...

Paul / my V40 petrol 2 litre averages 35mpg (cars 11 years old with 102,000miles).

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Tue 19 Jul 2011 14:20
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - unthrottled

It's never the air filter!

A dirty air filter might have a pressure drop of 10" H2O across it at full throttle. At part throttle, totally negligible.

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Tue 19 Jul 2011 18:33
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - craig-pd130

I don't mean dirt & dust - on my old Passat, the intake was placed behind the grille and wasn't particularly well screened. I used to get all sorts of sizeable debris in the airbox (feathers, leaves, twigs etc). On one occasion, a sizeable bit of plastic film which had stuck to the filter, covering nearly half of its area!

I believe it's worth checking everything that's easily accessible, just to eliminate the obvious ....

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Wed 20 Jul 2011 09:44
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - pd

You've obviously had the car sometime so has the mpg suddenly dropped or has it always been like this?

You also don't say what sort of driving you are doing in terms of ratio. Around town and with lots of cold starts and short journies 35mpg is about right for one of these - if you're doing longer runs on the motorway at sensible speeds it should do about 45mpg.

Edited by pd on 20/07/2011 at 09:47

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Thu 21 Jul 2011 00:59
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - dodo

My old 2008 Volvo V50 2.0D did 420-450 miles per tank. Interesting that my 2011 Passat 2.0TD 'Bluemotion Tech' has just completed 810 miles and there's still 60 miles left!

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Wed 7 Sep 2011 23:35
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - SteveLee

Is it a metal or plastic tank? If metal has someone done a bit of imprompu off-roading and dented it halving its capacity? I easily used to top 400 miles per tank in my 3 litre petrol C5 (71 litre tank) without the fuel light coming on - something very wrong here! Perhaps it's something as simple as an over enthsiastic fuel light/sender unit.

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Thu 8 Sep 2011 10:29
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - ForumNeedsModerating

OP says the range estimate indicates 640 miles immediately after fill-up. I assume the range estimate algorithm extrapolates from your last average ( over ~X miles) - so the ECU (or its helper) clearly thinks, based on flow rates & distance travelled, that you're driving style/context will deliver that fuel economy.

In the absence of any fuel leaks (that may occur between fuel tank & measuring/fuelling point) , I'd look for anomalies in the sender unit and/or your measuring algorthim for the calculation.

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Thu 8 Sep 2011 11:46
Volvo V50 2005 2.0 D SE - Miles per full tank - pd

It only has a 55 litre tank. 640 miles would mean it is estimating you're going to do 52mpg over the entire tank. In my experience these models do, at best, mid-40's driven gently on the motorway.

If you reckon you might get 48 litres before the light comes on the furthest you're ever going to get is 450-475 on a tank.

If there is something wrong I'd start with possibly injectors (over fuelling), MAF sensor or faulty DPF.

Edited by pd on 08/09/2011 at 11:48

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