It's WINTER..

Are you driving it like the petrol, indeed look carefully at your driving.

This is Not criticism as my own car driving is dreadful for economy, hence why my petrol cars are on LPG.

Every yard you cover on overrun is free, every yard under power you burn fuel, keep momentum at junctions etc trying not to stop if at all possible, keep the revs down, don't accelerate hard all the time, keep the speed reasonable and steady, anything over 60 and you start to shift a lot of air which gets far worse as the speed rises, it all adds up.

Maybe try an economy drive week and see what the difference is...not saying you will want to adopt this, admittedly boring as hell, routine permanently (might as well have bought a 3cyl Corsa thing), but doing so might prove one way or another if its the car or you.

Winter does increase the fuel usage, but unless you live in the North we haven't had winter yet.

Edited by gordonbennet on 18/02/2014 at 10:07

Winter does increase the fuel usage, but unless you live in the North we haven't had winter yet.

Its not just the temperature and snow that increases fuels consumption in winter. You have the lights on much longer, the heater, the heated rear window, the wipers etc and all these take electricity, that puts more load on the engine. Then add in the lower temps which means the engine takes longer to heat up plus it also cools the engine much faster when its parked up.

All the above applies to petrols and diesels.

Winter diesel is slightly less volatile so that also adds to the increase.

Having carefully logged fuel for many years (my jobs in the past required me to keep records) I feel confident to say it makes between 2% and 4% difference on a diesel, not the 20% some people claim.