Ford KA, KA2, KA3 - Ford Ka really low MPG

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Mon 22 Mar 2010 09:35
Ford KA, KA2, KA3 - Ford Ka really low MPG - Jcoventry

i have recently covered about 76 miles in my car and it seems to have used about 15 litres of fuel for this, which works out around 20-25 MPG. My car is a 2008 Ka 1.3 Style climate with the Duratec 69 hP engine, so it should be averaging 35-40 MPG. admittedly it was a mixture of city/a road driving, quite a bit of braking involved, but surely 20-25 is very low? i have had the car from new ,and its covered just over 7,000 miles since new. it's never been driven hard, i keep the revs low, change gear as early as possible, very cautious with my acceleration/braking, so cannot see where this extremely poor MPG is coming from. however it has been used for lots of short journeys, but usually does see the motorway once a month. the last service was its 1st service at around 3800 miles in June 2009. Dirty injectors? oil change needed ...? Read somewhere that it could be because of the air filter, i know that this has never been changed.

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Mon 22 Mar 2010 10:12
Ford Ka, Ka2, Ka3 - Ford Ka really low MPG - Peter.N.

You really need to do a cntrolled test by brimming the tank and going for a reason long run on the motorway driving at a reasonable constant speed, that will show you what it is cabable of, if its reasonably good you will then know that the problem is not with the car but the enviroment that its being driven in.

the cold weather doesn't help, is the engine running at normal temperature? a cold running engine is an inefficient one. hard braking and acceleration are the worst culprets for heavy fuel consumption as are short journeys as the engine often doesn't attain the correct operating temperature.

Running a diesel is the only way you will get anything like a decent consumption under those condiditions, they especially reward gentle driving.

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