It's difficult to accurately measure fuel consumption by putting £20 in the tank. Put bluntly, when you put fixed amounts of fuel in the tank, it's normally because you're short of money and there's a tendency to go further into the red each time before buying more fuel. The extra miles you squeeze out of the old top-up are of course borrowed from the next one, so you think that your economy has taken a precipitous dive when in reality nothing has happened!
The colder weather won't help. At that age of car, any fuelling issue should be self diagnosing (unless someone has removed the EML...). Check that your brakes aren't binding etc.
You can try reading spark plugs, but usually the engine management will detect a fault before you do.
Edited by unthrottled on 10/12/2012 at 15:57
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