Real world F10 MPG

Real world F10 MPG

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Discussion

andyiley

Original Poster:

10,579 posts

164 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
quotequote all
Gents and gentesses, I am currently considering swapping the venerable e39 530 Sport (LPG) for an F10 & find myself wondering about going to the 'dark side' aka diesel due to financial constraints, and that leads me to a question.

T'interweb suggests that MPG for petrol & diesel 530s are 36 & 47 averages.

How close are these to reality?

Fox-

13,425 posts

258 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
quotequote all
Absolutely nowhere near.

With the 530d it's a pleasing 'event' to match the COMBINED figure on a long gentle Motorway run. The figures are completely meaningless and bear almost no resemblance to reality, whereas your 530i will pretty much do 'Extra Urban' on a sedate Motorway run.

andyiley

Original Poster:

10,579 posts

164 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
quotequote all
No major surprises there then!

Fox-

13,425 posts

258 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
quotequote all
I would factor it being every so slightly better than a non LPG 530i Sport.

You can then alternate between:

a) This is so frustrating. Why am I driving a stupid diesel and getting crap fuel economy thats hardly better than my 530i? Why did everyone order a diesel new thinking it would get even close to the stupid figures in the brochure?

b) This is actually quite good, I have a 1900kg automatic luxobarge full of kit that does 0-60 in 6 seconds and it's no more thirsty than my old 530i

Fun eh?

drmark

5,412 posts

198 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
quotequote all
F11 530d averaged 35 mpg over 62,000 miles and I push it - when I can.

andyiley

Original Poster:

10,579 posts

164 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
quotequote all
35 Is reasonable, on gas I equate 26 (ON THE COMPUTER)to roughly 40 in the wallet.

Fox-

13,425 posts

258 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
quotequote all
drmark said:
F11 530d averaged 35 mpg over 62,000 miles and I push it - when I can.
What sort of driving mix is that?

drmark

5,412 posts

198 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
quotequote all
Half 8 mile commute up hill and down dale. Half motorway. Had an E61 530d before averaged 30mpg over 100k doing same trips.

anonymous-user

66 months

Sunday 4th May 2014
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I've owned my F10 530d for two months now and done 2300 miles.

The last tank and a half have been all local and the car has averaged 43mpg.

On a long cross country run from Norfolk to Lancashire it averaged 55. On a 70/75 motorway cruise it does about the same.

I manage to keep up with the traffic, let's say, so can only assume some of you guys have extremely heavy right feet.

Can't speak for the petrol 530 but wouldn't have thought it would get close to 40 in local use.

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 4th May 22:54

andyiley

Original Poster:

10,579 posts

164 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
Fox- said:
drmark said:
F11 530d averaged 35 mpg over 62,000 miles and I push it - when I can.
What sort of driving mix is that?
Pushing, not driving!

drmark

5,412 posts

198 months

Monday 5th May 2014
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andyiley said:
Pushing, not driving!
Ah, that is what I am doing wrong smile

drmark

5,412 posts

198 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
REALIST123 said:
I've owned my F10 530d for two months now and done 2300 miles.

The last tank and a half have been all local and the car has averaged 43mpg.

On a long cross country run from Norfolk to Lancashire it averaged 55. On a 70/75 motorway cruise it does about the same.

I manage to keep up with the traffic, let's say, so can only assume some of you guys have extremely heavy right feet.

Can't speak for the petrol 530 but wouldn't have thought it would get close to 40 in local use.

Edited by REALIST123 on Sunday 4th May 22:54
Wow. I rarely average over 40 even on long trips.

Fox-

13,425 posts

258 months

Monday 5th May 2014
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This is the frustrating thing, It's almost impossible to work out what you can expect if you buy one of these because:

a) You can't, and it would unreasonable to expect, get a test drive long enough to do proper trips
b) For every person saying if he takes it easy he regularly hits 50mpg there is somebody else staggered and saying it'll never go over 40mpg for him even if he does 60mph behind a lorry.

IATM

3,935 posts

159 months

Monday 5th May 2014
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Fox- said:
This is the frustrating thing, It's almost impossible to work out what you can expect if you buy one of these because:

a) You can't, and it would unreasonable to expect, get a test drive long enough to do proper trips
b) For every person saying if he takes it easy he regularly hits 50mpg there is somebody else staggered and saying it'll never go over 40mpg for him even if he does 60mph behind a lorry.
The trouble is driving style makes a huge difference; and I mean huge. The way one person drives "normal" could be to another person being a nutter.

When I see people throwing out figures of 50MPG no problem they are correct it is possible but I will strongly highlight these ARE gentle drivers.

I used to own a BMW F10 520d M sport - Yes on a motorway run I could average 55MPG all day long - Hell there was one time I managed to average 65 MPG but my bloody head hurt.

It was hard for me to get the MPG because I like to push on most of the time, I liked to use the rev range atleast once in my journey. There is a few reasons for this, its better for modern derv engine; my car was used daily and its certainly more fun. Over 45k miles I done in mine I averaged 43.8 MPG. Some may say that is poor MPG but for me with my driving style, the size of car, for the miles I did and the way I drove it, it is worthy of a medal. Not a single fault in 45k miles.

Excellent car - If only the 530d/535d didn't command such a premium I would be in one in a heartbeat.

andyiley

Original Poster:

10,579 posts

164 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
drmark said:
Ah, that is what I am doing wrong smile
Me too, but my worst problem with MPG is having to carry around my heavy right foot!

andyiley

Original Poster:

10,579 posts

164 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
IATM said:
I used to own a BMW F10 520d M sport - Yes on a motorway run I could average 55MPG all day long - Hell there was one time I managed to average 65 MPG but my bloody head hurt.

Over 45k miles I done in mine I averaged 43.8 MPG. Some may say that is poor MPG but for me with my driving style, the size of car, for the miles I did and the way I drove it, it is worthy of a medal. Not a single fault in 45k miles.

Excellent car - If only the 530d/535d didn't command such a premium I would be in one in a heartbeat.
I would say both of the above are a pretty good average under the circumstances mentioned & worthy of consideration relative to the manufacturers fairy tales.

Yadizzle1

702 posts

137 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
Looking at fuelly, quite a few people manage to get mid 40's in 530d's

Unfortunately I'm only getting 41-ish in my 520d M sport and I only really use it for "extra urban" driving.

Edited by Yadizzle1 on Monday 5th May 21:30

oldnewbie

275 posts

158 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
I have just bought an F11, it is showing 41.5 on the computer, it has only done 1200 miles so I hope it gets better, if not I will be very disappointed

Fox-

13,425 posts

258 months

Monday 5th May 2014
quotequote all
oldnewbie said:
I have just bought an F11, it is showing 41.5 on the computer, it has only done 1200 miles so I hope it gets better, if not I will be very disappointed
If thats an average of all your driving for 1200 miles inc cold starts etc then I suspect it isn't going to get much better.

JNW1

8,484 posts

206 months

Monday 5th May 2014
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IATM said:
The trouble is driving style makes a huge difference; and I mean huge. The way one person drives "normal" could be to another person being a nutter.
I agree with that but the frustration with my couple of efforts with diesel was that I couldn't get anywhere near the published figures even though with a petrol I can. If anything I probably drove more for economy with the diesels - in an effort to get somewhere near the published numbers - but to no avail; in contrast, a decent run in a petrol will invariably see me beat the claimed figure just driving normally. I can't really understand why there's such a difference given the same driver and road conditions but I'm afraid it's left me very cynical about the mpg claims for diesels.....