How can I get more mpg or is this normal?

not just the shape + size of it, but also increased mass of it! according to parker's your old one was around 850kg, but your current one is around 1 tonne :O

as you would expect, you need to use more power to shift the extra mass...........and use of more power is negative for economy potentials.


has it recently been serviced? having a fresh air filter, tyres with right pressure, etc. also,REMOVAL OF ROOF RAILS IF THEY NOT IN USE (bad for the aerodynamic)....................

Okay, maybe I'm just expecting too much from my car haha. I used to have a 2005 1.3l toyota yaris it had done 65k miles.

I now have a 2004 1.3l toyota yaris verso (estate) its done 39k miles.



Obviously, with the size of the car and shape of it, I was expecting it to use more petrol...

But I'm shocked by how much more its using.

I'm using £50 of petrol a week (at £1.34 a litre) and getting about 220 miles out of that if im LUCKY. sometimes I'm only getting 200 miles. All the driving I do is on a 60mph A road.

With my old yaris I was getting 350 miles out a full tank (£45)

Do I just need to accept thats how much fuel it used?

lol to roof rail....it wouldn't make that much difference, and some of the other answers r quite stupid aswell...

the reason your not getting more mpg out of your 1.3 is because its a 1.3litre doing about 60....which would probably b at about 3/4000 revs ...

if you did the journey in 5th gear at 40....you'd get the most out of it.... when the rev counters between one and two...

den u'd probably get about 40mpg out of it atleast....

no need to change any filters, just wait till your next service to do that


i drive a 3litre bmw, which is **** local, but on a run at 60, it only does 1 and a half thousand revs and i get back about 35mpg

If the car hasn't been serviced in a while, well, I'm pretty darn sure it needs a service As I've said, respectable MPG can be had with a 1.4 Golf doing 70-80mph at 3-3.5k rpm, which is a fair bit heavier than the OP's car too. Again, if the tyre pressures are out then it can have a massive effect on the amount of fuel you burn.

Okay, maybe I'm just expecting too much from my car haha. I used to have a 2005 1.3l toyota yaris it had done 65k miles.

I now have a 2004 1.3l toyota yaris verso (estate) its done 39k miles.



Obviously, with the size of the car and shape of it, I was expecting it to use more petrol...

But I'm shocked by how much more its using.

I'm using £50 of petrol a week (at £1.34 a litre) and getting about 220 miles out of that if im LUCKY. sometimes I'm only getting 200 miles. All the driving I do is on a 60mph A road.

With my old yaris I was getting 350 miles out a full tank (£45)

Do I just need to accept thats how much fuel it used?

not just the shape + size of it, but also increased mass of it! according to parker's your old one was around 850kg, but your current one is around 1 tonne :O

as you would expect, you need to use more power to shift the extra mass...........and use of more power is negative for economy potentials.


has it recently been serviced? having a fresh air filter, tyres with right pressure, etc. also,REMOVAL OF ROOF RAILS IF THEY NOT IN USE (bad for the aerodynamic)....................

Roof rails like that barely affect fuel economy as they're relatively streamlined. It's roof bars/roof racks that you have to worry about (but I dont, having had full roof racks on all three of my cars).

But you're quite right in that it may need a service. If the last owner has neglected the air filter for a long time then a blocked/dirty filter will hammer your fuel economy, as will incorrect tyre pressures. If they're too high then you'll simply burn through your tyre tread and destroy the handling, but too low will bring your rolling resistance right up, and thus, your economy down. Also look at how you drive. You will have to drive much more 'carefully' with this than with your old car to get even close to your old fuel figures, but you should be able to get better than you're doing.

I can do from my parent's house in the middle of Devon to Swansea, and back (with some driving around Swansea) on less than a tank of petrol in my Golf. The trip totals around 320 miles, and a tank is around 50-55 quid. The car is a 1.4 petrol, and probably quite a bit heavier than your car. I've just about squeezed my parent's house to London and back too, which is 400 miles round trip, but that had me driving like a saint to manage it.

lol to roof rail....it wouldn't make that much difference, and some of the other answers r quite stupid aswell...

the reason your not getting more mpg out of your 1.3 is because its a 1.3litre doing about 60....which would probably b at about 3/4000 revs ...

if you did the journey in 5th gear at 40....you'd get the most out of it.... when the rev counters between one and two...

den u'd probably get about 40mpg out of it atleast....

no need to change any filters, just wait till your next service to do that


i drive a 3litre bmw, which is **** local, but on a run at 60, it only does 1 and a half thousand revs and i get back about 35mpg

Brief advice on Fuel efficiency:
------------------------------------------

things that improve MPG:
1) light footed on the accelerator/brake pedal
2) glide towards things that you are going to have to stop for in the hope that when you reach them you can continue rather than stopping!
3) assess traffic ahead and change lanes to maintain constant movement and trying to maintain speed thus reducing braking etc
4) plan a route that has the least amount of stop-start driving (typically motorway driving provides better MPG to street driving)
5) maintaing 50mph (on road that permit such speed obviously)
6) turn off air-con*
7) remove unnecessary weight from the car*
8) you as the driver, if you are heavy then loose some weight*
9) do not have passenger in the car, or if you must not heavy ones*
10) only half fill tank, why use fuel to carry fuel!*
11) close windows (open windows creates air-drag)*
12) roof rails (create air-drag)* - though i'm not sure yours would!
13) check tyre pressure*
and so on...

*these also increase acceleration and improve braking. Remember "power to weight ratio" is a major factor in a cars acceleration, just as "speed to weight ratio" is a factor when braking!



however at this time of year; you should be adding weight to the car e.g. in the boot of a small light car as it is very easy to lose the backend in icy/snowy conditions.
people who have rear wheeled drive cars tend to stick things in the boot as well.

Thanks, it is due a service next month. Hahah, you can tell I don't know much about cars, I didn't understand what a service was until I read these replies and asked my boyfriend to explain what one was, I thought it was just an 'in depth' mot. How silly do I feel! I do have heating on in the car all the time because its FREEZING! but surely that isn't using up all my fuel?

Okay so I'll book it in for a service, and check its tyres.

A lot of it may just be down to my driving. I know I can change that. I drive too fast/accelerate too hard. It is hard in that car though, as you can imagine it isn't the best at accelerating so I do have to drop down a gear to overtake etcetera... and I can be impatient.

Perhaps I should just slow down and drive like the granny that the car was designed for

Brief advice on Fuel efficiency:
------------------------------------------

things that improve MPG:
1) light footed on the accelerator/brake pedal
2) glide towards things that you are going to have to stop for in the hope that when you reach them you can continue rather than stopping!
3) assess traffic ahead and change lanes to maintain constant movement and trying to maintain speed thus reducing braking etc
4) plan a route that has the least amount of stop-start driving (typically motorway driving provides better MPG to street driving)
5) maintaing 50mph (on road that permit such speed obviously)
6) turn off air-con*
7) remove unnecessary weight from the car*
8) you as the driver, if you are heavy then loose some weight*
9) do not have passenger in the car, or if you must not heavy ones*
10) only half fill tank, why use fuel to carry fuel!*
11) close windows (open windows creates air-drag)*
12) roof rails (create air-drag)* - though i'm not sure yours would!
13) check tyre pressure*
and so on...

*these also increase acceleration and improve braking. Remember "power to weight ratio" is a major factor in a cars acceleration, just as "speed to weight ratio" is a factor when braking!



however at this time of year; you should be adding weight to the car e.g. in the boot of a small light car as it is very easy to lose the backend in icy/snowy conditions.
people who have rear wheeled drive cars tend to stick things in the boot as well.

1 - 4 - Yes, all these will help considerably
5 - The economy difference between 50 and 70 is negligible in modern cars. There actually isn't much benefit in maintaining 50 over 70.
6 - Absolute killer on economy, but better than having a window open at speed
7 - 10 - Almost complete rubbish. The fuel saving to be gained by reducing weight is so negligible it is simply not worth it. If you add half a ton of weight to the car (which is actually pretty difficult), the fuel consumption increases by approximately 0.7%
11 - Yes
12 - Negligible
13 - Yes, absolutely

As a Smarter Driving trainer, endorsed by the Energy Savings Trust, I train people specifically in how to reduce fuel consumption with savings anywhere between 15 and 40%. The principles have been developed over a number of years from evidence from around the world and it definitely works.

I don't intend to sound like a Devil's advocate, but I'm going to ask if you've got any evidence to back up some of those claims..
5 - I'm very sceptical, as drag (the major power drain at a steady speed) increases with the square of speed, so the drag at 70mph is near enough twice the drag at 50mph. Obviously that doesn't mean the fuel economy halves, but if you don't see a noticeable change in fuel economy that suggests a horrifically inefficient drive train.
6 - depends on a number of factors but not necessarily true and I don't think to the extent you suggest - a couple of MPG perhaps. A test by the IRTE said air-conditioning "has little or
no effect on fuel consumption" and I can't find any other solid evidence on the issue, but the power to run a compressor at low load (and it's rarely that hot over here!) is small relative to the power to keep a car moving at 70mph
7-10 - At a steady speed I would agree, but particularly for driving patterns with frequent changes in speed physics heavily implies that's wrong (F=MA - increase the weight of the car 10% and you require 10% more force to achieve the same acceleration).

I'm not just being argumentative - I've got a degree in mechanical engineering and I've discussed a lot of this with a friend who is an automotive consultant.

I'm also going to suggest that the OP makes an accurate calculation of the fuel economy in their new car (brim the tank, reset the trip meter, drive for a while, brim the tank again and use the quantity of fuel added the second time and the distance travelled to work out MPG) as the numbers above suggest 26mpg, which in a car like that suggests something seriously wrong. My brother does better than that thrashing a 2.8L Z3!

Thank you for your input and I really appreciate the opportunity for a reasoned debate on this issue. I will get the data next week because it is not something I have to hand. I won't promise to understand it as I am not a mechanically minded person - I'm just the messenger - hopefully you will. At the very least we can get a definitive view on fuel saving tips.

Just out of interest, the Energy Saving Trust and the driving force behind the Smarter Driving campaign maintain that if you are going to be stationary for more than 20 seconds it is more economic to turn the engine off as the amount of fuel used in starting the car after that time is less than the amount that would be used if it was left running. Any thoughts on this?

Finally, I would thoroughly agree with your last point that 26mpg does sound too low for this type of car and the measurement approach you suggest is definitely worthwhile.

Brief advice on Fuel efficiency:
------------------------------------------

things that improve MPG:
1) light footed on the accelerator/brake pedal
2) glide towards things that you are going to have to stop for in the hope that when you reach them you can continue rather than stopping!
3) assess traffic ahead and change lanes to maintain constant movement and trying to maintain speed thus reducing braking etc
4) plan a route that has the least amount of stop-start driving (typically motorway driving provides better MPG to street driving)
5) maintaing 50mph (on road that permit such speed obviously)
6) turn off air-con*
7) remove unnecessary weight from the car*
8) you as the driver, if you are heavy then loose some weight*
9) do not have passenger in the car, or if you must not heavy ones*
10) only half fill tank, why use fuel to carry fuel!*
11) close windows (open windows creates air-drag)*
12) roof rails (create air-drag)* - though i'm not sure yours would!
13) check tyre pressure*
and so on...

*these also increase acceleration and improve braking. Remember "power to weight ratio" is a major factor in a cars acceleration, just as "speed to weight ratio" is a factor when braking!



however at this time of year; you should be adding weight to the car e.g. in the boot of a small light car as it is very easy to lose the backend in icy/snowy conditions.
people who have rear wheeled drive cars tend to stick things in the boot as well.

looks like god is punishing you for driving something that ugly, soz.

As a short-term possible solution you could get a petrol additive that will clean the injectors. Most petrol stations stock them, the name escapes me right now. ....

Or just fill up using the 'premium' petrol, it is supposed to contain the same things.