My dear fellow CRD colleagues,

I have been searching about this for a while, with no success so far. So, please, accept my apologies if this has been already explored.

I'm the new owner of a used 2006 CRD with roughly 260.000km (around 139.000 miles). Bought it by the end of November 2014. The car is running well, sounding good and also doing a remarkably good job at enduring the harsh Canadian winter.

But I must say I'm not impressed with its fuel economy. I have been getting always around 500km (270mi) from each tank, that fills up always with around 70L (18.5gal). That means something like 7km/L, or 14.6mpg (sorry if I'm not getting the conventions right).

Everywhere I look the numbers for fuel economy they are aways above 20mpg. So, I'm wondering what is happening to my CRD.

Since buying the car, here is what was made that should impact fuel consumption:

-changed oil;
-changed oil filter;
-cleaned MAP sensor. Was very dirty - soot-dirty and not oil-dirty, if it makes any difference;
-inspected air filter (looking good);
-compared a tank with the ORM ON and one with the ORM OFF, which made no noticeable difference on fuel consumption.

So far, the car has been behaving as expected. Problems I had after buying it were few and not at all unexpected: (1) the block heater was not working, and the battery was old and had a low amperage, which made it difficult to start in the early December mornings, (2) some air entering the fuel line when trying to start the car at that period and (3) entering limp mode one day after a painful cold start when it was -37.5C.

Problems 1 and 2 never showed up again after the first visit to the mechanic, and I have been strategising to keep the engine warm on those cold days.

I do have 2 outstanding CEL, one for failure on glow plugs 1, 2 and 3, and another that says "large fuel leak detected". I have not yet managed to inspect this further, and those CEL showed up only after the visit to the mechanic.

In your experienced view, what could be making the car consume such an amount of fuel?

Thank you very much for your help and all the information!

_________________
2006 CRD
a lot to do,
not much done,
happy anyways!

Up front question - at what mileage was the timing belt job done:

As to you fuel consumption issue for what it's worth:
1. you km to miles calculations are way off 260,000km = 161,557 miles and 500km = 311 miles but your L to gallons is accurate. Correcting you km > miles conversion your mpg is close to 17mpg
2. 17mpg is about what I would expect for relatively short distance commuting (my original 05 got 17-18mpg when doing a 9 mile one way communte in town relatively flat average speed 25mph with a max of 45mph).
3. in addition given your location you are using "winter" diesel which is going to drop your mpg ca. 5-10%
4. have you verified and corrected your odometer reading using a GPS unit? From the factory an odometer can be off + or - 5% and still be considered ok. If yours is underreporting actual miles driven then your actual mpg will be higher. FYI don't rely on highway milepost to check your odometer; in the States at least those mile posts are not all that accurate. If you have or can borrow a GPS do a couple of 25 mile check runs.
5. obviously insufficent warm up will adversely impact mpg. Have you fixed your block heater? If not fix it. If or when fixed set it on a timer for like 2 hrs before you crank up in the morning. That will help. Similarly not reaching operating temperature will knock 10% off yur mpg, personal experience. Is you temperature gauge needle riding just about 1/2 needle width left of dead vertical? If it's below that your thermostat has failed open and needs to be replaced.
6. several bad glow plugs don't help cold starting and may impact mpg.
7. the large fuel leak CEL makes me ask do you have the 1st gen fuel filter head? If so there is a good chance your fuel heater element has burned out which may also impact mpg. See viewtopic.php?f=5&t=81182 for a discussion of 1s vs 2n gen heads.

_________________
Sold to LOST member my 05 Ltd, GDE Stg II turbo + TCM tune, SunCoast TC w. Transgo kit, Steiger window regulators, Samcos, Fumoto valve, 2nd gen filter head with Lub. Spec. bleeder, Hayden clutch & 11 blade fan, inverted spare, P-1 battery, BF Goodrich Long Trail TAs, Etecno1 glow plugs, timing belt at 50K miles/8 yrs

Hi, papaindigo. Thanks for you thorough reply. Here we go!


Previous owner did the job when he got the car, at around 253000. I have a copy of the receipt showing belt and water pump change, among other things.


You can see I'm not very good at maths. Thanks!


OK. That sounds pretty much as the kind of commuting I do. Ottawa is a small city, and my commutes are relatively short. Question: would the GDE mod make any difference in this kind of usage?


I will find a way to check that. Thanks.


Forgot to add that. When bought, the car was running at 1/4 of the temp gauge, when fully warmed. I went and did the Stant fix, which warmed the car to the normal 12 o'clock position. But, again, I did not see any difference in fuel consumption.


I'm still investigating how to proceed on that. It is a costly repair, I don't have a place to do it by myself and I still don't have someone I can trust in doing a reliable job. It just puzzles me that the CEL came on only after the visit to the mechanic, and after almost 2 tanks from buying the car.


Thanks for the link. I will look into it.


Thanks a lot!

_________________
2006 CRD
a lot to do,
not much done,
happy anyways!

All I can tell you is that these glow plug CELs do not have a latent period, i.e. clear them down and the come right back again at the next startup.

If they are OE ceramics you should have them out ASAP as they tend to split when they fail. It's likely only a matter of time until chunks of ceramic start to break off into your cyiinders

...but to have 3 go at the same time I'm wondering if there's something wrong with the control module?

Check my Fuelly - click on chart all fuel ups. I'd expect you to get a similar seasonal variance to me.

I get 25mpg winter and 27mpg summer with the GDE tune (23mpg winter / 25mpg summer before the tune). These numbers are corrected 5% for odometer error.

Now, my commute is about 22km rural roads (@90km/h) plus 18km on the 416 (@110km/h). Like paps says, short trips are a killer since the vehicle takes ages to get up to operating temperature if it can even get there in stop and go traffic. If you're mainly driving mainly in the city the mpg you're seeing sounds reasonable.

Winter driving is brutal on these vehicles and coupled with high seasonal diesel cost is the reason I'm not driving mine in the winter any more.

_________________
Share your ideas freely at https://www.facebook.com/groups/libertydiesels/

I've had the GDE EcoTune and now have the GDE tune that goes with their Stage II Turbo and my son has the EcoTune. Based on personal experience the EcoTune jumped in town commuting mpg from the 17-19 range to 21-24 and highway mpg from the 25-27 range to 29-34. Just got 33mpg on a 300 mile trip from Tallahassee to Gainesville, FL and back running ca. 65mph and that's with the last 75 miles on the way back in blinding rain with 4-wheel full time engaged.

I to would be curious about the timing of the glow plug CEL. It would be worth a few minutes when the weather is suitable for you to inspect all the connections in case something got pulled loose. Also there is a way, with a volt/ohm meter, to check the "health" of each glow plug. Check out this chat viewtopic.php?f=98&t=70159

Replacing the glow plugs, Etecno1s drop right in and can be obtained from idparts (http://idparts.com/catalog/product_info ... ts_id=3816), is not technically very hard. The only really hard part is getting the intake elbow off so you can deal with gp #3 and thats simply because the back 2 bolts are exceptionally hard to reach. If you do or have the job done I'd replace those 2 back bolts with studs.

_________________
Sold to LOST member my 05 Ltd, GDE Stg II turbo + TCM tune, SunCoast TC w. Transgo kit, Steiger window regulators, Samcos, Fumoto valve, 2nd gen filter head with Lub. Spec. bleeder, Hayden clutch & 11 blade fan, inverted spare, P-1 battery, BF Goodrich Long Trail TAs, Etecno1 glow plugs, timing belt at 50K miles/8 yrs

I had sticky rear calipers that was sucking up some mpgs, as well as a bad rear u joint. check your tire wear, is it even? A worn ball joint or tie rod can make the vehicle fight itself, killing mpg.
Also with that many miles I'm sure the intake system is caked in the egr/sooty sludge. Mine had 112,000 miles when I disabled the egr and did the ehm mod. Yet at 148k miles when my motor was apart, it took the machine shop 4 hot tank sessions and some scrubbing to get it all out. Nothing you can really do about it I guess, but keep it in mind if you ever have to take the top of your motor off.

_________________
05 Liberty Limited CRD, converted to KPA 2863 ball bearing and billet turbo, 50hp injectorsl, complete egr delete, cooling fan delete, weeks intake kit, cummins in tank lift pump, ARP studs, 3" turbo back exhaust, samcos, etecno plugs, GDE trans tune, custom GDE engine tune.