My 1997 Fiat Bravo 1.6l seems to use a lot of fuel. IT might just be the norm but I am reading about folk getting loads more miles than me. Out of 10 pound of fuel I get around 40 miles which the current fuel price beign 1.30 pounds of average. Does this sound correct? Its mainly in inner city miles I am doing. The car was recently MOT'd and the emmisions passed well within the tolreances. the car had only done 34,000 miles too.

I have a 1996 Brava 1.6 16V, with a city consumption of about 10 liters per 100km. If i have good math skills your's is doing about 8 liters per 64 km. So at 100 km in the city it takes about 12.5 liters.
I believe it's a little high.

Does the emissions smell of petrol, or does it idles high? If it smells of petrol it might be the spark plugs needing a change, or.... it could be various things for the high consumption. More info needed.

It might also be a good idea to have the injectors cleaned one way or another.

Something to check for:
1) Blowing/leaky exhaust - Especially at gaskets along the pipe. If there is a leak the lambda sensor will supply the ECU with a deviating signal. The ECU uses this signal to regulate the fuel mixture.
2) Temperature - Should rise fairly quick to a mid lvl and stay there (and not move much if at all once it's settled). Otherwise you might need a new thermostat. The ECU uses the engine temperature to regulate fuel mixture. A low temperature due to a f.inst. an always open thermostat will thus cause a higher fuel consumption. My Brava went from 15L/100KM to 10/100KM once I changed the thermostat. Temperature rises to mid lvl and stays there, rock solid, within 5 mins of driving.
3) Fuel smell in car - See 1)
4) Fuel smell from exhaust - Change spark plugs & leads.

Hi. Thanks for all the replys. My clutch was slipping so just had new clutch fitted and they told me my coolant was low due to a bust hose so car was going over mid temp level a lot of the time. This has now been fixed so will hopefully give me a slightly better comsumption. I also put new spark plugs in too. As for the exhaust, When the car starts up from cold you can hear a slight blowing noise coming from it but seems to die down once car heats up. I am going to investigate this to find out if its a gasket or a hole in exhaust system.

allandoc said:

....or a hole in exhaust system.

Click to expand...

I had the exhaust replaced about a month ago on my Brava. It was the second time to do that since I bought the car in 1998. This time I opted for an after market replacement - not an original Marrelli one.

Dirty/clogged air filters are also a very common cause of high fuel consumption.