Daughter has a 59 plate Panda 1.1 eco which she uses mainly for the school run. Logging the cars running costs she's getting low mpg. The car has a tendency to rev for no reason when its just started then it calms down. Would fitting a new set of spark plugs and new ECU be worth doing? She did at one point achieve 55.12 MPG on motorway journeys. The car takes about 30L of petrol to fill up.


YTD = total mileage. Days = duration between fill ups Miles = distance between fill ups.

You say school run. So how far is that? Does the car ever get up to temperature when she does the school run? I'm presuming that it only behaves right when it's actually warm then given the good mileage due to motorway driving.

Has the car any stored fault codes?

YD59 said:

Daughter has a 59 plate Panda 1.1 eco which she uses mainly for the school run. Logging the cars running costs she's getting low mpg. The car has a tendency to rev for no reason when its just started then it calms down. Would fitting a new set of spark plugs and new ECU be worth doing? She did at one point achieve 55.12 MPG on motorway journeys. The car takes about 30L of petrol to fill up.

Date Litres YTD Days MPG Miles
05/10/15 9.44 82149 3
05/10/15 9.44 82149 0 0.00 15
05/10/15 29.30 82177 0 4.34 28
22/10/15 31.46 82404 17 32.80 227
06/11/15 27.91 82610 15 33.55 206
17/11/15 28.60 82842 11 36.87 232
12/12/15 29.03 83194 25 55.12 352
31/12/15 28.03 83380 19 30.16 186
14/01/16 27.03 83537 14 26.40 157
28/01/16 26.24 83700 14 28.24 163
09/02/16 30.04 83880 12 27.24 180
26/02/16 28.03 84043 17 26.43 163
10/03/16 29.03 84228 13 28.97 185

YTD = total mileage. Days = duration between fill ups Miles = distance between fill ups.

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Hi,
an ECU has no relation to the cars MPG.. it's reliant on signals from sensors in the engine,

TBH - 30's MPG on short runs in winter is perfectly normal

a proper service won't go amiss,
using the correct grade of oil for the cars use.

YES - worth plugging in to interrogate the ECU, and see if anything is amiss.
but, I'm not anticipating any great issues..although revving from a cold start isn't "normal"

Charlie - Oxford

30-32 for wholly urban driving isn't unexpected for the 1.1 engine.

Our 1.1 Seicento did the revving thing for a while - mainly when it been on very short runs. The EML light was on though. Solution was:
















a) Buy a cheap code reader/resetter
b) Disconnect the battery overnight after resetting the EML
c) Stop starting it up and running it for very short periods

The issue is school runs, if these are only a few miles and in traffic then the MPG is great, if on the other hand the school run is 10 miles at 40 mph...

How does she drive? I can get 50mpg out of my Panda 100, or 8mpg.... Dependent on the mood.

A better investment might be in some boots to walk to school

YD59 said:

Daughter has a 59 plate Panda 1.1 eco which she uses mainly for the school run. Logging the cars running costs she's getting low mpg. The car has a tendency to rev for no reason when its just started then it calms down. .

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I have a 2012 169 panda 1.2 69bhp. I am only getting 44 mpg no matter how carefully I drive. I know manufacturers figures are unrealistic, but was expecting at least 50 mpg to be honest. When starting from cold mine fires up then revs briefly as though someone has blipped the throttle. I do not know if this is normal or not, but I would have thought not (I have only recently bought the car). I am wondering if fuel is pooling in the inlet manifold due to clogged injectors, so have bought a can of injector cleaner and am waiting to see if that will help (only done about 10 miles since putting it in)

Pandaactiveman said:

I have a 2012 169 panda 1.2 69bhp. I am only getting 44 mpg no matter how carefully I drive.

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As always, some of this is to do with the type of journey you are making (which you realistically may not be able to do much about), and some is to do with the way you drive, particularly the speed you cruise at. The Panda's aerodynamics are not well suited to high speed cruising (it is after all a city car) and the car uses a lot more fuel once you are travelling at 55mph+.

If you use an alternative means of transport for all journeys less than 5 miles, cruise at no more than 55mph, keep the rpm below 2500, and use only gentle braking, you should be seeing 55mpg+ when measured at the pumps. Individual journeys of more than 30 miles should see trip mpg figures into the 70's when driven this way.

I also suspect the 69HP Euro5 169 Panda's aren't quite as economical as their 60HP Euro4 predecessors - certainly my 60HP Euro4 Panda can regularly beat my 69HP Euro5 500 for economy on a long run.

The 1.2 FIRE fuel rail doesn't depressurise when the engine is switched off; I've long suspected some fuel can leak past the injectors in this scenario (hence the extremely common smoky starting issue); I think your dirty injector theory has some merit and is worth pursuing. Certainly I've noticed that making a few stops during a journey results in a significantly worse mpg figure for that trip. There are also the other usual culprits such as binding brakes, soft tyres and driving with the A/C on (this last one costs a lot of fuel in the Panda). If your battery is past its best, it might be worth changing it, even if it starts the car easily - ageing batteries have higher self-discharge rates and more fuel is needed to keep them charged. It's said that about 10% of the fuel you consume is spent charging the battery.

It can be done - that 55.5mpg overall mpg in my sig is averaged over almost 70,000 miles, and includes a lot of short journeys and winter driving.

jrkitching said:

As always, some of this is to do with the type of journey you are making (which you realistically may not be able to do much about), and some is to do with the way you drive, particularly the speed you cruise at. The Panda's aerodynamics are not well suited to high speed cruising and the car uses a lot more fuel once you are travelling at 55mph+.

If you use an alternative means of transport for all journeys less than 5 miles, cruise at no more than 55mph, keep the rpm below 2500, and use only gentle braking, you should be seeing 55mpg+ when measured at the pumps. Individual journeys of more than 30 miles should see trip mpg figures into the 70's when driven this way.

I also suspect the 69HP Euro5 169 Panda's aren't quite as economical as their 60HP Euro4 predecessors - certainly my 60HP Euro4 Panda can regularly beat my 69HP Euro5 500 for economy on a long run.

The 1.2 FIRE fuel rail doesn't depressurise when the engine is switched off; I've long suspected some fuel can leak past the injectors in this scenario (hence the extremely common smoky starting issue); I think your dirty injector theory has some merit and is worth pursuing. Certainly I've noticed that making a few stops during a journey results in a significantly worse mpg figure for that trip. There are also the other usual culprits such as binding brakes, soft tyres and driving with the A/C on (this last one costs a lot of fuel in the Panda). If your battery is past its best, it might be worth changing it, even if it starts the car easily - ageing batteries have higher self-discharge rates and more fuel is needed to keep them charged.

It can be done - that 55.5mpg overall mpg in my sig is averaged over almost 70,000 miles, and includes a lot of short journeys and winter driving.

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Many thanks, a lot of useful info here!
Most of my journeys are around 10 miles, for journeys where I can walk (to the shops for example) I do so. A 30 mile journey is very rare (I do not have a trip computer anyway). On motorways 55 mph round here (M25) is quite dangerous, but I fully take your point about the aerodynamics. I have noticed when I start the car in the morning I can hear the fuel pump running for a few seconds then stop. Until it has "primed" the system, starting is very difficult, once the "humming" has stopped starting is not bad at all. One of the reasons I chose a non aircon car was the fact it uses a lot of fuel, tyre pressures are fine, I will check the brakes. But your overall consumption does give me hope!! Once again, many thanks