My abarth 500 is on 9400 miles and fuel consumption is down at 24mpg through mostly in town driving. even on a long motorway without going too quickly run it struggles to stay close to 35mpg. Does anyone else have the same experience,does any particular fuel improve matters? Any comments welcome!

How old is the car and how long have you owned it?

What was the average mpg previously, before you noticed the fuel consumption was increasing?

Have you noticed anything else that might be causing this? Sticking rear brakes seem to happen to the A500 which would obviously not help. Are your tyre pressures OK? Have you noticed the car being sluggish or losing performance at all?

Is the engine fitted with any mods and do you use Sport mode all the time?

How did you reach your conclusion, by using the trip computer or by brimming the car and zeroing the Trip A/B before refilling and calculating the fuel consumption?

Sorry for all the questions but it is hard advise without a little more info.

I have to say that irrespective of fuel brand my car's fuel consumption is pretty consistent.

Currently averaging 38.4MPG over the last 2400 odd miles.

thanks so much for coming back to me. The car is about 18 months old, i've owned it since new, it's always been pretty poor on fuel but i could usually get in the low to mid thirties max when I kept it in non sport mode. The car isnt sluggish, I havent checked the tyre pressures I have to admit and I have kept generally in sport mode recently, can it make such a huge difference? I reached my conclusion purely on the trip computer. Many thanks

Sport mode doesn't have that much of an averse effect on fuel consumption in my experience unless you are driving flat out all the time, so low to mid thirties should be perfectly attainable.

The fact that you have suffered such a hit on the MPG but don't notice any performance loss would suggest to me that there might be a leak somewhere. Have you noticed anything untoward, such as a strong petrol smell or any signs of a leak on the ground?

If not, before taking it in to a dealership to have it checked out can I suggest you fill the tank and use the old fashioned method of calculating MPG by keeping an account of the mileage from fill up to fill up and working out the MPG that way.

I personally have found the trip computer to be fairly accurate but that doesn't mean that it can't go wrong so a proper check should be carried out first.

grimwau said:

... Sticking rear brakes seem to happen to the A500 which would obviously not help...

Click to expand...

:yeahthat:
I had this problem on the Euro 4 1.4 NA and it impacted the fuel consumption until the brakes were de-glazed and cleaned out. I haven't got a A500 but I have a good idea of the mpg that you can get from a Euro 4 1.4 N/A. With the turbo 'upgrade' compression is reduced so 'off boost' it would be technically poorer on fuel but 'on boost' with the turbo is should be more efficient but not necessarily more economical.

Given the ethanol content of petrol now the mpg figures that were published by the manufacturer no longer applies. With the 5% content across our petrol supplies it supposedly reduces the mpg by 1-2 mpg. The ethanol content does increase the octane levels but has lower 'energy' levels. It is possible to run slightly higher boost without retracting 'the advance' so it can compensate for the reduced mpg.

Also a dirty filter can affect fuel comsumption whilst a new one allows the engine to breath better. Tyres with a low rolling resistance help and in a narrow footprint as on the 16s. Oil viscosity is another factor and on 'older A500 manuals' the 5W40 is what's used and some in colder weather conditions use a lighter oil than the recommended 10W50 Abarth oil.

On the postings that I have seen on other forums typically 25-30mpg is a typcial real life average with 40mpg attainable on the motorway with the Sport off.

Colder weather can also hit mpg

Are you using the same fuel, different fuels will give differing mpg, Good quality higher Octane by a recognised company, shell etc tends to give sklghtly better mpg. Whether the extra cost justifies that is questionable though. Supermarket fuels tend to give slightly worse mpg