Fuel consumption of a W463 300 GD

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mortinson
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Location: Old beehive, Madrid, Spain

In the "Electrics" section there was a posting a few weeks back to the tune of:

Maxwell Smart wrote:
Roly wrote:
The tank size is 95 l. I regularly take mine to 85 L. My guage is shot too. It reads 1/4 empty and then when the warning light comes on (20L left) the stupid thing jumps to half again. I rely on my trip meter and warning light more than the guage. I regularly get 460 m/ 85 L.

Wow, 460miles. I'll need to double check how many litres my 300GDS takes, but I seem to recall that when I fill it up from below the E line it is around 70-75 litres. (takes about £60 to fill) I doubt if I could get much more than 375 miles out of it too; as usually it falls short of 350.

I must admit that I am a bit lost here. Roly's G is a 300 GD LWB Auto, whereas Max's is a 300 GD SWB Manual (I believe). Roly is getting a consumption of only 11.53 Lts/100 Km or 24.45 mpg and Max gets "usually" 15.09 lts/100 Km or 18.68 mpg.

I have a 300 GDS Manual, which is presumably the most economical of the W463 300 GD combinations and I have managed an average of 14.1 Lts/100 Km or exactly 20 mpg. This is driving city traffic, back roads where you are changing gear all the time and off-road, so it could be greatly improved if I did motorway at moderate speeds (say 60 mph or so). But in my experience this is spot on the average for a 300 GD.

Either Roly is referring to his consumption on A roads with no traffic @ 50 mph or I don't understand how he drives.

Max's comsumption looks a bit high but this is what I would expect if I did city driving almost exclusively.

For reference the contemporary MB brochure stated the consumption of the manual models as some 19 mpg in city traffic, 25.9 mpg at constant 56 mph and 17.6 at constant 75 mph. Although MB stated the consumption of the Automatic in city trafic as 23 mpg, I refuse to believe it. Roly's car is 225 kilos heavier than mine and has an auto gearbox that, despite all the improvements in recent years should fare at least marginally worse than a manual.

What is your experience? What do you think?

guerdeval
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Joined: 06.11.2003
Location: cornwall
"MAD MAX"!!

You may know that I once owned Maxwells G300D but it didn't fit my rottweillers, I can confirm that he does NOT hang around! .The best I did in it was 26mpg but my wife believes I drive like a monk, I think Maxwell enjoys his G very much and why not, it does sound very nice.x :), forgot to mention living in Cornwall my nearest 60mph road is 12miles away so few opportunities to really let rip.

Rustbucket
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Location: Penicuik, Scotland.
Mileage

I get around 24 mls to the gallon on average.

Maxwell Smart
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Location: London
Re: "MAD MAX"!!

guerdeval wrote:
You may know that I once owned Maxwells G300D but it didn't fit my rottweillers, I can confirm that he does NOT hang around! .The best I did in it was 26mpg but my wife believes I drive like a monk, I think Maxwell enjoys his G very much and why not, it does sound very nice.x :), forgot to mention living in Cornwall my nearest 60mph road is 12miles away so few opportunities to really let rip.

26mpg!!!! damn i drive that thing too hard.... though it does get a fair amount of highway mileage as it is a get out of town car...

Martin @ Baku
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Joined: 28.12.2003
Location: Baku, Azerbaijan
Fuel consumption of a W463 300 GD

I would have to agree with Mortinson, as I have a 300GD 463 LWB manual, and each and every tank it is always between 18.5 and 20 mpg, on out of town roads and in the city. But the fuel consumption is really not a concern here for me as the Deisel price is approx 9p a litre, and petrol is approx 16p a litre(and that is the expensive stuff!). Hee hee, it is normally about 6 quid to fill up every week.
One down side is, I have to change my fuel filter ever 3-4 months as the engine starts to pink when the filter gets clogged. I did try a copy fuel filter a few months back and it lasted about a month. So the MB filters are by far better.
Sorry to sicken you all about the fuel prices here

Martin.

Roly
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Location: Australia
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Driving

Better explain my driving technique. I use my G every day to drive to work through the flat Cambridgeshire countryside. I use the A roads sitting on a comfortable 60-70 mph along with the other traffic.I'm never in a hurry so rarely flog it. Currently I am driving 460 miles/ week ,so spin out the tank all week so I don't have to fill up during the week. That's why I know what it can do regularly. Winter time drops it a bit the other day I put in 92L.

Driving around a city will obviously use more as will pushing it past 70mph

Martin interested in your fuel prices .I was in Nigeria 10 y ago and diesel was 1.6p/L

You do know that there is a coarse prefilter before the main filter .Do you change that also?

Roly

guerdeval
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Location: cornwall
driving techniques

not wishing to bore you to death or teach granny to suck eggs but I was a HGV driving instructor for many years before selling HGV trucks for most of working life. We once had an open day and were supplied a selection of loaded trucks by ScaniaGB for customer evaluation. I grabbed the big V8 which under normal driving would return 7/8mpg but as the idea was to impress potential buyers I drove it with maximum performance in mind, result, 2mpg!!! yes thats a 2! its all down to how far you lower your right foot but more importantly how slowly you do it,let the torque do the work. :P

Maxwell Smart
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Fuel consumption of a W463 300 GD

Guerdeval, so how many miles were you getting on a tank on my G? Also any idea how long you can drive it once the low fuel warning light comes on?

Have to admit I do keep it around 80 on the motorways, but around London it is frustrating not to, as at 70 all the 18 wheelers (is that what you call HGV?) are passing you. I usually find that when in the left lane at 70 I am flanked with them front, rear and side.

7/8 mpg... how large are their tanks?

guerdeval
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Location: cornwall
fuel tank

Sorry Maxwell, cann't remember having the light on but I 'think' I would usually refill around 400 miles on any of my G's because I never trust gauges (ever). On a HGV you normally carry 1x400litre + 1x560litre and nowadays a 40tonner returns between 7-9mpg, if they're passing you at 70mph they're breaking the law they are limited to a legal 56mph plus or minus 2.5% tolerance.

Martin @ Baku
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Joined: 28.12.2003
Location: Baku, Azerbaijan
Fuel consumption of a W463 300 GD

Course Pre filter?? Where will I find this one? No I didn't know about this one!! Help!

mortinson
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Location: Old beehive, Madrid, Spain
Fuel consumption of a W463 300 GD

Martin @ Baku wrote:
Course Pre filter?? Where will I find this one? No I didn't know about this one!! Help!

See my other posting under topic "fuel filter". I never buy my filters at MB dealers but always buy original factory fitments from Mann, Framm or the best of them all for German cars, Mahle. The prefilter is a small white plastic device which looks like the ones fitted some years back to trials bikes. In any good motor factor, they must have the reference as prefilter for MB engine type OM603. Never buy any other since you risk getting it clogged if you fit a paper one by mistake.