E30 Zone

looking to get a 4 pot e30 for a run about as petrols going up and my 525i is far from great on juice! getting around 45 miles to £10 at the min. what can i expect out of a 4 pot e30? i have had all the 4 pot e30's a few years ago but never really thought about or worked out consumption then as it was not an issue (how times change!)

if there not much better than what i have now would i be better off with an e36 or compact ect?

thanks for any input.

i get around 30mpg out of my 318is, on a run i get nearer 40 mpg

Go for an M40 engine over an M10.

M40 should see 30mpg maybe a little more, my carb'd M10 doesn't see 28mpg very often. A fuel injected M10 will probably be better on fuel though.

As usual the IS seems a good alrounder, getting similiar mpg to an M40, but with the benefits from the 16v M42.

316i - 318i make much difference in mpg?

320ise wrote:316i - 318i make much difference in mpg?

Not really. Coming to think of it I think the 316 gets less mpg than a 318.

I think I can get 60 miles from £10. How much can you get out of £10 in a 325i?

I put £23.00 in my IS and get 117 miles (give or take)

Can't put anymore in due to leaky fuel tank. Fuel at 112.9 round our way at the minute (you'll have to do your own maths)

I put £35 in and have clocked up 348km or 217miles in my 318i
I do check tyre pressure every week (which does make a difference) and recently changed the spark plugs air filter.

316 and 318's are very simular and share many parts, if not most. Between 27-35 I get

45 miles at £10 puts you firmly in 540 territory, in fact mine is better than that.

525....540...hmm

As with most Bmws, choose the amount of cylinders you want, then buy the biggest one in the range.

Think about it, a 318is is the biggest four pot and the most economical, the 325i is the biggest 6 pot and arguably more economical. The 540 is the biggest v8 and just as good on fuel as a 535 v8. A 528 is better than a 523...yarda yarda yar.

Jon_Bmw wrote:45 miles at £10 puts you firmly in 540 territory, in fact mine is better than that.

525....540...hmm

As with most Bmws, choose the amount of cylinders you want, then buy the biggest one in the range.

Think about it, a 318is is the biggest four pot and the most economical, the 325i is the biggest 6 pot and arguably more economical. The 540 is the biggest v8 and just as good on fuel as a 535 v8. A 528 is better than a 523...yarda yarda yar.

318is 16v though.

Ey?

The logic stands, no one actually considers an 8v car anymore do they!?!

Jon_Bmw wrote:Ey?

The logic stands, no one actually considers an 8v car anymore do they!?!

Except 12v

Blitz wrote:I think I can get 60 miles from £10. How much can you get out of £10 in a 325i?

i can get 115 miles for about £17, and im missing some of the aero advantage the front undertray gives.

£35 gives a happy 230 mile round trip from swansea to wiltshire, had 32.1mpg on the obc on the way up the other day, and the traffic was relatively shite.
28 odd mpg on the way down as i did an average of 78 leptons between swansea and cardiff.

the m20 really isn that bad on fuel if you drive it right.

£15.00 gets me 100 miles

Jon_Bmw wrote:45 miles at £10 puts you firmly in 540 territory, in fact mine is better than that.

I get that sort of mileage to £10 from my 316i, i average about 18mpg

the m20 really isn that bad on fuel if you drive it right.

Please tell me how to drive it right?! I get about 22 mpg at best from mine

I get around 25-30mpg from my is and used to get around 30-35mpg from my 318i lux

the thing is with these old engines is that they can all sup more than Ollie reed on an all night bender, i guess fuel economy wasnt an issue way back when.

scottywb wrote:I get around 25-30mpg from my is and used to get around 30-35mpg from my 318i lux

sounds low 25mpg from an Is

i get 30mpg all day long

In my 316i touring i get 55-60 miles from a tenner on petrol, and at my local discount lpg station i can get between 100-120 miles from a tenner.

When the price of lpg was quite significantly down and petrol was at a peak a few months back it equated to 70 mpg "taking into consideration fuel price n all that".

its like a game when i drive the 316 tho, im constantly looking at the gage and try to let off as early as i can and basically just hypermile to the best of my ability.

I once got 300 miles from £22 :O

There is a technique to driving economically, if you are the sort of prick* that is always sat 1ft off my rear bumper, you don't have it.

*Not directed at anyone on this thread.

I get 33mpg average from my 318i.

If you pay attention to the econometer, you'll find it's surprising how much difference lifting your right foot a few mm makes....

thanks for the info guys but i may have to go to the dark side and get a diesel!

i dont think anyone can "tell" you how to get good mpg you just have to figure how to do a lot of it yourself, things i have found with mine though that will probably help everyone are:

1. dont break, if you can roll off and go down a gear instead you wasting less ke. try and time it so you roll off the throttle and are doing the right speed to take the corner without touching the brakes.

2. try not to get snarled up in everyone elses inferior jerky driving, smooth is the name of the game, if your in a line of traffic try to find a speed that allows all the other cars to yo-yo around you and keeping your car at a constant speed,

3. some times faster is not always worse, i find i get similar mpg at 85 leptons as i do at 60 leptons. so outside lane 80 lepton cruising can work to your advantage - and your also not getting caught up in the other average morons stop-go driving style.

4. a few mm on the pedal can make a big difference, the ecu will enrich the mixture on acceleration and a few mm further into the pedal than required will cause it to go into "acceleration enrichment" so try to find the ideal position for the current speed (a bit of playing and practice will do this)

5. some times a gear lower than expected will be better, these things love to rev, an engine under little load at peak ve will in theory give the best economy and cleanest burn with the lowest BSFC. i often find spinning away in 4th at 50 can be better than labouring in 5th, with about 3k being the peak.

6. dont lugg the thing, they dont like pulling a car along below 2k.

7. give up around town and just enjoy it, i get sweet fuck all driving around swansea. something like 17mpg if iv got my foot it, these things have quite long legs and dont really get into there stride until there doing a good 50,

8. service the thing for the love of god, my engines in the best possible condition and it shows.


just as a side note, that 32.1mpg i got on tuesday morning was with being stuck in traffic twice (meaning it took 3 hours to do a 2.5 hour journey) with a full size mig welder and upright boc gas bottle, 5 stone of tools, a messenger bag full of uni papers, a laptop bag, a big suit case, a bag with overalls, work clothes and 2 pairs of boots in (surprisingly heavy) the spare in, 5l new bottle of coolblue, a scimitar brake set up and at least another 50kg of assorted junk.
rear wheels were an inch into the rear arches.

best iv ever had was 36mpg but have since been unable to replicate it. and i did about 30mpg towing a car trailer with a rolling scimitar chassis on on a round trip to exeter.
as mr mooooore has said in the past, if your getting anything less than 30mpg on a run (ie not tooling around town) then some things wrong.
my blue sensor was on its way out the other week and that knocked ~7mpg off, and a old filter is quite bad on these, both are cheep so pay for themselves quickly.

Alex wrote:

scottywb wrote:I get around 25-30mpg from my is and used to get around 30-35mpg from my 318i lux

sounds low 25mpg from an Is

i get 30mpg all day long

I ca get 30mpg on a good run but my engine is a bit worse for wear (have got another one to go in though )

My 80 miles of motorway tight-fistedness yielded an average of ~47mpg today, and I didn't even tailgate the Hungarian truck-cubes. Tediously slow, but massively relaxed due to infrequent overtakes. The normal average is 37mpg, meaning I can afford treat my M42 to a roast dinner on the first Tuesday of every month.

my 325i sport does 31mpg! thats just me driving 20 miles a day! all side road driving!..i coast loads aswell, every hill or drop i see i wack it in neutral!..lol..i thought it depends on how well the engines been cared for!

The handbook says the iS fuel comsumption is

56 mph 47.9 mpg
75 mph 37.2 mpg
urban driving 26.9mpg

I've owned two 318is, one superchipped, one not. The non chipped car did 35 mpg pretty much however I drove it, and the chipped one did 33 - 34. I don't know if the chip made the difference but I would have expected it the other way around.

I owned these cars for a total of 80,000 miles between them and neither of them deviated much from these figures. For every traffic jam there's a cruise, what makes a difference in the long run is the condition of the engine (and don't discount things like sticky brakes and crap tyres - if you've got less grip it's harder to maintain a constant speed) and of course driving style. I reset my trip computer on my 328i E36 all the time and it settles back to 30.7 mpg after a only few miles of my normal driving (a mixture of country lanes and town). If I drive my juicier e30 325i for a few days I get into better habits and find I'm getting 33 - 34 out of the 328i. The 328 is so torquey you can just give it a push every now and then and coast the rest.

I'm in the process of restoring my 325i and so far the biggest difference to mpg was a new distributor cap and rotor arm (mine were shot to pieces) and a new thermostat. I now get 28 mpg on the same drives I mentioned without really trying. I was getting 25 - 26.

The M42 is a brilliant engine. It is slightly more economical than my M40 316i and when chipped it's nicely quick.

I get anything from 25-45mpg in my iS.

Best I got was 450miles for £35 of BP ultimate and it was also the very first time I drove the car after it was parked for 2 or 3months before I bought it and all the way back from the UK, I was chasing Seany (da4x4turbo) in a 320Ci Msport he just bought the same day further north before we picked up my car.

My old M10 318i would do 38+ mpg pretty easily.

My old M10 316 auto is pretty crap where I live going to work and back but its like living in the bloody Alps with the hills around me, 22-23 mpg.
On a run though she will give me at least 43-44 mpg.

Original carb as well, just gone 80 000 miles.

Mart.

god-father88 wrote:my 325i sport does 31mpg! thats just me driving 20 miles a day! all side road driving!..i coast loads aswell, every hill or drop i see i wack it in neutral!..lol..i thought it depends on how well the engines been cared for!

As long as your cars doing over 1800rpm you dont need to go to neutral, the engine runs its self on over run.

I own a 525 eta and would love to put the standard engine into a e30 tourer and manual g/box reckon it'll do 40+mpg(I get 30+ around town!) REV'S COST FUEL!!!