Just looking for the best advice out there

[DaveWilbyLait]

Hi guys

Been reading through the forum for months now and only just signed up.
I recently took purchase of a 2002 1.0L K11 for £350 which came with a snapped clutch cable, and it took me a whole month to resolve this since every replacement cable i bought from euro car parts was just useless, either snapping or feeling like i was benching 100KG with my left foot!

Good news is i went to a scrappy and got an original for 50p which works perfectly, so all is well but the car has run nearly 92,000 miles and i want to service it up to feels near new again!
My main problem is the fuel consumption, i put £15 in last wednesday and i only travel to and from work 5 days a week, probably no more than 5 miles a day and the car literally drank the lot up, so im really looking for the best advice on first putting this right, and then what to do with the engine etc to make it feel like its done 9,200 rather than 10 times that.

I apologise if this is a silly question.

 

[Magpie42]

That's one thirsty CG10 you have there...are you sure it's not leaking somewhere?

 

[DaveWilbyLait]

i havent noticed any leaks from what i can tell, but i when you go through £15 of petrol in less than a week its concerning. Although when i had a new clutch fitted, the mech did say about some sort of leak but i cannot remember for the life of me what it was, maybe time to call him.... maybe i should of done that earlier ha!

 

[skymera]

Give the car a shake, can you hear any fuel sloshing around?

The gauge could be faulty.

 

[cgten]

If your cluster has a trip counter, reset it when you fill up and see how far you get before you need to fill up again.
By doing that I've worked out that my car will do get ~130 miles out of £20, and that's short frequent journeys over the course of a week.

 

[Jamie Sykes]

my car used to drink fuel but i replaced all the sparkplugs and fuel filter and she seems to be happy now

 

[DaveWilbyLait]

i will look at plugs and filter come the end of the month, i had read into things about the O2 sensor? and me being not that clued up i havent the slightest what that is :S

 

[drand]

The oxygen / O2 / Lambda sensor just tells the car how much oxygen is left in the exhaust gas after petrol is burned in the cylinder; the aim being more or less to have no oxygen left, as it's all been used to burn fuel. If the sensor is faulty then the engine may inject more fuel than it can burn, leading to poorer economy. *

Oxygen sensors are about 60-80 quid adn can be fitted yourself, though it's best to swap a known good one in and see if that works, or try to diagnose if yours is broken, rather than spending money on parts you might not need.

It would be reasonable to investigate the oxygen sensor if a service (spark plugs / air filter/ fuel filter / oil change) doesn't improve matters.

Also, short stop-start journeys aren't the most economical as the engine doesn't have time to warm up and reach peak efficiency. If you use your trip meter as suggested and come up with an mpg figure you'll see how bad it is (or isn't)!

*Apologies if this comes across as patronising or over-simplified.

 

[ceffyn]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MICRA-K11...arts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item1e7b2996bc got me one of them when i had mine had to re-gap the plugs as they were too close but put them in and they made my 1.0 sound and run much better its done 96k and runs almost silent (would be hard to hear if my gearbox was quiet)

 

[tomwest]

you can get that service kit for much cheaper if you go to eurocarparts..... fuel and oil filter cost me £10 together.......