Cold Weather Fuel Consumption

[Posidrive]

OK, so the Zed is not normally a car that you should drive and worry about fuel consumption. But I use mine for a daily commute of between 60 and 80 miles and since these are not the "fun" trips I like to be reasonably economical.

 

Last year I noticed that when the really cold weather set in that my normal fuel consumption dropped from about 27 mpg to 20 mpg. Over the past couple of weeks/tank fulls of slightly cooler weather it has dropped to 25 mpg. Is this to be expected or is there something potentially wrong with her. A 10 degree chnage in temperature corresponds to a 3% or so change in mass density of the air, but since the Zed has a temperature gauage (or so the instruments would lead us to believe) surely the engine managment system is able to correct the air mass flow readings for temperature?

[UNABASHED]

last winter my fuel consumption was phenomenal - filled up and it lasted me nearly a month. Then again the car never made it up the hill outside my house until the snow melted

[Roo]

You should see an increase in fuel economy in cold weather I believe. The only posibility I can think of is that a combination of needing to be rich mixture on start plus demister/time warming up/more stop-start traffic results in higher consumption.

[pptom]

I remember driving to Wales a couple of years ago i n my old 182 Clio.

Cruise control set to about 75 knots on the motorway, the temp dropped gradually from 0 degrees to -8. My fuel consumption went down from 42MPG to about 32 definately due solely to the temperature change. Until then I'd never really realised it had such an impact.

[marzman]

Yep, every winter my fuel consumption dropped from 28mpg to 16mpg for the winter months. Very annoying.

 

I believe it's because the air is denser and heavier, so the car burns more fuel to match the air ration...