What is the worst mpg car you have owned (or borrowed)

[raleighnut]

I remember going into a car breakers yard in Notts in the mid 1970s and there sat a hulking great Rolls Royce engine near the office. It never occured to me they were fitted in other cars.

View: https://youtu.be/-6b12jhzK5k

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I had a 1983 Petrol short wheelbase Land Rover Series 3. We loved it but when the petrol gauge failed I almost didn't replace it. I just sort of got into the habit of stopping at every other petrol station I passed. It was brutally inefficient and had a top speed of about 53mph.

 

[TheDoctor]

Hyundai Matrix 1.6 mini MPV thing. It was reliable, roomy and very easy to drive, but it struggled to do more than 35mpg.
Combined with the smallish fuel tank, we got about 350 miles between fills.
The Cadillac BLS TDi we got next had twice the range and an extra 50 bhp.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Hyundai Matrix 1.6 mini MPV thing. It was reliable, roomy and very easy to drive, but it struggled to do more than 35mpg.
Combined with the smallish fuel tank, we got about 350 miles between fills.
The Cadillac BLS TDi we got next had twice the range and an extra 50 bhp.

Oh my. Me mam rang me about twenty minutes ago to tell me a friend of hers is flogging a 2002 Hyundai Matrix. I might think twice now

 

[oldwheels]

I had a Rover 90 at one time which I got mainly for caravan towing as our other car was a mini. Never got above 20mpg. The mini did tow a narrow caravan ok but I bought a wider one and the extra wind resistance made it impossible to get above 3rd gear.

 

[Grant Fondo]

E90 M3 was pretty bad, compounded by the fact that petrol was £1.50 ish a litre when I had one so I generally put £100-120 a week in the bloody thing. A few blats around N Wales saw single figures, thats 8000 rpm for you! Fastest car I have owned but an expensive hoot.

 

[TheDoctor]

Oh my. Me mam rang me about twenty minutes ago to tell me a friend of hers is flogging a 2002 Hyundai Matrix. I might think twice now

Depends on the mileage you do, and what you actually need. It wasn't a bad car, just not very economical.

 

[The Jogger]

My Defenders, always did 28 mpg no matter what way you drove them.

 

[Dave Davenport]

I bought a 352 cubic inch V8 Ford Fairmont estate in Australia in 1984, didn't expect much mpg but was surprised when it was averaging about 8mpg, on stripping the carb it transpired that the previous owner had drilled out the jets with, what I presume was a 1/2" bit. Anyway, after fitting new jets it was still only doing about 15mpg so I sold it and bought a split screen VW combi.

 

[Salad Dodger]

I had a 1976 series 3 (2.25 litre petrol) Land Rover in the mid 1990's.
About 16 to the gallon, although it was difficult to be precise as the speedometer and odometer were....... rather erratic.
It was bought as a weekend runaround and I loved it to bits, despite its thirst for petrol. And oil, which was burnt and blown out of the exhaust in prodigious quantities......

 

[raleighnut]

I bought a 352 cubic inch V8 Ford Fairmont estate in Australia in 1984, didn't expect much mpg but was surprised when it was averaging about 8mpg, on stripping the carb it transpired that the previous owner had drilled out the jets with, what I presume was a 1/2" bit. Anyway, after fitting new jets it was still only doing about 15mpg so I sold it and bought a split screen VW combi.

A mate in Narborough had a Fairmont V8, looked like a bigger Mk3 Cortina.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I had a 1976 series 3 (2.25 litre petrol) Land Rover in the mid 1990's.
About 16 to the gallon, although it was difficult to be precise as the speedometer and odometer were....... rather erratic.
It was bought as a weekend runaround and I loved it to bits, despite its thirst for petrol. And oil, which was burnt and blown out of the exhaust in prodigious quantities......

Yup, that sounds very familiar. I was starting to feel personally guilty for the Iraq War.

 

[Zanelad]

Mamy years ago i had to hire a car to run a couple of visitors to the UK from our Sedish parent company. It was rather short notice and all I could get was a Granade Scorpio. It was a top of the range thing with electric everything. Even the rear seats were electric. It had an on board computer, which I'd never seen in a car at the time. It coukd show current mpg! Game on, I thought. The lowest I ever got it to read was 6mpg. It took some doing and despite a lack of mechanical empathy I eventually relented in my pursuit of an even lower figure.

I never bothered to see the avetage mpg in my tenure, as I wasnt paying for the fuel.

 

[mustang1]

No,it was quite a small engine for the size of the car. I remember the father in law saying so. Could it have been a 1300cc engine? Probably not,maybe 1600cc? 🤔

I had a Mini 850 that drank just a little less fuel than a Mini Clubman 1275 GT i had. Mind you,i was always gentle on the accelerator peddle with the Clubman.

I recall reading an article saying the smallest 2.0 engine in a Granada, because it had to pull a heavy car around, had similar efficiency to the 2.9V6.

 

[mustang1]

E90 M3 was pretty bad, compounded by the fact that petrol was £1.50 ish a litre when I had one so I generally put £100-120 a week in the bloody thing. A few blats around N Wales saw single figures, thats 8000 rpm for you! Fastest car I have owned but an expensive hoot.
View attachment 547488

I thought they were not bad with a gentle right foot? I've had 4 M3s (E46) incl 3 CSLs.