Well, I have owned my 03 Discovery for 2 weeks now and I am still devistated by the seemingly poor city fuel mileage for this vehicle. My friends who have Discoveries (older models) insisted that they averaged 16mph city and better on the highway. My first tank of gas yielded 10.5mph for city driving. This is very discouraging. That was using regular fuel, so I changed to premium to see if there was a big difference. What should I expect?

 

you should get better milage than that, maybe a tune up will help, start doing mod that will save fuel milage, i am going to electric fans (you may have). mine blew up so now i have to change over more sooner than i intended too.

 

The premium gas is helping. I also replaced the old (very dirty) air filter with a new K&N filter. I'll see how that helps. I am also going to check out the fan situation.

 

I drive a 97 disco, and I recently did some things that have improved my gas milage tremendously. I do a lot of highway, and I was averaging around 230-250 miles to a full tank. After I completed the list below, I then moved in the ball park of 290-315 believe it or not! I can't explain in being a newbie to doing all this work. And I'm told it's pretty impressive, but maybe some of the things below might aid in your quest. But check out the irony in the end.
first I did the three seafoam thing. (oil, gas, air intake)
then:
changed oil & cleaned sump & new filter
changed plugs over to Bosch Plat +4 (wanted NGK with mag wires, but can't afford that right now)
new air filter
cleaned air sensor with some electrical cleaner - wasn't bad but I was screwing around on that end and did it anyway
new fuel filter
new belt (not that it really matters)

Funny thing in the end - I put new Mud Rover's on it (from using road tires), and now the milage is back down to 250-270. But I'm happy knowing I got it running so well (thanks to Joey in W.Va's help). Good luck.
Andrew

 

Mini,

10.5 is about average for City.

I personally don't like K&N filters. I have seen first hand that they do not fit well in LR air boxes. This can lead to engine damage and/or Check Engine Lights.

 

10 mpg really sucks, but I don't think it is much worse than my AWD Explorer. The air filter seems to be working ok. It fit in the air box just right, so we will have to wait and see. Thanks.

 

mini,
im curious, how many mpg does your minicooper get?

 

Under normal driving conditions about 40-45mpg. Under my driving conditions (hard on the gas) about 35mpg and sometimes a little less. This is all city driving as I try to avoid driving it on the highway!

 

I've been noticing that my 2000 gets around 11-13 mpg in the city (city being a relative term, since I live in Wyoming), but I seem to average around 17 on the highway. We took it out for it's first real highway drive the other weekend, and we got about 300 miles on one tank. I do a regular weekly 100+ mile round trip, and it generally uses right around 1/4 tank, but the trip is all down hill one way, and about a 3000' climb back (mostly in the last 20 miles), so I use a lot more gas on the return trip. I used more last week, but that was with about a 30 MPH head wind most of the way.

 

Buy diesel.. My 90 TDi averages 30mpg on the highways, cruising at 75mph, and gets a good 27 to 28mpg in town, with lots of stop starts, and very hilly. (Edinburgh)