New member with diesel 2.0 Citroen Picasso

[dieselpicasso]

Hi everyone 👋

Just wanted to say hello, I have a 2003 Citroen Picasso 2.0 hdi 90 bhp.

Owned about 3 months and really been struggling with fuel prices so I decided to hypermile for the foreseeable future.

I'm also making an effort to get the car upto standard in hopes it will reap better mpg.

I saw 45mpg on the dash as an overall for thousands of miles .... But I recently reset this ( and started making effort to hypermile ) and I'm now seeing 55mpg average through trying my best!

I have dabbled with hypermiling in the past( not been too bothered to get back into it ) but right now there's no better time with prices to do our best to save fuel.

I'll be doing one simple modification to my car and that is a non standard air filter which will be less restrictive .

I'm hoping to improve on the 55mpg through changing to clean, thinner oil, and last night I increased tyre pressures from 39 to 44psi ( max sidewall) plus the air filter change.... ( No idea how dirty my current filter is!!)

I'm also going to remove some unnecessary weight from the car ! Though minimally as I want to be prepared in case of break down.

I do expect, and hope! with the car upto the standard I'd like it to touch 60mpg ....

I know this isn't a magically high figure, but for a big car , usually driving family about, mixed town / motorway driving with 130,000 miles on the engine I think I'll be quite thrilled to see 60mpg 🙏

I don't know how regular I'll be on this forum but it will be nice to chat with you all in time to come .

I'm in east England, UK.
Diesel price currently £1.78 per litre ( 4.55 litres / gallon)
£8.10 per gallon / $10.58 per gallon
14.7p per mile / 19.2c per mile

Thanks everyone 🙏

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Do you expect the aftermarket air filter to provide a noticeable increase to the fuel-efficiency? Is your engine already fitted with a DPF?

[dieselpicasso]

Hi there , in my car there is no dpf though it was fitted to the 1.6 diesel variant! ( Mine is 2.0 )

Yes I do expect a slight improvement with an aftermarket free flowing filter, or bypass the air box with a cone filter...... Still not decided which is better but in any case, as long as it's less restrictive it should provide a little ( very little) power boost and with it, a little better economy I hope though I can't be sure anything will happen.

If it makes things worse I can retro fit.

Apparently, the filters used in this car are very restrictive with an additional micro fibre layer underneath the regular filter!

If the engine compensates with more fuel where there's not enough air, then black smoke comes out the back which is unburnt fuel as far as I'm aware? It would be better being burnt that way id not need to press the accelerator pedal as hard and squirt less fuel in.

I do really wonder what's going on though because my best mpg so far is just 57mpg. It's slightly improved .... But I should be getting 61mpg according to manufacturers! I should be beating that easy with my driving techniques!

I managed to get my last heavy petrol 2 litre turbo car to 50mpg and diesel in my experience is far easier to get better mpg numbers with !

I had a megane 1.5 diesel a few years ago Wich was easy to hover around 80mpg with so I think something could be wrong with my car giving me bad mpg numbers despite driving like a saint .....

Perhaps my air filter is ancient! I better check ✅ I should have done this by now .

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by dieselpicasso

If the engine compensates with more fuel where there's not enough air, then black smoke comes out the back which is unburnt fuel as far as I'm aware? It would be better being burnt that way id not need to press the accelerator pedal as hard and squirt less fuel in.

I'd also keep an eye to the fuel flow. Maybe a remap to prevent the engine to "compensate" an increased air flow with more fuel. Unless such a leaner AFR would lead to an overheat, to which maybe an intercooler (IIRC the 90hp version of this engine doesn't have one) would be a good fix, you might be safe.