Saab 9-3 drinking petrol

trackmixstudio

I have an '03 Saab 9-3 2.0t petrol saloon.
I was given it recently by my dad as a second car for me and my wife when he got a newer model.
Something doesn't seen right about the amount of petrol I am going through.
I have 1/2 tank full at the moment and the computer tells me I have 61 miles to empty. MPG shows up as 26.3. I would expect about 26MPG but the distance to empty seems extremely low. I put €40 in today with low fuel light on so there is probably about €50 petrol in it at the moment.




Any ideas?
I'm thinking it may be a sensor or something.
Thanks in advance.

biko

61 miles on half a tank sounds low but it could be anything.

Confirm usage by using real measurements, set trip counter to zero when full and measure when filling up again. It;s how I'd start anyway.

Stheno

The fuel gauge could also be reading wrong, and they do tend to drop quicker from halfway to empty than from full to halfway (someone on here posted the technical details of it)

OP do what Biko suggests, fill it up, see what your miles are and how many litres it used, work out the mpg from that and it will give you a better idea.

166man

Try parking the car on a flat stretch of road for a few hours. Sometimes if I put in €20 into my Alfa and then park it in my driveway facing down-slope I get in in the morning and the fuel light stays on for ages.

€50 for 61 miles must mean something wrong though... That's ridiculous.

Stheno

166man wrote: »

Try parking the car on a flat stretch of road for a few hours. Sometimes if I put in €20 into my Alfa and then park it in my driveway facing down-slope I get in in the morning and the fuel light stays on for ages.

€50 for 61 miles must mean something wrong though... That's ridiculous.

OP might have done some miles after putting in the €40?

trackmixstudio

Thanks a million guys.
I remembered reading about pulling and reinserting a fuse to reset the engine management system.
I found it again and did this (pull fuse 2 in engine fusebox then put it back)
I then held reset button for about 5 seconds with the DTE (distance to empty) displayed.
Got a message saying trip computer reset then it came up as 198 miles DTE.
Hopefully it's now sorted :-)
I will see if it goes down again tomorrow and will post an update when I know for sure that it's ok in case anyone else has a similar problem and this thread shows up in a search.

Stheno

trackmixstudio wrote: »

Thanks a million guys.
I remembered reading about pulling and reinserting a fuse to reset the engine management system.
I found it again and did this (pull fuse 2 in engine fusebox then put it back)
I then held reset button for about 5 seconds with the DTE (distance to empty) displayed.
Got a message saying trip computer reset then it came up as 198 miles DTE.
Hopefully it's now sorted :-)
I will see if it goes down again tomorrow and will post an update when I know for sure that it's ok in case anyone else has a similar problem and this thread shows up in a search.

That sounds better, quick fix too

Hopefully it's more accurate!

Might still be an idea to do a manual fill/note number of litres and miles to warning light as a corroboration

deckie27

trackmixstudio wrote: »

A neighbour of mine has a similiar car and similiar problem

He has tracked down his problem to the gauge in the top middle of this picture and the fact its normally in the orange...