BMW 318i 2016 - Heavy on fuel

[Rish108]

Hi All,

I'm new to the forum.

Have a BMW 318i 2016 model. The car is wonderful to drive especially on long road trips, a perfect family vehicle.

My only pain with the car is that (with in-road and highway driving) the fuel consumption sits around 11.2l/100km! Even if I reset the on board trip computer, it still eventually climbs to 11l.
On the Cars Guide website, BMW claims that this engine gives 5.4l/100km with combined cycle of in-road and highway driving.

Anyone with the same car that can shed some insight as to what could be wrong with the car? It is serviced and maintained regularly. With this kind of consumption I might as well drive a more sportier car with better engine performance.

Any feedback/advise would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Nick]

is it an automatic ?

 

[Rish108]

is it an automatic ?

Hi Nick, yes sorry I forgot to mention that it is an automatic.

 

[Kyle]

There's a large amount of weight for the relatively low powered engine to chug around, this means that the engine will have to work harder to get up to speed... Which results in higher fuel consumption... The claimed figures from BMW must be taken with a pinch of salt since those are compiled using ideal conditions to get the lowest numbers possible.

There are a few things to check like alignment, tire pressure etc... Also check the condition of your air filter, the BMW service intervals for these items are meant to save them money during Mplan.

Once the above has been checked, you could look into loading mild performance software. In most cases this will drop fuel usage since you will not have to 'push' the engine to get up to speed.

 

[Nick]

Auto will be slightly higher given its always in gear, stop-go traffic is a tank drainer.

 

[Rish108]

Ok Thanks alot guys. Appreciate the feedback. I also heard about the heavy body theory for the 318's.
I'm thinking I'm going to have to get the car mapped eventually because 11.2l/100km is just ridiculous given the current fuel prices.

Can you recommend anyone reliable I can take the car to for a remap? I'm based in the East rand.

 

[KPM3_30]

Can you recommend anyone reliable I can take the car to for a remap? I'm based in the East rand.

chat to @Sherwin@xcede for the remap.

 

[tman]

2015 BMW 318i MPG - Actual MPG from 2 2015 BMW 318i owners

The most accurate 2015 BMW 318is MPG estimates based on real world results of 46 thousand miles driven in 2 BMW 318is

www.fuelly.com

2017 BMW 318i MPG - Actual MPG from 4 2017 BMW 318i owners

The most accurate 2017 BMW 318is MPG estimates based on real world results of 7 thousand miles driven in 4 BMW 318is

www.fuelly.com

Seems on par with other users

 

[MR_Y]

If I am not mistaken, this is a 1.5 litre 3 cylinder turbo motor.

My 2022 Ford EcoSport has a 1.5 litre 3 cylinder motor (no turbo) and I am currently at 9.0-9.5 litres per 100km. Mainly Midrand and M1/N1 traffic.

Using that as a baseline, your consumption makes sense if you have bad traffic and factor in the heavier body vs my Ford.

Little motors in big cars don't do well on fuel consumption in traffic

 

[Rish108]

Yeah man agreed. The 320i seems like a nice balance for the car, same body with more powerful engine.

 

[MoeM2]

I have heard that the 3 cylinder bmw were notorious for poor fuel consumption with the 320i being a better option. It was a bmw genius (do they still have those) that was explaining this to me like 6 years ago. Similar to comments above, the 318i tends to work harder to keep momentum compared to the 4 cylinder options - I eventually went for a diesel at that stage.


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