Kia Sorento - Poor fuel consumption

[BigTim]

Hi

I have a 2007 Sorento Titan diesil automatic which I have owned since new. We are very pleased with it is an excellent towcar and has towed our 'van over Europe. The car has now done 14375 miles.

What I am NOT so happy about is the poor MPG. I monitor this carefully and have recorded all my mileage details and fuel purchased on an Excel spreadsheet which I use to calculate mpl, mpg, £/l, 3/l, etc. (I like playing with figures!!!)

My wife uses the Sorento during the week for her work - round-town driving of approx 250 miles a month and gets around 18 mpg. On longer runs towing our 'van the mpg goes up to around 19.5 but rarely better than that. The overall average over the last 22 months has been 19.06 - in which time we have done 12790 miles and spent a whopping £3,288.44 on fuel, ie, £0.26 per mile for diesel.

Then I read of other Sorento owners getting much higher mileage figures. Am I going wrong somewhere. Is there anything I can do to improve fuel consumption. I was advised that it would improve after the car had done 10K miles - it hasn't.

All comments and advice gratefully received.

Tim

.

 

[xtrailman]

Tim

Book you car in for a professional tune up, diagnostics check. But you do have a 2T car so i would only expect mid 30's at best.

Or buy the new model which is lighter and more economical.

 

[JD6620]

Tim, I have a 2007 XE manual with 11500 miles on the clock, owned it since January. Solo depending on what type of road I'm using I get between 30-35mpg. Easter was the first time we towed the carvan (1256kg) We towed 100 miles then another 75 solo before filling up average 32mpg. On the way home 100 miles with quite a brisk head wind returned 21mpg all towing. The sort of mpg your talking about would cetainly make me feel a bit sick.

 

[drsorento]

You should expect high 20s with the auto model, thats solo the manual version will get 30/35 solo.

Towing reduces both as you would expect.

 

[RichardS1]

We have a 04 plate XE auto with 49k on the clock now. We are now getting about 32mpg solo and around 23/24 towing 1500kg. The engine did seem to take a lot of miles to loosen up and around the 35k mark we started to get these figures. We also find that the car really struggles to get any decent mpg if we have to use it for short urban runs which from what Tim describes his wife does daily on her commute to work.

 

[BigTim]

Thanks for the input folks

My wife doesn't just drive to work in one place - she's an advisory teacher and goes from school to school in the metropolitan borough of St Helens. Probably even worse than one journey as lots of short ones with stopping and starting.

Regarding long-distance solo driving with the Kia we don't do a lot of that - we use my Nissan Almera Tino for that. However on the occasional longer run solo we don't get much more than when we are towing, ie, perhaps 19mpg solo and 18mpg towing!!

I am puzzled by people who say they get midd 30's mpg solo and 25mpg towing. On the Caravan Talk website, I posted there too, many Sorento owners reported figures similar to mine.

Interesting discussion though!!! Our Sorie is well treated well, ie, dealer serviced, tyre pressures checked regularly by me, etc.

Oh well perhaps it c'est la vie.

Tim

 

[Dustydog]

Hi Tim

Look at:-

http://kiasorento.proboards.com/index.cgi?
Your mpg is poor. I get more towing a heavy TA.

Some models had a tendancy for the rear brakes to stick on. get yours checked and tell the dealer about the poor mpg.

However if SWMBO is doing loads of stop start; mmm

Best of luck.

Cheers

Dustydog

 

[Chris_374550766]

Hi,

I used to own an auto Sorento and would only average low 20's throughout the whole time I had the vehicle. I would quite often find myself putting

 

[Philspadders]

Hi,

I used to own an auto Sorento and would only average low 20's throughout the whole time I had the vehicle. I would quite often find myself putting

 

[wattie]

i find the plus 30mpg that some are claiming on the Sorento a bit strange. I doubt they actually get this mpg for the Sorento but ...you never know.

id the car in permanent 4 wheel drive lockmode? if it is then you will get very lowmpg.

I drive the Sportage 2.0Crdi from new on an 07 plate and have done 40k so your mileage is very low for a 3 year old car.. well done.

My MPG around town is dire and i drive carefully , i dont rev hard and work the gearbox carefully. Towing its about 23MPG ad thats with an MTMPL of 1500kgs and careful gear box management.

I did have a discussion recently with a chap over MPG,it was a shame he could not calculate gallons to litres. 1G = 4/56L.

I would not have recommend the Sorento or any large SUV for short start/stop journey.Not only is it expensive on the pocket( the engine never reaches optimum operating temps, but is also highly polluting. A catalytic converter only starts to work at around 750deg C, this takes at least 20 to 25mins of driving or around 8 miles , as up to this point there may as well not be cat fitted.

For local journeys and work we use a little Pug 4007.

Kia`s are good cars but let down by fuel consumption

I have a 2005 Sportage and was getting 30-33 mph solo

I bought a Tuning module at the Scottish Caravan Show

What a difference Towing is ajoy now.

 

[JimC]

I had 2 Sorento's Auto 2004 and a 2006. My average for all my motoring during that time was 22 miles per gallon. Many other owners on Sorento.co.uk forum returned similar.

I have recently changed mine for a Volvo XC60 D5 AWD Auto

much much better on fuel consumption.

Jim

 

[Graham_374564440]

Hi Tim,

I had a Sorrento XT and the fuel consumption was similar to yours. Had all the checks done etc by the dealer. As its the Mitsubishi engine I even wrote to them asking how to improve, but they just implied it was normal. Got rid in the end.(If you decide to swop watch them 2nd hand values if not going for another Kia, they are dier)

 

[SteveW77]

The 2.5 Diesel engine in the Kia Sorento is not a Mitsubishi engine, it was designed in house by Hyundia the parent company of Kia.

Steve W

 

[Graham_374564440]

Steve,

Thinking back I think if it had a Rolls Royce engine fitted it would'nt have stopped me getting shut the amount of fuel it used. Should hate to think I was running one at todays prices like Tim!