My diesel nightmare!

[metroarea]

I was in Cornwall for the week last week and at the end of a great day needed to fill up the car. Into the garage, chatting away to my mate, 35 quids worth of fuel, paid, got 50 metres down the main road when the smoke started and car stopped. Sure enough, the receipt shows £35 diesel! This is at 8.30 in the evening, 40 miles from the campsite in the middle of nowhere. After much negotiation I found a great garage who agreed to drive the 30 miles to where we were, take us to the campsite, come back for the car, do the work and drive my car to me in the morning for £160; not bad atall! Anyway, since then it runs perfectly, but a few weird things have happened. Firstly the computer with the MPG, Milage etc...was all totally reset. Would they have had to disconnect the battery which might've done this? Also My MPG display slowly crept up from about 10 when they handed it back, to the usual 33.6ish. It's now gone down to 31.3ish. Is it normal to have worse consumption after a flush?

[workhorse '90 8v]

harsh

[rubjonny]

It's always a good idea to disconnect the battery when doing any work on a car, especially when you're doing something as extensive as clearing out the entire fuel system, no worries on that front.

As for the MPG, it doesn't sound that far out to me, probably just the type of driving you've been doing since the flush, I wouldn't worry

[metroarea]

too be fair I think I may have been caning it harder since I got her back!

[rubjonny]

I recon its fine.  Stop moaning, I only get 25mpg if I drive like an old woman 

[metroarea]

Thats no good! I reckon my mpg displys' knackered anyway to be honest. When I had it back after the work getting done it was changing all the time as i changed how i drove. It was 31ish if i was being sensible, 28ish doing 90-100 on the motorway, and down to 20ish when i was really nailing it. After a while it just levels out at 31 and stays there abouts no matter how hard i drive! I want to ignore it but i have to have it on the mpg display and always check!

[Agreeable Slick]

Doesn't sound like anything is amiss at all, you got it flushed so there will be a clean system possible diagnosing the slightly higher fuel consumption. And from what you have said there seems to be nothing wrong if you are averaging 31mpg. (talking of which are you sure you are not knocking the mfa between 1 and 2 on the stick?)

Mine if i drive properly on the motorway will do about 40mpg (2L petrol) but after i took it down the strip at pod was doing 8mpg. It doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about to be quite honest but if you are that worried get an autoelectrician to look at the mfa, although it will cost you loads as he will need to test all of the curcuit board and also remove the clocks from the dash, not hard but time consuming.