I hopped in my 87 300D Turbo this afternoon with two friends and luggage, in Portland Or. and filled up the tank, It took $63.00 at 4.399 a Gal. got on I84 east bound and started the drive up the Columbia river gorge. I always forget about the strong head winds you encounter driving up the Gorge, I kept having to fight the steering wheel to stay in my lane. mind you that None of us had been out of the car since we left and were not directly feeling the wind, so my friends started calling my car a roach and a builder. I told them I thought it must be the wind after a while but they were all convinced it was my car until about 150 miles later when we left the gorge and started heading north up 395. The wind died down and the car went back to its enjoyable normal self. Drove the rest of the way to Spokane with out problem. when we got there I still had 1/3 tank left. Everyone was impressed and all the comments came to an end.
Im headed back home tomorrow and hopefully will see even better millage when the wind is to my back.
Ill let you all know how it goes when I arrive home.

David Lee Portland Or

87 300D
87 190E 2.3
84 230E Euro

The reading on the gauge means nothing.
If you filled it up & then calculated your consumption it would give a better figure.

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Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club group

I no longer question authority, I annoy authority. More effect, less effort....

1967 230-6 auto parts car. rust bucket.
1980 300D now parts car 800k miles
1984 300D 500k miles
1987 250td 160k miles English import
2001 jeep turbo diesel 130k miles
1998 jeep tdi ~ followed me home. Needs a turbo.
1968 Ford F750 truck. 6-354 diesel conversion.
Other toys ~J.D.,Cat & GM ~ mainly earth moving

Beautiful drive and lots of places ... or used to be.. to stop for smoked salmon up the gorge.

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1985 300D 198K sold
1982 300D 202K
1989 300E 125K
1992 940T

"If you dont have time to do it safely, you dont have time to do it"

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

Not to be rude
Have you tried to see how much fuel it takes to make the gauge move?

I have found that my fuel gauge reads only 17 gallons from R to F...
now mind you on the road at this level the gauge will move up and down depending on which way you last turned or leaned the car... so yeah very misleading at low levels, but as for the top its pretty right on...

also you can change your MPG at fill up depending on if you top off, auto cut off, also how fast you pump(the faster you pump the less you will have at auto cut-off and longer it will take if you top off), not to mention if you are adding additives, how loaded the car is(one side more than another)... so try to fill up in the same manner every time... but in portland you dont pump your own fuel... sooo...

now for myself in my 85 300d i can normally get about 350-400 miles before hitting the 1/4 mark...

so for the OP to get 385 out of roughly 12 gallons is 32mpg... which I think is possible, as I have seen tanks at 30mpg on flat level ground with constant wind all highway at no more than 2500rpms so 57-60mph... no cruise, ether...lol I need to get it working....

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85 mercedes 300D-T 258k miles

Okay, so last night I posted this thread when I got to the hotel not knowing exactly how much fuel I used, so this morning when I left the Hotel I fueled up again at 4.459 a gal. and It cost me a few pennies under $57.00 to fill it so that equals up to right about 11& 1/2 gal. So........ 365 miles on 11 & 1/2 gal. that comes out to an impressive 31 and some change MPG at an average speed of about 68-72mph. with a total of 3 persons and luggage.
Very impressive if I do say so myself.
I was going to see if I got better fuel millage on the way back but I screwed that up by taking a 75-80 mile round trip up to Lake Coeur D'alene in Idaho before heading home. plus I hit heavy head winds on I 90 leaving Spokane. When I arrived home tonight My fuel gauge was in between a 1/8 and a 1/4 tank. In the little over a years time that I have owned this wonderful car it seems to run better and more powerful with every month.
When I first bought it It had a Garret turbo with a bad oil seal and was dumping oil into the intake and must have been clogging the exhaust with oilly soot. When I first got the car you could rev it up and the ground under the exhaust would have a small spatter pool of oil.

Ive never taken the time to figure out the correct millage before. Even on my trip to Colorado, mostly because the fuel on that trip was covered by someone else.
I would have always guessed about 17-21 city and I think im not too far off there, because i kind of have a lead foot in the city but I figured about 25-26 hwy. but 31 works for me too.
I did notice that my car was down 3/4 of a quart of oil at the end of the trip and that is unusual for this car to consume that much oil in that short of distance.[about 810 miles] its usually about 1 qt every 1500 miles or so. so I will be keeping my eye on it more often for a while. ////////// I was Wrong 12 & 1/2 gal.////////

Congrats!.. I've been getting a consistent 27 mpg on my 75 240D over a periods of months.. City and highway combined..

I was Wrong, I was wrong, I posted 11 & 1/2 gal. for the trip up to Spokane. It was a long day and I was tired. My apologies.
The receipt reads 12.4 gal. on the fill up in Spokane
I feel like a fool now posting that My 603 got 31mpg at 70 mph avg.
I got more like 29 mpg which isn't bad, but it also isn't 31 like I thought.
I'm still impressed.
I know an E class isn't a full sized Benz but compared to most cars on the road today it is. And 29mpg on the hwy isn't bad at all in my book.
I grew up on muscle cars,[Mopars{Chrysler}] and then switched to Turbo AWD cars. [All Mitsu's] Then moved to German cars, After my first Mercedes [87 190E] I was hooked,
a few of my friends drive BMWs and I say "No Thanks", Ive had a few BMW's over the years (85 318i, 88 325i, 88 528E, 89 535i, All 5 speeds) and Ill say , they're not bad cars, they're just a lot more fussy, Im my opinion, older Mercedes hold up better than any other older German car, and now that I own A Merc. diesel, I dont feel that I'm going to trade out any time soon.

Thats a real nice combined MPG I'm jelous

The SD goes 330 miles to the point where the gauge is exactly on one-half.

I agree that the gauge is meaningless in calculating fuel economy. I also state that filling one tank is insufficient for accuracy when claiming fuel economy rights.

I am in the process of gathering four successive tanks of fuel for the SD and will begin a thread strictly for SD fuel economy very soon.

Four consecutive fills mitigates the claims from one specific trip or one specific fuel stop. A minimum fill of 10 gallons on each stop is required.

Anybody who can hit 30 mpg on four consecutive fills deserves kudos. That requires careful driving habits and a vehicle that is perfectly tuned in all aspects. I intend to try for this bar on the SD, although it will be very difficult due to the fact that I have some city driving in the mix. I need to do it now as the a/c will make that attempt impossible.