New Micra owner with one or two questions.

[Dave_Ally]

Hi everybody! I'm a relatively new Micra owner, it's my first car having passed my test earlier in this year and it took me by surprise how much I love driving the car after I got it. :grinning: It's a 1998 Ally 1.3 5 door with just shy of 60,000 miles on the clock. (Y)

However, I do have one or two questions about it - bear with me as I really don't know that much about cars but a couple of basic questions. Basically I find it drives very well, it was put back on the road after being locked up in a garage for way too long - it needed a light switch and some replacement tyres to pass it's MOT last year. I've been driving it properly since about October but it has been getting the odd run since January.

Firstly, fuel consumption - what is the average expected miles from a full tank in one of these - since I last filled it back to just above the red it has covered roughly 230 miles - is this normal? It's MOT is due in a month so it'll be getting a full service also. I wouldn't say I drive it too hard but not the lightest either.

Secondly, when filling the car - why do certain fuel pumps (BP) clunk to a stop every so often as if they tank was full when it is not even half full? Gets annoying when you have to keep fidgeting the nozzle about to get more in the tank.

One more thing, I have a tinny rattle when first starting the car up and driving round town before going on any A/B roads or Motorways - is this just likely the heat shield?

The car runs great and smoothly otherwise, I think it's a fantastic little car if I can get these one or two niggles sorted then I can start looking into maybe improving it in the future. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[98twister]

Fuel consumption depends on what sort of driving you are doing.

I have the same problem with some petrol pumps. Usually sorted by turning the pump handle so it is resting against the filler flap.

Sounds like a heatshield. Either remove it or I wrapped some wire around ours.

 

[Alienfish360]

wait till if you ever drive on the continent, I drove to Paris and French petrol pumps were a nightmare! I could only get about 1 or 2 Euro in at a time, unless I filled it excessively slowly, was a joy to get back over here and put fuel in at a decent rate.

 

[pollyp]

hey welcome

my 1998 1.3 slx in standard form used to do upto 320miles from full till the light comes on during long motorway trips.

first check all tyres r inflated to spec and that all the wheels turn freely without much brake binding.

if you also have an engine light during ignition you could check the ecu for any faults and if the exhaust O2 sensor is working cos that could also drastically affect economy and performance.

warm up the engine then turn off.
turn ignition back on, open the fusebox cover by ur right knee to find the ecu consult port down below. use a paperclip to short the lower left pins for 2sec (labelled 12V OGN and Check in pic below)

the engine light should flash 5 long bursts then 5 short bursts to give a code 55 which means no faults logged.

then start the engine to check the O2 sensors, hold rev at 2000rpm and the light should flash on/off every 1/2sec. any slower and it'll need replacing.

the premature fuel clunk issue seems to be a common fault.
The fuel tank uses a soft rubber breather pipe going from the top of the tank, through the chassis beam and has to take a 90deg turn before joining the solid breather pipe exit. The rubber pipe tends to kink at this bend therefore restricting the tank from evacuating out trapped air fast enough, and so fuel fills up the filler pipes till it triggers the cutoff while air is still in the tank. Air keeps slowly escaping from the tank and the fuel level drops back down to continue filling.

To resolve the kinked breather hose, I’ll replace it with a reinforced conduit pipe so its flexible but wont collapse to block the airway

 

[Dave_Ally]

@98twister: I drove a lot lighter tonight - took the short stretch of Motorway down to an A Road home and never went above 60 on that - still dropped down nearly 3/4 the length between the marks on the gauge in 26 odd miles.

@Alienfish360: That would be a nightmare! It's like stop/start/stop/start at my BP but it's convenient because it's nearly at my front door and it's the cheapest in town. Hmmm, funny things.

EDIT

@pollyp: Thanks for that post, I'll try those out tomorrow lunchtime