Tune-Up Results (Post #562) 7/20/2016

Don’t you just hate these posts on social media?

This man tuned up his Range Rover and you won’t believe the results.

If I haven’t lived the results I wouldn’t have believed them either. Back at the beginning of May 2016 I decided to give the ailing Range Rover motor another tune up. I replaced nearly everything related to the ignition system. Plug wires, coil, ignition module, cap and rotor, and the vacuum advance on the distributor were all replaced. The goal was to get a more reliable running engine. I had reported problems with the engine just dying or running very rough and blogged about them. I even had the timing adjusted.

I said I would report all that happened. I’ve run a few tanks full of petrol through her and I’m ready to report the results. Below is a screen grab of my Fuel Log application. These are the MPG numbers for each tank of gas.

Before the Tune-Up
Gas mileage before the tune-up

You can see those are not great numbers. For the record, I commute 35 minutes one way to work Monday – Friday. Its roughly 25 miles so I average perhaps 50 to 55 miles per day. I was averaging 13.4 MPG just before the tune-up. I would imagine it was lower than that as the page before this has quite a lot of 12 numbers on it.

These are the numbers after the vacuum advance was replaced and the timing adjusted.

Gas mileage after tune-up.
Gas mileage after tune-up

The averages are now hovering around 15.15 MPG. You can see some 16’s in there. That is a really good return on the work. Those are the best numbers I’ve ever received. Even when I bought her in 2000 with 70k miles on her clock I didn’t get those kinds of numbers. I postulate that if I swap my oxygen sensors I could squeak another mile or even two mpg out of her. That’s the standard gain from new O2 sensors in my experience.

So you don’t have to believe anything those are the real numbers. You can take them as fact or in the words of my son “true facts”. I swapped some tired old parts, in all honesty the vacuum advance wasn’t working at all. It was totally knackered.

If you are looking for a few MPGs out of your tired old Land Rover, replace some of the tired old parts.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.