Hi.

We own a 740 GLE Manual Estate, C reg (1986) and has travelled approx 140,000 Miles (Speedo reset at last MOT - probably replaced). The thing is, a couple of weeks ago, the car refused to start. So, after calling out a local Volvo Garage, they diagnosed the problem as a faulty fuel pump. They came to our home and replaced it with a new one for a fee of £60 (inc. the part), which is approximately $85. I thought this was rarther cheap; especially for a specialist Volvo Garage. Also before the new fuel pump, the car would regularly kick-back harshly up slight hills or when cold. The new pump cured this problem as well.

Now, we have a new problem: fuel consumption. before the pump, the car was pretty decent (not noticably bad) and would travel to work and back and all around town on about £15 - £20 of petrol per week (around 5 gallon).

NOTE: Petrol prices in the UK are sky-high. Currently, it's 81.9p per litre, which works out at about £3 / USD$5 per gallon.

This week, we filled the car with £15 / 4.85Gallon of petrol which, according to the speedo, gave us 88 miles (seemed about right). Thats 18mpg. Surely it should be doing more than that (we expected at least 25mpg)? We do mostly town driving.

BUT the fuel gauge seems a bit faulty. Like yesterday: It showed nearly half a tank of petrol five minutes after starting. After going 2 miles, we stopped the car. Then we drove a futher 3 miles and after that, the fuel tank was nearly in the red! Could we be mis-reading the amount of petrol we actually have, and filling the tank without needing to and consequently calculating the MPG wrong?

BTW, the fuel tank does not leak.