Two posts in one day!
V50SE 2.0D
This is my first diesel, and I chose it mainly for the fuel 'economy'.
I do a lot of short journeys to and from work (only 3 miles each way, so it doesn't warm up) mixed with other journeys of 20-30 miles to several hundred.
Driving normally, I get only the low 30s per UK gallon (26 per US gallon) increasing to perhaps 40mpg for longer journeys, and a best of 50mpg on a long journey, driving like a ****.
This isn't as good as I hoped, and not much better than my petrol 2.0 Renault Laguna that I had before. Given that diesel in this country is more expensive than petrol (why?) and that the car was a lot more expensive than the Laguna, it's not been a good economic choice at all.
In an attempt to improve things, I've been experimenting with driving even more slowly, keeping in higher gears, with the rpm about 2000, which seems to be the point where torque seems to kick in (below that, there's nothing there).
That approach has been partially effective, but I've run into problems with misfiring and kangaroo jumping at low rpm, such that it becomes virtually undrivable.
As a non-diesel person, it's not something I have any experience of, but if it had been a petrol engined car, I'd have put it down to plug fouling, and like that problem in a petrol engine, it seems to improve if you take it for a good (uneconomic) high speed thrash - clearing the tubes out as it were....
It's done just over 12,000 miles now (nearly 20,000 km) so it will be due it's first real service soon. Anything I should mention when it goes in? Anyone else have this problem?
Comments appreciated, as always!

Wow, that's been a long time you did not get response…
I became a Volvo driver just one week ago with a 2005 V50 2.0D - and I love it that far.

But… - I had to go 1.400 km in a row right after I got the car and experienced the same symptoms as you did. I have had a VW Golf TDI with 90PS before, which ran awesomely well. From that I draw that it is not normal for an engine with 1,5 the power to accelerate slow below 2.000 rpm. Especially, this is the turning speed at around 120kmh in the fifth gear - it gets stuck there!

Yesterday I visited the dealer here in Berlin and he told me that there was no apparent error in the memory, only that turbo- pressure reading was a bit high. I have had the same thing with the Golf, but this went into a save-mode, not just intermediately cutting power to reduce pressure. In the Golf's case the whole turbo had to be changed because the overpressure relieve valve was partially blocked (they did not sell this alone).

Naturally, if you have a slow responding engine you squeeze it harder to drain power out. Furthermore, the electronic motorcontrol is design for a certain set of parameters to provide optimum power and consumption. If one parameter fails to be within that frame, the control basically is corrupted and that might explain why your milage varies from what you did expect.

So, this is what I can tell you - did you sort it out in the meantime (or anyone else had the same experience)?

Sincerely,
Stefan

Ok, to whom it may concern:

I have had my elk at the dealers and what did they find - a marten has had a delicious meal of my turbo- tube.

Since they fixed that I am no longer afraid of those BMW 530ds and economy has improved significantly.
This is an awesome car! Comfortable and economic, but also sportive (if you want it to behave as such).

Regards,
St