Thanks mate, mine is a manual
Looks like my consumption is comparable to yours in many ways then. Effectively I'm on 33s and there is a fair bit of added weight there. I also recall from my old Di that the roofrack probably cost me 0.5 - 1L/100Km
The soot isn't heavy black smoke but still a bit noticeable on takeoff and accelerating.
Because I have Nissan warranty on the car, I was hesitant to chip it. The warranty runs out in May and I am going to use the time to research good chips for this engine. I used to have a dTronic in my old Di and was quite happy with that
The warranty is also the reason I have done nothing about EGR blocks etc etc