Gerrycan

Even when driving on the open highway? Remember most of the impressive claims are in ideal conditions. Not stuck in a traffic jam on the M25. Reported diesel consumption can vary a lot between individual vehicles under similar conditions. Seen mid 40's to high 60's claims for circa 70mph motorway cruising speeds and I have no idea why it would vary so much between 2.0tdi.

The thing I do not like is the 'hard sell' that a few minutes of weight training is the answer to everything. Quite frankly that is ridiculous. A a grossly fat 140kg man standing up from a chair is achieving something I simply could not do (with an equivalent 70kg weight on my back), and in essence is performing daily resistive weight training, but is he fit? Hell no! A poor diet and bad habits will overcome any benefits from a weight training programme. I know because I have lost a couple of friends to medical conditions who apparently thought that going to the gym was enough. His audience were senior citizens seeking the 'fountain of youth' and from his comments they were already in better condition than your average Joe and in that context what he was suggesting for them would almost certainly offer supplementary benefits to what they were already doing, but let's keep the claims within reason.

The claims in the video are very seductive but I'm wary when a charismatic American presents a 'Do this once simple thing....' type promotion of his book/gym/etc. Ever watched the old Hollywood musical 'The Music Man'? I'm not keen on the paleo diet he mentions, sure it's better than processed food but many nutritionists are critical of its basis and dietary recommendations. I doubt the incredibly fit looking 72 yo man does less than 30 minutes exercise a week. Maybe only that in the gym but I suspect he does not have a sedentary life in between. The CT scan of the 70 tear old triathlete, yes it is remarkable but having done some triathlons in the past myself (at a low performance level) the training for the three disciplines is very time consuming, even for just Olympic distance (1km swim, 40km cycle, 10km run). And he won't be as fast as the 40 yo triathlete. 100% agree there are massive health benefits from exercise, and particularly resistive training, but in isolation the benefits for many are not going to be as great as claimed unless it is integrated with a good diet and healthy lifestyle habits.

That is just a beautiful run. I was a bit worried you might have been suffering long covid. When I used to travel extensively around Australia for work I really used to enjoy the route variation it offered. Highlights were running around the extinct volcano rims of Mt. Gambier, desert regions out of Alice Springs and the parklands of the major capitals Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and especially Sydney.

Hi @mac11irl, no post from you lately, are things ok?

I don't think you were really 'hypermiling' @willwn , from what I read all you did was what I regard as sensible driving. I think the term hypermiling originates from the US where protagonists will do absolutely anything to get ultimate consumption, and consequently drive inconsiderately and unsafely resulting in a terrible reputation with other road users. There are a few factors that would have contributed to your excellent consumption: It was a longer journey and most it was conducted on a free-flowing road which is always a good contributor. You 'sacrificed' 5 mph off your permissible speed which probably meant the automatic systems you employed were able to work more smoothly without excessive surging or braking, while integrating with the traffic. It is five years since I drove on UK motorways but the usually high level of traffic means a lot of unintentional drafting which helps a lot Your driving decisions meant your 1.5tsi engine would have been able to make high use of its highly efficient two cylinder mode and that requires at least 1500 rpm and low torque demand. A comfortable ambient 18 deg C temperature meant the aircon would have done little or no work and the radio has no perceptible effect on consumption, unless you play heavy metal Considering your average consumption included the 10 miles out of London then you must have been getting over 70mpg on the motorway. It is fairly easy to get good consumption in those conditions, there is little difference in consumption ( 8 year old 1.4tsi) whether my wife or I drive on the open road, however I can get 30% better consumption than she does in urban driving. I can get 60mpg or better driving off-peak on our urban roads with 50% 'luck' at traffic lights and with due regard to other road users. In heavy peak periods I hope to better 40mpg, but in our hot summer weather with aircon at full blast then it will drop down to 35 mpg. There are a lot of positives to sensible driving, reduced costs, improved safety, nice green feeling, a small poke in Putin's eye and all for probably less than an extra 5 minutes on your journey.

Another ABC parkrun story about a young family man in his early thirties, suffering from myocarditis, suffering from overwork and poor life choices meant he was barely able to climb stairs. Took action and participated in Parkruns, was encouraged by his regular improvements and moved through phases to ultra marathons. He is now Australian champion in a thing called 'Backyard Ultra' Backyard Ultra's consist of running successive 6.7km loops in under an hour, so if you run a lap in 45 minutes you get 15 minutes rest then you do another lap until you cannot beat the hour limit. He won the Australian event by running 308km in 48 hours. What is really interesting to me is that he obviously had many genetic advantages to be achieve what he has, but his previous lifestyle had pretty much set him on a course for poor health, even a premature death! How parkrun helped turn Chris Murphy into an Australian ultramarathon champion - ABC News

As @MarkyG82 says the vRS , whether diesel or petrol, has the same wet clutch DSG. It used to be 6 speed but later versions are 7-speed. They do require a fluid change but not sure of the intervals (40k km?) and it is not cheap. Very robust though. Others can provide more specific details.

So what was the true extent of the wear?

@Iggy_ZG so how does the Scala consumption compare to your previous diesels? I went from a 1.9pd mk2 Octavia, which I thought had excellent consumption, to a mk3 1.4tsi (both manual) and to be quite honest there was not as much consumption difference as I thought there would be. The petrol is maybe 1L/100 worse overall whether town or highway, but you have to drive to the respective engines differing characteristics, to get reasonable consumption. From what little I have read on the high gearing of the Scala 1.5tsi I am almost surprised you get into 6th at all unless on a highway. My 1.4tsi in 6th does does about 2100rpm at 100kph, what revs does your Scala do at that speed?

I give the shop staff my mobile phone as surety so I can run outside the shop. Probably why my family refuse to be associated with me when I shop for shoes

Personally, I would not like like unexpected steering inputs, mid bend while pushing it a bit.

Is @TheWanderer the unluckiest man in the world?? 😞 Joking apart, I agree that the handling issues sound strongly like wheel alignment issues and, a long shot here, I suppose the lane centring facility has been turned off?

Here is a brand new edition from my favourite source of health information and it is about the secrets to longevity. The lowdown on longevity - Health Report - ABC Radio National Much of the information is already presented in other sources in this thread but it is supported with evidence sourced by scientific method (you know the double-blind, peer-reviewed stuff). Basically it touts the widely known benefits of restricted calorie diets and exercise. The main feature, of the excellent content, for me was the importance of a good quality food based on the 'Mediterranean Diet' which is high in nutrition, fibre and minimal refined processed food and high calorie products. What was very interesting was that while Michael Moseley's promotion of the 5/2 diet (just two days of low calorie intake in a week and eat what they wanted on the other days) did achieve weight loss (reduced visceral fat), the biometric markers of improving health were not as good as those achieved by those who just had better diets and similar weight loss. In fact those wholly on the 'Mediterranean Diet' foods could not help but lose weight eating normally and some had to eat wildly excessive amounts to try to maintain weights for the the experiment. The purpose of maintaining the weight was to prove the better biometric markers with the diet were not just due to weight loss. A problem with many scientific studies is that they tend to be very focussed on one particular aspect and in this case I think it ignores the probable link that the diet almost certainly promotes excellent gut health which contributes and may even be the main reason for the biomarker improvement. None-the-less I think this is an interesting and well presented broadcast well worth the near half hour it takes to listen.

VW group advice varies by country. UK Skoda is pushing owners to change belts at 5 years. Australian dealers seem to be recommending 7 years. I might change my low mileage 2014 model's belt this year since I have decided to keep it. Service intervals vary as well. Australian dealers insist on 1 year/15000 km services. UK can be the same or may opt for longer variable depending on use intervals. Spark plugs about 60k km but when mine were changed they showed no wear.

You are on fire today Pete

A similar story here with Australian ethanol producers lobbying politicians on both sides of the fence and donating to both, to at least make ethanol a legal addition to fuel. I won't say 'corruption' but the process was certainly corrupted.

For some time I used a non-gps Garmin fitness watch which required the pace length to be set for distance readings. What became obvious over time and a set course is that my cadence (about 160-163 steps per minute) would never vary but my speed, and therefore reported distance covered, was determined by my stride length. It was pretty much the same when I rode a bike, I could rarely comfortable getting my cadence over 70 per minute and it was just the gearing that determined my speed. The ABC's latest Parkrun promotion has suggested shortening stride and raising running cadence can potentially improve efficiency and times, although they do say it is not easy and you should have a reasonable fitness level before attempting it. Cadence — could it be the key to improving your running performance? - ABC News

I'm trying not to be too much of a conspiracy theorist but I have a few questions about e10. Where all this 'green' ethanol is coming from? Especially now that the Russian invasion has suddenly reduced the world's marketable grain supply by about 30% (that is Russian and Ukrainian exports which I think also fed approx 400 million people). Does it come from destroyed Amazonian rainforest? Where are the factories based that produce the ethanol? It would have to be a pretty massive production capacity. When and where does it get mixed with the petrol? At the producing refinery or at the distribution point where they usually add the added chemicals (for 95 or higher RON)? My guess is the latter as the ethanol content could determine the amount of aromatics, detergents and knock inhibitors added. How are the Euro/UK regulations regarding e10 worded? Is the 10% ethanol content fixed in stone or is it a maximum or minimum amount? I guess I am suggesting that the ethanol content may not be as large as generally thought, which would partly explain why the reported effects so far are minimal.

What car/engine do you currently have to get your current 48mpg, which seems pretty good to me. If economy is important to you then maybe consider a 1.5tsi engine. The overall lighter weight of the vehicle means overall consumption and performance is not far removed from the 150bhp diesel and probably get better consumption on short journeys without having to worry about DPFs.

The combination of the new puppy is starting to settle down, work demands easing a bit, and the Easter holidays has allowed me to string together some runs. A slow 7km run, then 20k steps at work the following day stopping me seizing up meant I felt good enough to run again on the the third day (day off). Tried something different for the 5km run and went all out for the first km and ran my first sub 5 min km, for what seems forever, then recovered from the effort over the next 3 km (very slow) and ran the last km again under 5 minutes. Final recovery was leaning against the pub wall gasping for air but really happy. Surprisingly the overall time was slightly better than I have been achieving lately but suspect that near ideal conditions helped as well. Not quite to Jess Stenson's recommendations but still felt good to mix it up a bit.

Something I read years back suggested that cessation of exercise resulted in the loss of performance at the rate of 1% per day. While it seems a frightening figure there are probably a lot of factors behind it I cannot remember, such as whether the cessation is foregoing all exercise (from injury) or just the activity in question? The other thing to note is the reduction is therefore not linear. After 14 days an expected reduction in speed/endurance of somewhere between 5 and 10% would be noticeable. When I was younger and resumed exercise after a layoff then it seemed to take roughly twice as long to get back to where I was but the curve was reversed insofar as the bigger gains came early and then slowed.

I loved my cycle touring days around France. Especially fond memories of the Loire. In those days I had a full-sized frame fitting cycle pump (actually still have it and it still works at nearly 40 years old) which was especially useful at warding off 'playful' dogs. Only happened twice but both times were in France.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has really been promoting the benefits of running and walking lately and especially spruiking participation in Parkrun for all levels. This is quite a nice round up of training tips from a locally (Adelaide, South Australia) based elite athlete. Australian marathon runner Jess Stenson shares her top tips to get a parkrun PB - ABC News

A more obvious feature on the sedan than the estate.