Gerrycan

Google says it's 666 km between Canberra and Melbourne so your 7.2L/100 for the 6.5hr hour journey in a heavy awd vehicle lacking good aero is a good return. If I did your journey at your speeds in my 1.4tsi Octavia I'd expect consumption similar your 103tdi Superb. I usually get better returns on longer runs though due to the slower single lane interstate carriageways out of Adelaide where I am happier cruising at a genuine 100kph among the trucks rather than constantly risking life and speeding fines overtaking them.

My 2014 Octavia also does the occasional rear wiper thing too and it is a good feature for me. Not that it has rained here in Adelaide much in December despite being unseasonally cool. A forecast 24 C for my 'traditional' Aussie Christmas day swim. I will wait for the first clear shark spotter plane flypast before I go in though I believe The auto rear wipe can be turned off in the settings. Your excellent consumption returns continue.

Fog lights do not project much light ahead so I don't think think they would add the sort of road illumination the OP is looking for. I've only got halogens I find them adequate on our Australian non illuminated country roads but only in the dry, which is most of the time The other problem we have is that we have long straight stretches of road so even though the oncoming traffic may be kilometres away it is really anti-social to run the high beams, which does not stop some people.

Might have been a chubby driver?

Look in the Superb mk3 section for the thread 'Improving Battery Mileage'. The hybrid owner is not happy with his winter battery performance deterioration.

The Superb and Kodiaq have never been released with 1.4 or 1.5tsi engines in Australia so they only got the heavier duty 'wet' DSG with 2.0L diesel or petrol engines. A recent trend for Skoda Australia is for the 'dry' DSG to be replaced with a torque converter automatic and replace the 1.5tsi used in Europe with the old 1.4tsi. Understandable as the majority of Aussies have never driven a manual and were used to the torque converters fitted when we had a car manufacturing industry mating them to big V6 and V8 engines. Dry DSGs treated like a torque converter in traffic will wear out the clutch units, treat them as you would a manual box and it makes sense they will last. Our emission standards are still Euro 5 level and our fuel has a high sulphur content which not good for PPFs

The only pairing I can remember with the 1.4tsi (150bhp) and DQ250 6 speed gearbox was in an AWD Yeti.

@ERIK99, you have not given us any details of your actual journey and speeds. The WLTP cycle is mostly slow and stationary traffic which is quite punitive for ICE but EVs fair comparatively well it is also conducted at a nominal 20 deg C so they don't heat or cool the cabin. If you have a motorway journey at speed and heating the cabin, seats and steering wheel then consumption would inevitably be high

A few years back we had a Kia 1.6d hire car for a UK holiday and did a lot of miles there on the crowded motorways. The last thing we wanted was a speed ticket while abroad and since we were in no hurry just went with the traffic flow. We usually got 70+mpgs from a tank but while we were doing the tourist thing down in Devon and Cornwall it was notable that our average dropped to around 50mpg despite clear off-peak-season roads., I presumed it was the effect of steep hills and cautious driving on one car-wide only country lanes. I was aware of regens when they happened but they were pretty rare. Definitely not spirited driving but it did dawn on me after a while that I got better consumption and driving experience by ignoring the displays recommended gear, which always had me trying to slog the engine in low revs. and choosing at least one gear higher for more comfortable revs. I first joined Briskoda about 6 years back when we got our current 14tsi mk3 Octavia and I remember a regular contributor of the time recounting a situation where he swapped vehicles with his wife for a month or so. He usually got 50's in a 2.0tdi Octavia on his regular longer commute but was horrified to subsequently find out that his wife's consumption had dropped down to the teens with her usual short local journeys. When they swapped back again the Octavia consumption returned back to normal on his commute. I think she may have got on the wrong side of continually interrupted DPF regens?

I'm going to guess that a lot of short journeys in cool, and probably wet, weather is going to compound the problem and make it harder to get the exhaust to a soot-burning operating temperature and maintain it. Small direct injection/turbo motors are relatively efficient so there is not a great deal of superheated exhaust. Even revs on engine overrun is likely to extend the process by allowing cooling air through the exhaust. You might find that allowing the engine to continue to tickover at a high rate until complete is the most efficient way? During our cooler months in Adelaide a series of short runs in our non-PPF 2014 1.4tsi will result in an exhaust so full of water it gurgles like an old man with pneumonia.

Hi @scubasad, What sort of annual mileage do you anticipate in your possible post covid, post brexit, retirement world? Are looking at buying new or second-hand? I'm assuming second hand since you posted in the mk3 section and a new model Mk4 is out Have you driven a VRS to know whether you like it or not? Same for DSG transmission? There are other possible factors that you don't need to share here but will influence your decision like personal health, grandkids, dogs, elderly dependants, partner's preferences etc. Not to mention possible UK diesel exclusion zones?? The DSG box in the VRS is very efficient, when compared to traditional torque converter automatics, comparable economy to a manual but the manual will usually have the slight edge in the right hands. DSG boxes are brilliant 'on-the-go' swapping pre-selected gears almost seamlessly and instantly. Some people have some issues in stop/start traffic and pulling away quickly at roundabouts. I think this latter may be an issue with stop/start features, a bit of turbo lag and driving mode selected. If the preselected gear is different to what is suddenly needed then there may be a hesitation. Some also report 'delays' engaging reverse gear and reversing up slopes. Can't say I have witnessed issues with any DSG I have driven although I don't own one. Something for you to investigate on any test drive though. The clutch packs in the more robust 'wet' DSG (above 250Nm) sit in an oil bath, are very robust and suffer little wear even when stressed by towing or fanging, but that oil must be changed at recommended times and is not cheap. I believe CVT's have similar maintenance requirements though. The water pumps on VAG group diesels are a known weakness and may need replacement at anything from 20k to 60k+ miles. It is not a catastrophic failure there usually being plenty of warning as the temp gauge starts to fluctuate, plenty of threads on it. Personally if I were only going to do low annual mileage and lots of short trips then I'd strongly consider petrol.

I think I have only experienced what you described once in six years of ownership of my 1.4tsi on dry smooth tarmac. More right foot than usual in first gear to avoid faster than anticipated oncoming traffic. The turbo kicking in so vigorously surprised me and I experienced the wheel spin/hop, some torque steer as well but all manageable. There is not much weight over the front wheels with the 1.4tsi compared to diesels and that would probably account for a bit of the difference you experienced between the two. Although the mk3 1.4tsi is not that bad, my previous mk2 1.9pd was exceptionally stable in severe crosswind conditions and I always put that down to the extra weight under the bonnet.

An indicated consumption figure of 2.3L/hour at idle with no ancilliaries running is very high. I have not owned a diesel with a dpf filter but my old 1.9pd diesel in the mk2 used to show 0.5L/hour at its natural 900rpm idle when warm. Even my current 1.4tsi display shows 0.5L/hr at idle in similar circumstances. Sounds like the car is locked into a permanent and continuous regeneration? Only with the aircon on at full blast during a 47 degree day have I seen idle consumption near 2L/hour.

Thanks for your comments, I am considering one when they release here in Australia in 2021. To edit a comment you click on the three dots in the top right corner of the comment box and Edit is one of the options (if using a PC).

Last time I read an owners manual it recommended to not add aftermarket additives to any lubricants or fuel. But it is your car and you can put what you want in it.

Logically you would want to use EV mode in urban areas and in congestion and Hybrid mode for the highway. At the end of the journey you would want a depleted battery where you can then recharge from a power source. I don't know how good the Skoda system is for harvesting braking energy. Toyota's hybrids are very good and even with their relatively small NMH batteries achieve 50mpg or better in town so I'd hope that Skoda's are comparable. On a flat open highway where little or no braking is involved then you are almost entirely dependent on the efficiency on the ICE unit but if you are travelling through hilly or even mountainous terrain then a Hybrid with good recuperative braking should offer considerable savings over a pure ICE vehicle.

Rough rule of thumb is that any Superb with engines rated at 250Nm or under will have the 7 speed dry clutch and engines over 250Nm will have either the older 6 speed or newer 7 speed wet clutch. So 1.4tsi/1.5tsi are dry dsg and 2.0tsi/2.0tdi are wet 6/7 speed wet dsg. Not sure what the output of the 1.6tdi is but same rule. If you dig deep enough in other manufacturers forums you will see that all dry dsg variants have had issues. The VW versions were particularly bad in hot and humid countries like Australia but this issue was related to the lubricant used and was fixed by a lubricant specification change a few years back. The UK seemed to have nowhere near the problems experienced here presumably because of a more temperate climate. Having said that the 'dry' clutch packs can wear prematurely depending on the driver and regular traffic conditions. Again a bigger problem in Australia where drivers are used to torque converter automatics and the use the constant drag they provide on hills or light use of brakes at lights and constant stop/start conditions. This would wear out a manual clutch and I presume the two individual clutches in a dsg are smaller than a manual clutch? Brits are more used to driving manuals than Aussies. It is interesting to note that a few recent variants of VW/Skoda models are being released here with torque converter boxes fitted, consumption is quoted as worse but that is not a problem here as we are 15 years behind Europe in applying consumptions and emissions controls The 'wet' clutches are far more durable and can cope with the sort of adverse aussie driving habits I mentioned. If I were buying new then I'd be happy buying a dry dsg equipped car (we get 5 year standard warranties here) but buying second hand then I think the wet dsg is a safer bet. As another generalisation you will get about 8 to 10 mpg better consumption with a 1.4tsi/1.5tsi compared to an equivalent 2.0tsi but if you are only doing low annual mileage then the extra cost per annum will be minimal. A Superb is too big for my needs but in your situation buying a second hand car I would probably plump for a 2.0tsi despite the extra costs associated with fuel, road tax and wet dsg oil changes if only because there is a bigger selection available to you and a reduced chance of inheriting someone's issues. If buying new then I'd probably go for the 1.5tsi. As recommended by another, get as many test drives as you can as there are definitely good ones and bad ones out there and in my experience the difference is noticeable

Thank you for that, I always expected there was some sort of oil separator system for the crankcase emissions but my comments were with regard to the supplementary catch can systems the OP was asking about. As an aside I have learnt something as I did not know a 3 cylinder 1.2L VAG engine was fitted to a Fabia (or even existed). I've seen images of high mileage engine internals with little or no build up so is the problem related to lots of cold starts/short journeys?

My uninformed opinion is that if these things really worked as well as some claim then at least one of the manufacturers would fit them as standard. I do not know of any case where they do but happy to be corrected.

What sort of model, mileage, transmission type and how old is the one you are looking at? IS your existing 1.4 auto or manual (I presume the latter with clutch bearing problem) and what mileage? Have you had quotes to fix the issues on your existing car to retain it? What annual mileage do you do? I'm in a similar situation running a 17 year old car that is under threat that any major expenditure will mean disposal. Also looking at a Fabia Estate as a potential replacement as I think it is quite unique and exceptional value in our Australian market place. Trouble is the current vehicle is mechanically and structurally sound, economical and drives quite well, so it is difficult to justify a new car on my current negligible mileage. I refilled the tank yesterday after only 200 km in 3 weeks with 11 litres purely because petrol prices were at the low point of our local price cycle at Australian $1 a litre. Funny thing is when I handed over my 'rewards' card to get another four cents a litre off I was told I had accrued an additional A$10 reward that I could apply. Ended up paying 56 cents. I may have some previously unknown Scottish lineage.

The concensus of a general consumption of 30 mpg for shorter urban journeys and 40 mpg on longer highway journeys with a 2.0tsi engine has remained pretty consistent for the six years I have been on Briskoda. If the engine has been mapped, and likely bypasses emission regulations, then there is potential for 50 mpg on highways with average 60mph speeds. 10k miles a year at 30 mpg at current UK petrol prices is about £1800. It all rather depends on your priorities but I don't think you buy a 2.0tsi for economy.

Hi Shy, you said you liked a challenge and I remembered this thread from the archives. You and your family have a good break.

Sedan or estate? Manual or electric boot opening?

As @flybynite says the saw toothing will most likely have been caused by incorrect rear suspension set up. I had the same problem with my then brand new mk2 with irs and incorrect setup from the factory.

It is the union contingent of the VW board that have admitted they have a problem with Skoda's 'success' since it potentially impacts on their members employment prospects. VW has the lowest ROFE of the group and the Skoda one of the best so I think your financial premise is wrong.