Gerrycan

Driving education in Australia (and UK) is pretty bad! Totally unlike the thorough driving student education required in Scandanavian countries. Once you pass your basic driving test you pretty well learn through the school of experiences survived and hard knocks, which is really not the best way. Do yourself a favour and enrol in a one-day Defensive Driving course where you will first learn on a track to perform emergency braking and then steering while emergency braking. I have done the same course twice, several years of car technology apart, and really recommend them. One of the main points they make was that the manufacturer's normal recommended pressures are mainly for comfort and not for safely coping with emergency braking. They recommend about 5 psi over recommended pressures (for a given weight) to avoid the front tyres deforming under heavy braking causing loss of tyre contact with ground and therefore maintains better braking performance. Coincidentally the extra pressure usually coincides with the best economy pressures from the manufacturers, and it can give a noticeable improvement in fuel consumption. As mentioned above, set the pressures when the tyres are cold. Too high a pressure can be dangerous, cause uneven wear across the tyre, and make for an uncomfortable ride on rougher roads. Too low a pressure for the weight in the car with high speeds can cause tyres to overheat and destruct.

@LuxoviaRS, you have not bought a very economical car in the first place. It has useful performance, and it can be relatively economical in the right circumstances, but obviously not if you use the performance, and not particularly good in heavy traffic, but then again what is? Other than a hybrid or EV You have not said in what part of Australia you live. If the east coast, then you may have experienced a lot of rain and high humidity and, as I mentioned to the OP, running the aircon to control humidity will have a noticeable adverse effect on consumption (it runs the heating and cooling at the same time). None of the official consumption figures include running any other equipment, which I think is wrong. I have never used adaptive cruise control in a city environment. I'm sure it is very convenient, but I cannot think that it would actually be very economical in stop/start traffic, probably using a lot of low gears, a lot of relatively late braking and killing consumption. I think your best bet to test the car is run it on an open flat road in top gear at around 100kph and if the instantaneous consumption is somewhere around 6l/100 then your car is probably fine and your expectations for city driving a bit optimistic.

While it is important to correctly code the battery type and size for correct charging and longer battery life there is no reason why it would noticeably affect fuel consumption. The only time I have seen idle consumption at or near 2.2l/hr in my 1.4tsi was related to several factors: Outside temperature of 47 deg Centigrade, 5 occupants, city driving, air conditioner going full blast to cool us and radiator fan going full blast to cool engine and air conditioner. These loads really affected general consumption adversely as well. Controlling high humidity with the aircon also worsens consumption. I see that recent Istanbul temperatures are at a relatively comfortable low 30's so it may not be the reason for your problems. When the engine is warmed up and the aircon turned off what is the idle consumption showing and what are the revs per minute? My car would show 0.5L/100 and 700 rpm.

'Urban' and 'highway' are generic but non-specific terms, the former usually has more interrupted flow patterns and slower speed limits than the latter. Still useful terms to distinguish between the driving environments, I think. You don't have to be in neutral, you can also coast just by disengaging the clutch on a manual . The point is that I can coast more freely than some seem to be able to with their DSG box and associated programming. It had never occurred to me that there would be so much variation between similar models with DSG. If I ever make the transition to DSG (but probably more likely an EV) then I'd like to have the option to coast where I think conditions will promote lower consumption of fuel or electricity.

I have a different car, an old 1.4tsi manual Octavia, and of course I can choose when to coast where and when I want. I have experimented with coasting and there are pros and cons. An example of 'pro' I have cited before is a long descent on a 110kph limit highway where the gradient allows the car to coast at a constant 110 kph (aero drag matches gravity), the (my) engine is idling and consuming 0.5L/hour. If it is in top gear, then some extra throttle has to be applied for the engine to maintain 2700rpm to avoid engine braking and slowing the car below 110kph and that shows consumption near 2L/100, which is nearly four times as much. If the gradient was more then I would be better off with car in gear using engine braking and zero fuel to keep the car below the speed limit. In an urban environment, coasting will get better consumption than having to maintain revs in a lower gear for a low speed. If lessening of speed is required, then you are better off using engine braking than coasting the distance and then applying the brakes. While I know what works I cannot be bothered to utilise that knowledge all the time and just do what is easiest, which is read the road and anticipate traffic movements to avoid unnecessary use of brakes. Mad keen hypermilers in the US have a kill switch in the car so that when they are free coasting then can turn the engine off, the semi-sensible ones have pumps supplying air pressure for the brakes. And continually accelerate and coast (engine off), getting up everyone's' nose. Remember the time when they built tiny vehicles with specialised engines that achieved 1000mpg? IF they ran the engine all the time then they would 'only' get consumption in the hundreds, but by accelerating to speed and then coasting with engine off they managed multiples better consumption. It also utilised the factor that an ICE engine is at its most efficient at revs and under load. It is somewhat confusing for some that an ICE car running at its most economical speed (let's say top gear at 65 to 70 kph) is actually operating below best efficiency because a high percentage of the fuel consumed is just to get the engine to the required revs and the rest in propelling the car. A formula one car at full throttle is one of the most efficient engines in the world despite the huge amount of fuel consumed.

Don't do anything, it is covered by warranty so contact the dealers to sort out. If you fiddle with it in any way, they may claim it invalidates the warranty. You should be able to get a courtesy car if they need to keep it to sort out

It does seem poor, the official WLTP low speed consumption is 6.4L/100. Have you done a longer journey that allows the engine to warm up and if what is consumption like then? Where are you based? How long are your journeys? Average speeds? Distance on odometer? When last serviced? Tyres checked and what pressures?

I know it is Olympic year and all, and the Olympics will be coming back to Aus, if we can decide where and what stadium to build, but it seems that running is fashionable again with a lot more female participation especially at high levels. Athletics is a minority sport here but there were an unusual number (six) of ladies who posted qualifying times for the marathon and unfortunately only three could go to Paris. It meant there was some controversy over the selections in the press. Like the British press, ours tend to be nationalistic and were a bit over enthusiastic over the qualifying numbers but the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp) did bring some perspective to their cover of the story with the fact that Ethiopia had 79 female and 93 male runners achieving their respective qualifying times. Of course, only three of each could go to Paris. I mean .......wow, how bad would your self-esteem suffer at one of their Parkruns???

I'd say what you have done to date should be enough to allow the regen to complete but the fact it does not suggests there is something wrong. It could be high residual ash levels, or it could be a sensor malfunction. The poor consumption will be due to the system continually injecting fuel into the exhaust to get the temperature upto the required 400+ degrees to burn off what it thinks is excessive quantities of soot. I would be getting a specialist to look at it as soon as possible.

I think you are better off without AWD really. Useful in snow or allied to a bit of ground clearance or a really powerful engine but otherwise a mostly under utilised feature. Like you, neither of the diesels I owned had dpf (Australia lagged on emission standards) but despite liking diesels I gave them away when dpf became mandatory as they are not suited to our personal largely short urban drives. I think knowing the condition of your dpf will govern future actions.

I don't believe that is normal and would certainly be a major contributor for your generally poorer than expected consumption. As @varaderoguy says, a tdi is barely run in at 200k km but certainly enough distance for issues with the dpf to become apparent. A reasonably cheap ODBC dongle and an appropriate phone app will give you some idea of dpf ash levels. If ash levels are high then there are some businesses who will clean them out for a lot less than the excessive price of a new one. If someone has used this sort of service on their dpf, then it would be good if they could report on its effectiveness. Don't believe the claims from the sellers of fuel additives that their product will clean ash from a dpf.

The easy way is to peer underneath the car and see if the rear axle has a drive shaft going to it. Or this site might help: What Generation of Haldex is on my car? – Haldex Parts and ECU Repairs by Auto Fault Finder Ltd (haldexrepairs.co.uk). There are a lot of factors that affect consumption, so you need to supply a lot more information if want a more definitive reply. If you do a lot of journeys less than 10 km then your consumption is very good. If longer trips on motorways, then fairly poor Your typical driving conditions urban/country/motorway and usual journey driving distance and average speed would be helpful for a more definitive reply Condition of car: distance on odometer, condition of diesel particulate filter (DPF) would be helpful for others to reply. Are you in Northern Ireland and working in miles or Eire with metric settings? I only ask because if the latter then you have to make sure you are converting L/100 to imperial mpg not US mpg for correct figures. Surprising how many make the mistake of using the Internet US preferences.

Vrs has the 'wet' clutch packs so is unlikely to be affected by potential wear issues that stop/start traffic would have on the lower powered equipped 'dry clutch' packs. Good question for the dry clutch DSG though imo.

Different car, 1.4tsi, but identical symptoms and it required a new water pump.

Normally a car with torsion bar rear suspension, with little to no adjustment available, only has alignment of the front suspension. Still a good idea to have the rear suspension checked in case it has been knocked out of whack and causing your unusual issues.

Even without any experience of a PHEV, much less towing with one, it sounds to me like you have answered your own question. Your logic is pretty sound and the only question in my mind is whether the 80% is the right figure, but I guess that would depend on terrain? How much braking effect does the regenerative braking have when the caravan is attached?

That is awesome! I could only get down to around four minutes a kilometre at my best and when I tried to intensify training for further improvements, which I felt were attainable, I literally ran into injuries in the form of painful 'shin splints'. Unfortunately, the only real cure is then rest and a moderated training regime. More than a bit annoying but I was happy to get the many other health benefits that running offered without having to go to the extremes. If you have the physiology that can cope with your ambitions, and you enjoy it as much as you do, then why not? The social aspect is generally recognised as being extremely important in enjoyment of a sport and underestimated for general wellbeing, but I didn't get into the social side of running since it was not something my wife could really share. Good luck on the 19th of May in the half marathon, and let us know how you go.

Hired the sedan version about 3 years back holidaying in the Australian Northern Territory and while that had the less powerful 1.8l engine I concur it was amazingly economical. That was with the aircon on permanently to cope with the high temperatures and humidity. The hatchback is a bit too small and the boot miniscule. Unfortunately the estate version is not available here unless as a grey import from Japan.

My experience with speedometer accuracy is that there is quite a bit of variation between cars and even between individual cars of the same make and model. The worst was a barely legal 9.5% optimistic so I had to travel at an indicated 120kph for a true 110kph, and even its odometer was nearly as bad (which sort of suited me for tax purposes). My two Skoda were/are about 7% and 6% optimistic although the odo is almost spot on in both cases. I remember reading a review of a Rolls Royce and even that speedo was about 4% optimistic. My current 2003 Toyota Echo with digital speedo display is within 2% accuracy judged by GPS. So, everyone's individual claims are probably right, and it is what it is.

How does 13 or 11 divided by 2 equal 10 ? You posted the following image in thread

Unless there have been changes, I thought the Octavia PHEV only charged at a max of 3.6kwh? which takes about 4 hours for its relatively small battery? If that is still the case, then a standard house plug will take around 6 hours so why bother with the expense of a home charger?

What model Octavia do you have and currently what wheel and tyre size are fitted? 4 x $300 seems a lot for Ocatavia tyres, so also tell us what tyre manufacturer and type you are looking at. I have saved a lot of money with reputable brands by shopping around on the internet for my cars' tyres. If I'd just stuck with the brand fitted when new it would have cost me a lot more, and they weren't that good a tyre anyway. As @J.R. says, if you open the fuel filler there will be a table of different acceptable wheel and tyre sizes that can be fitted and their recommended pressures. Of course, a radical size change will incur the extra expense of new rims AND new tyres. Some people do this to get the ride characteristics they want but your concerns seem mainly at the price I believe that NSW vehicles are subject to an annual vehicle(?) (we don't have this in South Australia) so you should follow the size recommendations. I thought all Octavia came at least a spacesaver spare tyre in Aus? I would not buy any car with just a can of 'goo' for our driving environment. Which will be a bit of a problem when I look at changing to an EV as 90% of them don't have a spare.

Our older slightly less powerful 103kw but manual version of the 1.4tsi managed a driving holiday to from Adelaide to Tasmania with 4 adults and two had full international travelling luggage that really challenged the legendary luggage capacity of the wagon (at last I can say wagon here instead of estate ). Every stop at many wineries increased the load further for some reason and each day's repacking was like a harder game of Tetris. Tassie is very hilly in parts and sure you noticed the load, but I was really impressed at how well the vehicle coped with the load and gradients because the full torque is available at such low revs. While the engine is very smooth and happy to rev out you really do not have to and to be honest with just 103kw power (in our case) that is not where it does its best work. Our friends were so impressed with the performance of the car they went home to Scotland and sold their Porsche 911.....and bought a Golf R 😄. I don't think you will go far wrong with either car but if you can afford the initial purchase price and the higher fuel costs then go the RS route. It will be the better driving car for sure. With that much occasional load are you sure you would not be better off with a Superb? One other thing to be aware of is ground clearance on the RS is about 129mm and 1.4tsi about 147mm, not a lot but would be noticeable on our driveway out to the road and on some of the Aussie dirt roads we occasionally travel on.

I agree that is pretty reasonable for a vRS but when you look at the average speed (39 mph) then I start to ask if a vRS the best car if you are looking for reasonable consumption? Without knowing the route in detail, my guess is that lesser engined versions (1.0tsi, 1.5tsi, 1.4tsi) would achieve far better than 50mpg with a similar driving profile and a lot less 'effort'. Would be interesting, if you had the opportunity, to compare results for the same journey same style with the car in 'Normal ' mode rather than 'Eco'. Not everyone has found 'eco' to actually be more economical for them. I think the rationale is that not everyone uses coasting to best effect compared to being better practiced at utilising engine braking.

Hi @Redmanc99, I must have responded to your post on my phone (based on my stilted grammar), but I missed the very important letters 'vrs'......doh! My response was based on my own lower spec, less sporty 1.4tsi Octavia. However, after a bit of a google search, it appears that both the vRS in mk2 and mk3 are around 129mm, although there was a reference suggesting that the 245bhp version may be 99mm. You would have been better posting in the more frequented Octavia mk3 section of the forum where my mistake would have been picked up by others. Did you buy one?