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Fuel consumption problem with my vRS


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About a month ago I bought a 56 fabia vrs which I am over the moon with. I upgraded from a fabia comfort 1.9tdi(100) so am familiar with the way the dials and gauges work. The problem I have is that, even though my mpg gauge(which I know can be a little bit optimistic) is reading about 46-47 mpg on average, I only seem to be getting about 36 mpg in reality. That means I only get about 345 miles out of a full tank of fuel when I should be getting about 450ish.

I have had a full service on it so the fuel and air filters have been replaced (abeit not with genuine skoda ones) which made no difference. I have also had it in the Skoda garage and put through a full diagnostic and they say there's nothing wrong with it.

The car runs fine and the power is there. The only thing I would say I've noticed is that sometimes when I come off the gas smoothly but maintain a tiny bit of throttle to maintain my speed, sometimes the engine coughs a bit. After a while of running(I am a driving instructor so most of the day on and off) it sometimes ticks over a bit heavy at idle, resulting in a bit of a constant judder.

I have heard that a faulty MAF sensor can result in poor fuel consumption and sometimes does not show up on a diagnostic. Could it be this? The only problem is there is no noticeable loss of power and wouldn't it show up on the mpg gauge?(assuming it's working properly).

Anyone who's got any ideas they would be greatly appreciated. I am starting to run out of options...

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When you say 350 to a full tank is thaat from full too the light coming on? In the current weather I'm getting around 370.

I use to have a problem which at first no fauly would show. Other symptons were it wouldn't fire straight away. Turned out the camshaft sensor was faulty.

Edited by faboka vrs
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When you say 350 to a full tank is thaat from full too the light coming on? In the current weather I'm getting around 370.

I use to have a problem which at first no fauly would show. Other symptons were it wouldn't fire straight away. Turned out the camshaft sensor was faulty.

I get just shy of 350 miles from the tank being brimmed to the 'miles of fuel left' guage reading 0. The fuel light comes on as it's coming up to 300 miles and the "miles of fuel left' gauge reads about 70. Even though it says I have 70 miles left in the tank I only end up getting about 55 miles. It's like the fuels falling out the car before it gets to any meters or sensors, but the garage have said there's no leaks.

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I am having the exact same problem except mine is remapped so I put it down to that. Maybe its our MAF's!

I think that's the next step. Have you noticed any loss in power or black smoke? The mechanic said that if it was faulty you would experience these things, or is it possible for it to be faulty without having these symptoms?

Edited by kaitechno
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mines like that but put it down to short trips and town driving

I'm a driving instructor so my driving style is exactly the same pretty much all the time(including the blast home by myself with the sign off). The weather this time of year does make quite a difference. In my other Fabia I would get about 460 miles out of a tank and in winter it dropped to about 430.

Does anyone know if non-Skoda parts(i.e the fuel and air filters) makes a massive difference?

Edited by kaitechno
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assuming the filters are all clean and new, then yes I'd think maybe it's the maf that is causing the poorer mpg.

However I did notice that when the temps fell constantly below ZERO, the car's mpg suffered quite considerably. I do 60miles a day to work, and I can get 45-55mpg depending on how I drive it.

In the extreme cold weather this dropped to 40mpg or below for the same journey to work.

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Does anyone know if non-Skoda parts(i.e the fuel and air filters) makes a massive difference?

Neither will really, the fuel filter wont have any effect at all, either it works or it doesn't. You might want to run some Forte through it see if that makes any difference. You might also have had a few duff tanks of diesel especially if you have got it from the same place, it happens. It's more than likely a lot of factors including the cold though all acting together.

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Neither will really, the fuel filter wont have any effect at all, either it works or it doesn't. You might want to run some Forte through it see if that makes any difference. You might also have had a few duff tanks of diesel especially if you have got it from the same place, it happens. It's more than likely a lot of factors including the cold though all acting together.

I buy my fuel from wherever is closest and I've only noticed a drop in fuel effeciency over the winter months before, never single tanks of fuel. What I can't work out is, assuming my mpg gauge is working ok, why it still gives me readings of 46-47mpg. If it is the fuel, the MAF sensor or whatever, surely all of these things would afftect the result given?

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my best vrs run was pre remap whilst trying to get best mpg by sitting at around 55/56mph for 100 miles of a/b roads and a short stint on a motorway threw only 3 small towns and gave 71.9mpg (was bloody hard work I can tell you)

after remap that dropped on same run doing same again to 67mpg on computer and with my normal driving it averaged over 3500 miles on trip(2) computer 54mpg

reset before cold weather around nov and in 1700 miles ive dropped to 51.2mpg average on comp :(

I know how to squeeze max mpg from a diesel car but tbh im not poor enough to drive in such a depressing way on a resent 400 mile run I averaged 58.9mpg A roads dual carriageway and motorways mostly and sticking to 70mph constant MAX (licence worth too much to get flashed by 50 cameras in one day)

today 20 mile run on a cold engine that I make regularly now norm 45mpg ish I got 37 .............. but what a drive it was :D

6th gear is not your friend if you looking for MPG at legal speeds (non flat motorway) IMHO

for my car I keep thinking that something is wrong as MPG drops a lot but when I try my hard I can get it back (if I choose to) think im just too used to it now and taking the torque for granted :D

Edited by FUBAR
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my best vrs run was pre remap whilst trying to get best mpg by sitting at around 55/56mph for 100 miles of a/b roads and a short stint on a motorway threw only 3 small towns and gave 71.9mpg (was bloody hard work I can tell you)

after remap that dropped on same run doing same again to 67mpg on computer and with my normal driving it averaged over 3500 miles on trip(2) computer 54mpg

reset before cold weather around nov and in 1700 miles ive dropped to 51.2mpg average on comp :(

I know how to squeeze max mpg from a diesel car but tbh im not poor enough to drive in such a depressing way on a resent 400 mile run I averaged 58.9mpg A roads dual carriageway and motorways mostly and sticking to 70mph constant MAX (licence worth too much to get flashed by 50 cameras in one day)

today 20 mile run on a cold engine that I make regularly now norm 45mpg ish I got 37 .............. but what a drive it was :D

6th gear is not your friend if you looking for MPG at legal speeds (non flat motorway) IMHO

for my car I keep thinking that something is wrong as MPG drops a lot but when I try my hard I can get it back (if I choose to) think im just too used to it now and taking the torque for granted :D

Cheers for the info. It's good to get an idea of what other people are achieving at the moment. I've just run some STP diesel cleaner through the fuel tank and it seems to be running a bit smoother but I haven't had the chance to see if it's affected fuel economy. It really seemed to drink the fuel even quicker, is this normal? Does anyone know what the best fuel additive to run through the engine is?

The cold weather is definately a factor in the low fuel economy but, having bought the car in December, I will just have to wait a little bit until the weather starts warming up a bit to see if it comes back up.

Anybody else know what mpg they're getting roughly?

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on my way to work even in the cold wether i can get 50+ on the return journey its about 45mpg so not that bad :thumbup: i usually get about 350-400mile out of a tank and usually refill up around the 1/4 mark :thumbup:

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The cold weather has certainly made a difference to my fuel economy. During the summer months, I was averaging around 57 - 58 mpg per tank full (calculated, not using the computer). The last couple of tanks I've managed 52 - 53 mpg. And that is with a fair bit of slow driving. My drive to work (for instance) is 50 MPH speed limit most of the way (and I usually obey it...).

At the moment, I'm getting the low fuel indicator coming on at about 450 miles, whereas during summer, I was seeing 490+ before it started beeping.

I've been running 250ml of low ash 2 stroke oil per tank full for the last 8 - 9 months, which has improved the economy a bit, and made the engine a lot smoother.

Paul.

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Only physically get about 45 mpg on average from my Fabia VRS.

On board computer not 100% accurate, try one tankful of fuel (up to the filler neck) noting mileage to the next fill-up.--

Your driving should be normal, this will be a far better gauge of fuel useage.

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Only physically get about 45 mpg on average from my Fabia VRS.

On board computer not 100% accurate, try one tankful of fuel (up to the filler neck) noting mileage to the next fill-up.--

Your driving should be normal, this will be a far better gauge of fuel useage.

I figured the trip computer was not accurate which has been confusing because in my last fabia, which was a 1.9tdi comfort, the trip computer was spot on. I used the brim-to-brim method and was only getting 36.5mpg when the trip computer was reading 46ish. I've just run through a tank with some STP diesel fuel system cleaner, filled up a fresh tank yesterday and the trip computer is coming out at about 53-54mpg. Given the difference before, hopefully this means I should be getting about 45ish mpg. Hopefully problem solved. Cheers for all the advice from everyone. I will keep you posted :)B)

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