Hi all

Driving to Devon tomorrow and wondered, based on experience, was the best speed to get the maximum fuel economy.

Am driving a pd170 STD vrs so would good to hear from people with a similiar car

Was always told 56 mpg as a guide?

Thanks

Why would you want to? Drive a VRS as it's meant to be driven and enjoy imo....

Yer fair point but just curious.

Car seems to love anything from 75 mph upwards. Also seems 75 is quite good on the economy side.

The best ecomony I ever got from mine was doing around 55-60mph anything more and the economy starts to drop off.

Yes unfortunately it is around the 55 to 60 mph mark (true speed ie GPS not speedo indicated speed).

The sweet spot is usually just where the turbo charger starts to give its "wastegate" limited boost pressure which I think is about 1700 or 1800 rpm on most of the current Skodas but this unfortunately matches about 50 to 55 mph which is too slow as you will be overtaken by trucks etc.

Strangely Skoda, and VAG in general, use to have higher gearing on the 1.9D 130 hp engines ie 37 mph per 1000 on the early Fabia VRSs and about 35 mph per 1000 on the Octavias and these cars could easily do over 60 mpg and over 70 mpg is not that difficult to acheive.

I presume you have criuse control and I will often engage the criuse control for about 4 or 5 miles to do a bit of posture changing and streaching and during these stints I often see the consumption improve during these stints so the electronics are doing something quite clever.

There is no real difference in any of the 4 cylinder diesels due to their similar configuration and therefore 50 mpg should be quite achievable, mid 50s with considerate drving, did the run in 1.9D 130 hp last weekend loaded to the gunnels and got 54 mpg and that included flooring up holden hill and some of the other A38 hills. Set tyre pressures up for the load and safe drive.

Edited 11 September, 201015 yr by lol

its the same with my VRS TDI CR, doing 50-60mph returns me an everage mpg figure of 64mpg which isnt bad for the journey i do ( long climb up a mountain every day)

Driving to Devon tomorrow and wondered, based on experience, was the best speed to get the maximum fuel economy.

Unfortunately, the best speed for fuel economy will be as slow as you can reasonably go.

It will be more economical at 70 than it is at 80; more economical at 60 than 70; more economical at 50 than 60 and so forth until you get to a point where the engine is struggling.

Was always told 56 mpg as a guide?

It's a bit of a myth that 56 is the most economical speed, and that comes from the old fuel consumption figures where fuel consumption was quoted on the urban cycle, at a constant 56mph and at a constant 75mph (rather than the current urban, extra urban and combined cycles), and the consumption at 56 was always the best figure of the three so it was assumed that 56 was the best speed to drive at (or at least people assumed that 56 was the most economical speed so that's why the test was specified that way).

Of course the reason that the consumptions were tested at 56 and 75, were that they are 90 and 120 kph, typically the A-road and motorway speed limits in Europe. Publishing the consumption figures at 56 and 75 mph gives us harmonisation across europe It avoids having to collect the stats twice. Similarly 0-62 mph is of course 0-100 kph. The fuel consumption at 50 would without doubt be better than at 56 etc etc

Anyway, back to the question at hand; if you want to get there economically, I'd suggest driving at the limit in 30, 40 and 50 limits then at 55 in a 60 and 65 in a 70 (all on the speedo not on the GPS). Any slower and you'll start to get problems with lorries.

Be as smooth as you can and avoid using the brakes (i.e. look ahead and come off the throttle to slow down rather than carry on with your speed and braking to a halt), accelerate gently and use your cruise control whenever you can (if you have one) as it stops your speed creeping up.

And make sure you and your passengers go to the loo before setting off to keep the weight down :-) Actually, you're probably on the road by now

Thanks for the replies

spent most of my time on the circular car park that is the m25 so not the best measure.

Only managed 45 mpg on the way. Hopefully get better on the wat back?

Cheers