Hi, I have a 170cr 4x4 estate elegance, I've covered 1400 miles, may I add, great miles. However, the fuel economy is hurting my wallet. For about £65 for a full tank of diesel I'm getting about 330 miles. Is it that the engine is tighter than a 16 year old nun, or have I a problem. With my old 130 brake Octavia I was getting double this economy.

May I add this is mainly short journeys returning 35 ish mpg if I'm lucky.

The 4x4 system eats fuel.

35-ish mpg on short journeys isn't unusual in my experience.

It takes a reasonable run to get much into the 40s.

My average over 6000 miles of mixed use is in the high 30s. I usually get >380 miles before the light comes on.

All of the above figures are genuine, not from the MFD which is wildly optimistic.

As it happens, I'm still pretty happy with the economy, i.e. for a 4x4 diesel of this size and power to be in the 35-45 range depending on the runs I do.

I've got a 170CR Elegance Hatch (Manual Gearbox) which has now covered 32,000 miles and generally get between 560 and 600 miles to the tankful.

I must admit I'm not particularly heavy footed, but on a long journey recently ( all motorway and on cruise control set to 70 ) I got an impressive 68.9mpg ( indicated on the MFD ). I have found the MFD to be on the generous side usually about 10% over.

My previous car was an Audi A4 Estate 140bhp multitronic and I only ever got around 38mpg. ( When the company fuel allowance is 12p/mile ) it used to cost me money to use it for works business :'(

I'm sure it will get better as time goes by.

BTW, I keep a log of all journeys/ fuel used, and over the last 12 months my average fuel consumption is 48.32mpg. my best figure is 57.03mpg and the worst 39.32. I'm more than happy with these figures.

Just a quick shot from my dash (taken by passenger of course! ) showing the trip reading of 365.9 since filling up and a range remaining of 370 miles - you can see the fuel gauge just on half - I'm a very happy Superb driver.

Hi, I have a 170cr 4x4 estate elegance, I've covered 1400 miles, may I add, great miles. However, the fuel economy is hurting my wallet. For about £65 for a full tank of diesel I'm getting about 330 miles. Is it that the engine is tighter than a 16 year old nun, or have I a problem. With my old 130 brake Octavia I was getting double this economy.

May I add this is mainly short journeys returning 35 ish mpg if I'm lucky.

...not from the MFD which is wildly optimistic.

I must admit I'm not particularly heavy footed, but on a long journey recently ( all motorway and on cruise control set to 70 ) I got an impressive 68.9mpg ( indicated on the MFD ). I have found the MFD to be on the generous side usually about 10% over.

+1

I have since adjusted the settings with VCDS to bring the MFD MPG into line with the actual MPG.

So far I am averaging 47MPG (mine is the 170, but not 4x4) and have done just over 4K miles.

So this VCDS thing can adjust the MFD calculated mpg? pehaps another reason to go get this VCDS thing?

BTW, my "actual" mpg is getting slightly better, maybe the motor loosening up? (4k now), and maybe the weather?, and maybe my smoother driving?

I filled up to day at it worked out at 45.3mpg, my best yet. Thats mainly motorway but cra* slow traffic getting to & from it.

So this VCDS thing can adjust the MFD calculated mpg? pehaps another reason to go get this VCDS thing?

Yes in controller 17-Instruments, it's found under "Display correction of consumptions and operating range"

It is set to 100% as std, however this made my MFD read 5mpg to high (MFD reading 52mpg, actual 47mpg),

so I tried115%, this then made the MFD read 2.5mpg too low (MFD reading 44.5mpg, actual 47mpg),

I have now set it to 112% (it will not let you set fractions of a %) and will know in a few days how accurate it now is - I'm guessing it will be pretty spot on now?

Why are we having to make adjustments to the computer? Why can't they just give you a car that can measure the fuel consumption! How difficult can that be? Just goes to show all these extras we have bought into aren't really worth much.

MFD data is to be used as a rough guide, it isn't meant to be a scientific instrument. The speedo is out of whack by about 10% but we all accept it. Brim to brim will always be the definitive test for fuel consumption.

My non 4x4 CR170 averages about 475-500 miles per tank, that is with a fully loaded boot and the odd abuse of the loud pedal.

The best tank to date is 635 miles. The car has now done 14,500 miles.

Diesel fuel economy is dire when the engine is new but it will improve quickly as the miles go by.

I do a lot of short journeys and the best I regularly is just under 500 miles from brim to 50 miles left in the tank. although I easily managed a theoretical range of 600 miles during a fully loaded trip to Germany last summer.

The ultimate in optimism

Yes, thanks to the high quality optics in the iPhone camera that does indeed say 820 miles

I posted earlier that I had 50mpg on a 600 miles run with two bikes on a tow ball rack and a full boot of gear.

Given some MFD leeway I guess it looks l more like 47mpg.

I'll settle for that from a 2.2 tonne car and extra weight and drag.

I came from a crappy Astra estate company car which turned in 30mpg on a good day.

Phil

500 miles on a tank is EASY - including town work and as phil, a boot full of stuff.

Yesterday's run around, Sunderland, Newcastle, Durham, including Tyne Tunnel and some A1, averaged out at 48.6 on the MFD. - even on it's 1st run from the dealers (Leeds to Sunderland) it put in a respectable 48mpg on the MFD. (mostly Dual Carriage way)

With 80 miles remaining, and 475 covered, i filled her up yesterday...

As Phil, I have a 170 4x4, and realistically, the 4x4 system only looses you around 2 mpg, but equates to a safer driving experience.

On a trip to London last year, 56mpg was acheived (Brim-Brim!)

Al.

Cheers for all the replies, all I need to do is sit back, do the mileage and let the engine loosen up. You've just given me an excuse to pop out for a drive. See ya later.

I have an Octavia Scout 4x4.

Its 140bhp compared to your 170bhp, smaller and lighter than the Superb.

If I believed the MFD I'd be a happy chappy as it attempts to fool me into thinking my car is super frugal on fuel.

The only true MPG figures are those calculated with some paper, a pen and a smidge of mental arithmetic.

My Scout actually averages 39mpg with sedate driving.

If the 4x4 Superb beats or even matches this I'll be amazed.

It should do. My 4x4 averaged 38.something (real not maxidot) on last fill up where about 75% was city driving. With motorway and/or A road driving it creeps up into early 40's.

It has ~2K on the clock.

Cheers

Steve

Yes in controller 17-Instruments, it's found under "Display correction of consumptions and operating range"

It is set to 100% as std, however this made my MFD read 5mpg to high (MFD reading 52mpg, actual 47mpg),

so I tried115%, this then made the MFD read 2.5mpg too low (MFD reading 44.5mpg, actual 47mpg),

I have now set it to 112% (it will not let you set fractions of a %) and will know in a few days how accurate it now is - I'm guessing it will be pretty spot on now?

112% was 1mpg low (MFD 48.1 actual, 49mpg), each 1% equates to 1/2mpg, so I now have it set to 110% .

Why are we having to make adjustments to the computer? Why can't they just give you a car that can measure the fuel consumption! How difficult can that be? Just goes to show all these extras we have bought into aren't really worth much.

Very difficult. The computer don't know what the effective rolling radius of your tyres actually is. That requires knowing how much pressure is in them, what make & model they are, & how much tread depth is left.

What your car does know is how fast the axle is turning, but it has to guess at the radius of the tyre.

Just the tread depth will vary from 8mm for new tyres to 1.6mm for just barely legal tyres. That's before you take into account tyre pressure, which could be very low, or differences in deflection due to various makes of tyre.

on a 17" wheel, that's a raduis of 8.5", and a further 4" of tyre = 12.5" form centre to tread. conservatively allowing up to 15mm for variations in tread depth and normal variations in tyre pressure / inflation due to load differences, gives a 5% variation in overall effective radius. That's a 50 meter unknown in every km measured on the axle.

That's before the effect of speed is taken into account. The faster the car travels, the greater the centripetal acceleration on the wheel is. this results in the radius of the wheel becoming greater as you speed up. This effect is less with Radial tyres than with Cross ply, which are no-longer used for most cars, but it's still there.

there are similar unknowns in determining the total quantity of fuel used, and other factors in carrying out the calculation.

As mentioned elsewhere Speedometers often deliberately over-estimate your speed, so that after errors are taken into account they still cant under-estimate it resulting in someone claiming that they didnt' know they were speeding

It's really not

Whilst that would all be correct if the odometer was taken from the rolling circumference of the tyre, when it's taken from the gearbox it will make no difference at all to the incorrect mpg reading the maxidot gives the driver.

Been having a mull about this. As speedometers consistently over-read so that - tolerances allowed - they never under-read, what's the effect on distance recorded and therefore the accuracy of even brim-to-brim figures? If the car thinks it's gone, say, 105 miles for every 100 miles actually travelled, then wouldn't that overstate a brim-to-brim consumption figure by 5%? Hmmmmm...

Incidentally I agree that rolling radius must make a difference to the accuracy of a speedo and therefore also a fuel computer that takes the same input to calculate distance travelled. For a given number of revolutions as measured at the gearbox output, a car will travel 1% further on tyres whose effective circumference is 1% greater.

Yes in controller 17-Instruments, it's found under "Display correction of consumptions and operating range"

It is set to 100% as std, however this made my MFD read 5mpg to high (MFD reading 52mpg, actual 47mpg),

so I tried115%, this then made the MFD read 2.5mpg too low (MFD reading 44.5mpg, actual 47mpg),

I have now set it to 112% (it will not let you set fractions of a %) and will know in a few days how accurate it now is - I'm guessing it will be pretty spot on now?

Got a friendly VCDS owner to have look at this today, on my car it comes up with a value of 0.0 degrees? We decided to leave it well alone as it was obvious we were not quite in the right place.

Any ideas?

I topped up my tyres to the rated pressure, and got an extra 7 MPG on the trip allong the A13 - M25 - A12 east-bound. - and thats with the roofrack still attached. got 61MPG on the trip, including a start beside the Tower of London.

driving a Greenline modle.

I have a 170 tdi elegance estate with just under 10k on the clock. I have what I consider to be a frugal driving style 99% of the time.

The worst mpg I have is 35 with the best being 41. Maxidot is consistantly 4 to 5 mpg over reading.

This consists mainly of my daily commute which is about 18 miles of free running motorway, 6 miles of free running B road and 3 miles in slow traffic.

Even when ive done a few 15 0mile round trips of mostly motorway I still cant get the maxidot average above 48.

Tyre pressures are all correct.

I must be doing something wrong!

I have a 170 tdi elegance estate with just under 10k on the clock. I have what I consider to be a frugal driving style 99% of the time.

The worst mpg I have is 35 with the best being 41. Maxidot is consistantly 4 to 5 mpg over reading.

This consists mainly of my daily commute which is about 18 miles of free running motorway, 6 miles of free running B road and 3 miles in slow traffic.

Even when ive done a few 15 0mile round trips of mostly motorway I still cant get the maxidot average above 48.

Tyre pressures are all correct.

I must be doing something wrong!

My experience is that a somewhat sporty driving with high rews can make a difference(!). First case was a drive with my boss car. That was a petrol engine turbo that I drove a bit aggressive, not endangering anyones lives and security of course. At the time my boss didn't like it so much but he told me later that his car had been much more fuel efficient after that trip so he forgave me my "spirited" driving. My second case is my current Skoda that I drove a bit more aggressive with lately, with a warm engine of course. It's seems to have a positive effect so far, I have to check it up by the pump next time. What I'm saying is that it's probably good for a warmed up engine to work hard from time to time. If this is applicable for you I can't tell. Just my 2 p.

/Superbjoser

h just my 10 pence worth

last week drove just over a 1000 miles and have avaraged just over 54mpg on mfd 50% a roads and 50% motorways

very impressed

Andy

The way to check how many miles to the gallon the car is doing is to fill it up to the brim...go for an hrs drive locally, then make a note of the mileage before you started off and then the mileage when you re-fill up. The do the math on how much fuel you put in...calculate how many miles you did in that hour and equate that to the cost and the mpg. You might be shocked...especially if you drive a 3.6v6 superb !!