<40 over a full tank and that included a 220 motorway trip at 70 at the rest of the tank driving like I was on a driving lesson around Bristol .... 370 miles driven and 0 left on the dash. In all honesty, my dash reading is not all that far out (only about 4mpg or so) so that's not concerning me, but 40mpg at 70mph is :(

I see what you're saying. My journey is mostly a roads single lane, so i stick to 55ish in 5th under 2500 revs and it is still only 40. Other people report in excess of 50. Like you I've not been driving it at all hard. I'll be interested to see what your issue turns out to be.

My 04 VRS mpg readout is fairly close to accurate whereas my 56 plate's readout is very optimistic!

Mine is a 54 plate asz engine. I spoke to the dealer who mentioned it may be an iffy MAF or something. He was going to talk to his mechanic and come back to me. We'll see... I'm half tempted to see if i can find anywhere locally with a dyno and get a print out from that.

How long ago was the cam belt changed?

A couple of days before I bought the car, I insisted the garage I bought it from changed the belt and water pump. Is there something that may have been missed when they did that do you think?

Yup I bet the timing is incorrect, as in not optimal. Ask them if they can confirm with vagcom that the timing scycro angle is -1.0 -0.0. Was it a main dealer or independent garage?. None of the garages seem to fine tune the timing on this engine after changing a belt, claiming if they use the locking tools it will be close enough. If you have vcds it can be checked and adjusted using this method :

And contrary to belief rotating the sprocket clockwise retards the timing and anti clockwise advances it. My timing was done at the main dealers. I checked it with vcds and found the sync angle at 1.6 retarded. Not miles out but not perfect either. I easily adjusted it to 0.0 and mpg has improved a little. Car actually pulls a lot better now.

Edited 16 February, 201313 yr by RAPTURE

Interesting, thanks for that info. I bought it from a 3rd part dealer, I don't know if they even have a vag com, I'd like to hope so but you can never tell. My obd reader is an elm so no chance of it working with vcds. I'll have an ask around and see if anyone is local to me. There are a few people here from Devon too so i may get lucky if the garage can't/won't help.

I find it amazing that something being so minutely amiss could have such a massive effect on the car.

Will the synchro timing of -1.0 -0.0 be exactly the same for the 1.4TDI engines ?

DB.

I'm sorry i don't know what it should be for the 1.4 engine but they all have a sweet spot and different PD engines prefer it at different angle. The next step then mate is to remove the timing belt top cover and check for any Tipex or pen marks. Garages love to mark and prey with these engines, happened to me at a independent, after considerable hassle and the garage involved swearing blind it was perfect it was found to be half a tooth out by my Skoda main dealer. I was able to get most of the money back from that garage after contacting trading standards but what amazes me is even after the main dealer's work it was not spot on. It was varying from 1.1 to 1.6, and Skoda refused to adjust it without charging me £90 so i did it myself. Now sitting on 0.0 occasionally flicking to 0.5 . The tolerance is -3 to +3 so anywhere in between there will work but factory settings should be 0.0. That's how they can claim its ok without fine tuning it becuase its in tolerance but one degree can make a huge difference on these engines.

Edited 16 February, 201313 yr by RAPTURE

That is interesting to read, I will get the Haynes out and hopefully have a look tomorrow if the weather is good. I'm a bit of a novice with a spanner when it comes to engines but I'm happy to get my hands dirty as long as I can still drive at the end of my tinkering. It looks like I may have to invest in a suitable vagcom unit in the near future though.

The timing adv display on torque on my mobile is showing a consistent value of 63.5. I'm no expert but i guess this means my timing is advanced

Edited 23 February, 201313 yr by dancingbear84

The button is inside the neck of the fuel filler. It's a little knob thingy which you push with the fuel nozzle which vents the expansion tank which means you can get over 50 litres in the tank if you're empty enough

I did this this morning, gauge showing over 1/2 tank, put in 30 litres...