Hi guys,

 

I have a '56 octavia classic (1u) tdi PD. The engine is the BXE, it 5 speed and has 135k miles on the clock. I am getting around 40mpg for mixed driving, around 75% motorway cruising 65-75 mph and 25% city driving. I can't manage more than 45mpg driving as economically as possible. I use the Torque Pro app to see live mpg values, and it ties up pretty well with actual mpg from brim-to-brim hand calculations.

 

Reading around, I am expecting more like 50+ mpg, and 60+ driving economically - is this reasonable?

 

So I have tried a few things to improve mpg, to no avail.......

• Service - oil, oil filter, air filter and fuel filter
• Diesel redex in a few tanks of fuel
• egr and asv clean
• reset "ecu learning"

From the new fuel filter, the engine seems to rev a bit more freely and has a bit more pull at the upper rev range - as I was expecting.

 

The redex has not really had much effect to notice.

 

The EGR had a build up of deposits, but not nearly as bad as some I have seen. All moving parts are moving as they should be. It was the same case with the ASV.

 

The egr clean doesn't feel to have made any difference, and has not impacted the mpg figures.

 

To reset the ecu learning (if that's the right thing to call it!), I followed the procedure in this post: -

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/146724-re-map-not-feeling-like-it-used-to-read-on/

Namely the "pedal to the floor, ign on, wait 10secs, ign off, start engine". Some claimed success with this method, I'm not so sure. Besides to say, and it may just be a placebo, that when driving and coming off the throttle, the car seems to engine brake less harshly than it has previously.

 

The coolant temperature (from the torque app) reads lower than what is indicated on the dash. The dash dial gets to 90degC (dead centre) and stays bang on there. The sensor reading on Torque gives 81-84degC at this point. It seems to be around 10% lower at all times. I guess that if the sensor is giving >~75degC, then the ecu will not overfuel as for a cold engine.

 

Can anyone suggest anything else I can check?

 

Thanks!

 

Is there maybe a better place to post this?

tyre pressure--binding brakes--MAF- all control vac lines, and full turbo vane travel---  after that I would be looking at a compression test and an injector test 

Thanks, I have had a look around re brakes and it seems that there is a common problem with the handbrake not releasing. I'll have a gander when I get home.