Yesterday I had a drive.

 

Highway, with uphills and downhills, bike on the roof with thule wingbar.

 

Cruise control set to 135km/h

 

Average consumption was 6.5 L/100km, which is about 43mpg/UK.

 

Is this good or bad?

 

The car has about 1500km on it clock.

 

I wonder how much the bike takes away fuel..

 

Also, I noticed with cruise control when I press resume (I dont have addaptive cruise control), for example after some paytol it accelerates quite hard to the set speed :p

Edited 26 August, 201411 yr by toni8b

That sounds about right... the bike really does sap the fuel.

 

Last year we did a trip with 2 bikes on the roof to Germany. We would normally get about 47-50mpg... we got 38mpg!!!

 

Phil

Edited 26 August, 201411 yr by Phil-E

Roof bars, roof boxes, bikes, and trailers (which I tow very regularly) all affect the fuel consumption more than a lot of people realise. Just the bars by themselves are worth at least a couple of mpg in my experience. Of them all I think a trailer is probably best for more luggage space - it has a small aerodynamic effect, but does increase the weight the engine has to pull along.

 

In regard to the original question, I have a 2.0TDi 4x4 (150PS) and I find that I always get about 42mpg for normal journeys, which increases to 50mpg or so on longer journeys. I just came back from Dorset the other day on motorways at 70mph (honestly!) and got about 52.5mpg. I know that much better figures must be possible with a FWD version.

 

I have to say that I am extremely impressed by this engine - it is so responsive when you want it to be, but at the same time capable of very respectable fuel consumption figures.

Edited 26 August, 201411 yr by nickcoll

Is easy to remove thule wingbar but removing roof bars just for a trip seems like too much of a hassle to me.

+1 for what Phil & NickColl said about roofboxes, bikes etc reducing fuel economy.

I remember an article in the news a couple of world cups ago about the extra costs those plastic door flags added to the car.

 

 

For your comment about cruise control, the rate of acceleration is dependant on the difference to the desired set speed.

e.g.

If you are 50kph below the set-speed & press resume, the car will accelerate hard to reach the required speed quickly.

If you are only 10kph below the set-speed, the acceleration is very light.