Bought my first Octavia estate a 1.9tdi Elegance in Dec '09. Fantastic car never let me down and it returned 50mpg+ on every type of run with a tank range over 600 miles.

 

Just got a 2.0tdi SE estate and the tank range is almost 25% lower at 450. I know I'm still running it in (about 2k miles in now) but the tank size is the same and it is the same model of car

 

Where did those 150 miles go?

 

Yours, confused, John

Yhe mk3 has a smaller tank than the mk2FL

Slightly smaller tank, nice new engine will all lead to reduced range.

When I had my old MK2 Octavia 2.0 Diesel the engine MPG improved a lot in the first in the 12K miles and sort of stabilised and maintained about the same consumption until I sold it at 100K miles.

Yhe mk3 has a smaller tank than the mk2FL

 

They both officially claim 50l tanks but in the new one I only seem to be able to get about 43l in

 

Thanks for the help

Slightly smaller tank, nice new engine will all lead to reduced range.

When I had my old MK2 Octavia 2.0 Diesel the engine MPG improved a lot in the first in the 12K miles and sort of stabilised and maintained about the same consumption until I sold it at 100K miles.

 

I'll look forward to upping the mileage then! Have been using the old one for non-work trips to keep the mileage down until I sell the old one in March

 

Thanks for the help

My Mk2 1.9d combi was a couple of years older than yours but the tank capacity was officially 55 litres and that's a definite, absolute, 100% for certain, no reservation statement.

However... you could get at least another 5 litres in it if you were brave enough to ignore the prompts from the 'empty' light. Like you I thought the car was great and could get over a 1000 km on a tank regularly and easily.

The Mk 3 combi is officially 50 litres, same capacity on diesel and petrol, but a lot of diesel drivers have the same complaint as you that the 'empty' light prompt occurs very early when there is at least 7 litres still in the tank. Apparently it is not a good thing to run dry on a diesel so the good people at Skoda have built this is as a 'feature'.

On my current Mk3 combi 1.4tsi (petrol) my empty indicator prompts me at 49 litres and I have run it down to a 53 litre fill on one occasion and someone showed evidence of a 55 litre fill up. So you don't have to run into the nearest petrol station when the light comes on. For the record my best tank on the mk3 is 910 km.

 

Side note: 4wd versions of mk2 officially have 60 litre tanks and mk3's are 55 litres.

 

About time someone made this a 'sticky' based on the number of times this question is raised?

About time someone made this a 'sticky' based on the number of times this question is raised?

 

Thanks for that explanation. I ran the new car down to 50 miles to go and could only fit 38 ltrs in making 43 ltrs

 

Checking both cars their long term MPG is similar. I kept a spreadsheet for the old car (anorak I know) and the best tank range (fill to fill) I ever got was almost 60mpg

 

I'm feeling better about things now

I've run mine to about -50 miles range and got about 48l in

Yeah the fuel gauge is so wrong it's laughable......

I've put 55L into the 50L tank in the 1.4 TSI

I have just ran my 2.0 diesel down to 0 range. I filled it up with just over 45 litres.

Yeah the fuel gauge is so wrong it's laughable......

 

Its like that for a reason, if you got down to zero range and it ran out of fuel there would be a lot of cars at the side of the road. The range is also based on a running average of MPG so its not going to be bang on.

 

I suspect they have to factor in an unknown amount of reserve fuel whereby people can't accurately predict when they will actually run out of fuel. This way people arn't tempted to go right down to fumes. Plus, even if they wanted to make the fuel gauge really accurate, with the shape of the tank and the type of sender used, plus the movement of the fuel, it would be very difficult.

 

It also doesn't do the lift pump much good as the temperature of the fuel in the tank can get quite warm a lot faster if you havn't got a large mass of fuel in there, especially in hot climates. whether this could lead to a premature failure or not I wouldn't like to say, I suppose if it was an issue the fuel cooler would be bigger.

 

And yes, the fuel tank sizes are rubbish. My Passat had a much bigger tank than the superb which was a surprise 

I get that, but it's soooooo far off its ridiculous. I know when my BM says --- on the range I need to fill up pdq, but actually it's still got about 20 miles in it. (I've never dared test more!) and I'll get around the tank size or just under in. When the Octy says it's got 20 miles left I can only get about 45 quid of diesel in the tank, so actually it's got more like 100 miles left!

All cars have their idiosyncrasies with fuel gauge and tripmeter accuracy and as mentioned above with the generally flat shape of modern tanks it is not surprising.

After a fill up my gauge is hard on the full mark and does not come off it until I have covered 150 to 200 km. When it reaches the half-way mark I calculate that about 33 litres have been used (at best about 600 km covered on a run). I'll be lucky to get 300 km out of the 'half a tank' and the gauge drops quite quickly.

The distance to empty reflects the fuel gauge status so is sometimes optimistic but then when the fuel status is low it reasonably accurate. Not a good idea to run out of fuel in some parts of Australia

The tripmeter in terms of average consumption for 'trip', 'since refuel' and long-term' is outstandingly accurate and corresponds almost exactly to my recordings and I have great confidence in the 'instant' readings.  The speedo is about 5% to 8% optimistic depending on speed so I take that into consideration but my odometer is very accurate with the 17 inch tyres.

Yup full time, paid-up and card holding member of the 'anoraks' club