I have just purchased 2015 a octavia 1.6 tdi elegance estate as my new taxi.

It was officialy advertised as 73mpg urban 85 mpg extra urban. So far i'm far from impressed with it's mpg the lies will cost me dearly. i've had short around town journeys 35-43mpg(with stop start on) and the highest i've had at over 40mph is 56mpg...

i have tried several times on really low revs of 1-1.5k revs and others 2-2.5 k rev changes even on eco mode.

I have to say i'm quite gutted skoda has seriously lied about mpg. The car i just sold was a golf 2.0 tdi sportline estate stage 1 it averaged 44-47 around town 58-65 on motor ways.

The car is excellent apart from mpg. So i would love to hear what kind of real mpg other users have with the same car? Or if it would be better off with stop start off anything usefull.

My 1.6 TDI is averaging about 60mpg. I hope for that to improve when the engine loosens up as the car's only two weeks and 600 miles old.

Mid 50's with the DSG box. Over 60 if I'm nice to it.

What sort of driving conditions are you doing that on? Duel carrageways and motorways?

Mine seems really low if i basicaly start it hit the lights and do a say a 1-2 mile taxi fare

Also i'm getting tneese figures from the 'average consumption since start' section

It's a brand new engine and you're driving in the worst conditions for MPG.

 

Also don't be too gentle with the revs. The 1.6 CR does like to rev a little more and when I had one for a few weeks found it used much more fuel if laboured rather than letting it rev a little. The gearing is also quite high.

It has 12500miles on it so it should be worn in

Something that could be having an effect is if you're using the brakes too much

Always take these claimed figures with a pinch of salt! I've got the same car and typical mileage for me mainly urban with shorter constant speed sections would be around 53 mpg, this car has an issue with leggy gearing due to the 5 speed box, think of third gear as really being fourth for town driving in and around 30mph, don't labour the engine by trying to drive in fourth in these conditions as it will use more fuel that way. With longer runs and my engine now fully run in, it can manage 60 plus mpg, have seen it showing 70mpg a few times but you need to watch your speed. I keep mine in sport mode which sharpens up the throttle responses a bit and doesn't seem to harm economy too much, mileage will drop quite a bit in colder conditions and/or a lot of slow town driving.

My 2.0 has averaged 53 long term mixed driving and will do 60+ on a motorway trip. I'd expect more from a sensibly driven 1.6 that's run in.

Yeah zoidberg i do watch it as much as possible i dont accelerate too hard and ease off to help it gain the mpg i suppose i have been keeping the revs down a bit so far maybe im watching it too much i will try 3rd for 30 tomoorrow maybr it needs the extra revs i've already noticed 2nd aint too great for ecomeny

I'm already considering a remap or a tuning box for the extra torque and better gearing. Though that seems scary to do with a 3 yr warrenty

The around town but it is what has shocked me the exact same driving conditions where i work i was easily finding 44-47mpg in the golf i'm wondering if the lack of power is the reason it's poor just the actual setting off.

I read on honest john after i baught it the mpg for this and the 2.0 tdi which are both claimed simular 57 and 58 i think it was. the extra torque would have definatly helped if i chose that engine so i guess thats the better version in hind site.

Wouldn't you just put the display on instant fuel consumption and get a feel for what works best for your environment?

 

An experiment I repeated several times with my previous Mk2 1.9d manual used to confuse me somewhat as I thought that the quantity of injected fuel was purely related to throttle position 

On a clear flat empty road I would engage a high gear (4th or 5th) at low 1100 rpm and then hold a light throttle position so that there was very slight acceleration. I cannot remember the exact readings but lets say the instant fuel consumption would initially be showing 5.0L/100.

I would let the speed and revs build naturally holding the same throttle position and my expectation was that the consumption would remain the same until the car found its natural speed for the 5.0L/100 consumption.

What actually happened:

Initial acceleration was obviously very slow but as the revs rose to more normal levels and acceleration improved slightly, the displayed consumption dropped until it stabilised around 3.5L/100 around 1800 rpm and whatever speed that related to.

 

Things (mapping) might be different on the 1.6D compared to the old 1.9pd though.

I wouldn't use Eco Mode! Tried it once and found that it blunted the performance of the car so much that you actually had to accelerate harder, which kind of cancelled out any Eco benefits but the Sport Mode just seems to sharpen up the throttle response enough so that you can feel a small difference in the performance from the normal setting. As it is a smaller engine the 1.6 struggles a bit with its power output at town speeds up to 40mph, particularly if you change gears according to the indication on the screen as you will find the revs very low all the time, anything much over 40mph and the car starts to perform really well as I suppose the turbocharger starts to have an impact. For a diesel engine it has the weakest turbo effect of any diesel I've ever owned but especially at lower speeds when it feels like it is barely having any impact at all.

Ah sorry I thought it was a new car but 12k miles is definitely run in now!

 

I guess the lower torque may encourage a heavier foot to get moving.

 

Like I say when we had an Ibiza 1.6 for 7 weeks I was struggling to get it to match the economy of our 1.9 DSG. Both have the same power and torque but the Octavia is heavier and with DSG but the Ibiza was doing worse than the Octavia especially when we went to Alton Towers with a couple of friends and it didn't even manage 50mpg! But then I never really tried to adjust my driving style too much as we only had it a short time. I hadn't driven a manual for a while and not a newer CR one with the long gearing so no doubt I could have got better but couldn't be bothered!

 

An experiment I repeated several times with my previous Mk2 1.9d manual used to confuse me somewhat as I thought that the quantity of injected fuel was purely related to throttle position 

 

Not on a modern car with an ECU no. The amount of fuel injected is all controlled by the ECU which takes into account the engine load, revs, turbo boost and then finally the throttle position. As the engine load decreases then the amount of fuel needing to be injected decreases and so does the amount of required boost. Obviously while accelerating the engine is under more load but once holding a steady speed less power is required.

I'm already considering a remap or a tuning box for the extra torque and better gearing. Though that seems scary to do with a 3 yr warrenty

 

 

Once removed (in the correct way) a tuning box is not traceable via diagnostics. It intercepts and modifies the ECU signal after the ECU and between the relevant sensors - give Andrew / Stuart a call at DTUK, they are a great bunch of guys there.

 

I'm really impressed with the increase in performance, but also the increase in economy is amazing, especially on the motorway. I was getting an indicated 64.7 MPG on my long trips back to Newcastle from London, whereas previously it would be maybe 52-53 without the box. I do think however the increase is overstated, but having done the journey several times, the car had used noticeably less fuel (just reading from the fuel gauge).

 

Definitely a good investment in my opinion. Car is 2.0 TDI DSG 150.  

Yes I eventually worked out the ECU was doing its thing but I had naively thought it was more related to when and how the fuel was injected rather than the quantity, the latter I thought was dictated solely by my right foot. Still a good drive when on the move though.

I guess my point was that a lower gear and few more rpm was not necessarily a bad thing economy wise when accelerating, at least to get it in the band where there is good torque available and the engine is operating more efficiently.

 

The OP went from a tuned 2.0 litre to a far less powerful engine so you would have to think that he still would want to travel at somewhere near the same speed (time is money after all to a professional driver) but that would have a disastrous effect on consumption. Witness the TopGear Prius/BMW experiment.

Small engines have better potential for economy than larger engines but only at the funereal accelerations dictated in the official tests, real life as we all know is somewhat different.

Vtec is that the boxs from the diesel tuning site i seen thoose the other day they said it gos 125 bhp and 300nm others are 140bhps but if your getting those fuel gains thats a great advert for them.

I have been doing alot of driving this morning in me taxi in sport mode using the tip of using 3rd and ignori g 4th that worked massively ive been hitting mid 50's all morning in 3rd.

But thats with disableing stop n start aswell i noticed stop start seems to take 4-5mpg off the average reader each time its used yet with it off at the lights running as usual the most i have lost is 1-2mpg

I think you were all spot on about the engine labouring at low revs too (lack of torque) ive found best econemy at 1.7 to 2.2k revs.

I think the problem i waz having is the layout near my taxi rank you start up go to a round about 20ft away then your sat at the lights another 20ft away so with stop start on youve already got lots of lost average mpg. Our one way town center at less than 20 mph isnt great on mpg but i guess that the gearing medium to long trips seem nice enough though to be fair.

DTUK tunigbox is all you need to know