Hi all, 

 

After 6 Years of Diesel driving (2.0l mkii Octavia Estate), I'm back in the World of petrol motoring with a Mkiii vRS Hatch. This is by far the most powerful car I've owned and it's prompted me to think about all aspects of my driving. I drive a reasonable amount of miles for my Work (around 15k per annum, so not copious miles), travelling to Clients. Like most here I'm sure, I pay for my fuel, so whilst I appreciate my choice of car might not go hand in hand with the highest fuel frugality, I want to make the best of a relatively fun car, without busting the Bank Account with Fuel Bills. 

 

My general style of driving has been influenced by my  experience of Diesel, with early change ups and a reliance on Torque to pull me along.  I perhaps had a tendency to rely too much on this style and I might have been guilty of labouring the engine at times and staying in too high a gear for circumstances. For the first few weeks of driving the vRS, I pretty much stuck to this style of driving (I don't miss the torque from the Diesel as I have found the vRS to pretty much match it in pulling power). Given the right conditions, my car will easily sit at 30mph in 5th Gear, possibly 6th. In my head I 'assumed' this would be the most economic method (barring extensive labouring of the engine). However, I'm questioning my thoughts to check if I'm not mistaken.

 

Having recently picked up a copy of Roadcraft and viewed a few 'advanced driver' vids on Youtube, I'm testing the rev range a little more and finding that compared to other, much lower powered Petrol cars I've driven, the mid range of revs is a joy to be in, in terms of progression and even at low speeds; maintaining a lower gear than I would have previously chosen and using acceleration sense to maintain speed limits. 

 

As a 'normal' driver, with a 'normal' fuel budget (whatever that is - not unlimited, I guess  ) I'm asking myself where is the balance between 'advanced' practices and 'every day' economy. By that I mean relatively, given the inherent economical restrictions of the type of car I'm driving? Does a smoother, progressive drive, adhering to the Roadcraft system lead to a more economical drive, or is there a natural trade off in using more flexible gears and perhaps more of the engines rev rangein the name of progression and correct gear for speed and situation?

 

I hope that makes some sort of sense 

 

 

 

 

Well, that's easier with a diesel, where the most economical gear tends to be the highest you can pull without the engine slugging.

 

Equally, running quickly by not braking more than you need to chase your vanishing point is economical because you spend less time accelerating.

Agree with Ken I try to avoid braking through anticipation of traffic ahead of me because braking/acceleration use the most amount of fuel/money. Regarding which gear to be in Vrs230 have 350NM and Vrs245 have 370NM of torque whereas the Vrs Tdi has 380NM. Despite having a huge 517NM in my stage 2 car I still like to be in 4th gear at 30mph, 5th gear at 35mph and 6th gear at 40mph when driving for economy as low revs always means low fuel consumption regardless of petrol or diesel being used. I may hit 120mph on the way to work but can still average 36mpg whereas sticking to the speed limits my average will be in the 40's. Current long term on the maxidot is 40.2mpg not bad with 335bhp under my right foot.