1.4 tsi engine breaking

[skippy41]

When trying to slow down, there seems to be hardly any engine breaking, especially down hills, lift off and the car feels like its speeding up,even changing down gears.

In preparation for winter driving, I have tried to go down hills that my diesels would crawl down in first, at no more than 10 mph, doing so in the tsi, and the speed and revs increases, is there anything wrong

Edited 9 September, 2017 by skippy41

[themanwithnoaim]

What mode are you in?

 

Eco will freewheel, its suppose to

[Gerrycan]

You had me worried with that title. "1.4tsi engine breaking"

 I agree with you and have raised the point about the lack of engine braking (no 'e') several times.

It is a big plus for economy where you can 'coast' for some distance in gear using no petrol but I'd be worried if I lived in a hilly area where I prefer engine braking to be my first line of retardation and the brakes to be used when necessary.

 

The main approach to Adelaide from the South-West has a 3 km downhill section which is about 10% gradient so not exceptionally steep.

Every other car I've had petrol, diesel, manual or automatic I have been able to easily manage the speed using engine braking using 3rd gear.

With the 1.4tsi I have even used 2nd to hold the speed to 90kph with revs way up and still have to use the brakes to avoid acceleration on the slighter steeper bits.

 

All trucks descending the hill are compelled to control speed using air-brakes to a maximum of 60kph. If Police observe any truck using what they consider excessive use of brakes will be stopped and fined heavily. Result of several bad runaway truck crashes and subsequent loss of life.

[skippy41]

Retardation  is the word I was looking  for. ,  I have  tried  all 3 modes  with  no affect. ,  to me this is a safety  issue 

[Rodge]

It's not broken. It's a small, light, efficient, petrol engine. All these factors will tend to reduce engine braking, especially compared to diesels, which have a much greater braking effect. It's supposed to be charging the battery much harder during engine braking, but presumably this doesn't make a noticeable difference. I have noticed that at about 5000 rpm my gear recommendation asks me to change up, which means I probably need to brake a bit harder. I think you would only need to worry about it if you were towing a heavy load down a long steep hill.
Edit: You can check that the fuel consumption is zero in the maxidot display.

Edited 9 September, 2017 by Rodge

[Ootohere]

The DSG can assist in decelerating as it is an automated manual so use those manually, and they can be great in winter and braking not required,

and if you have a manual gearbox then you will just have little choice but to use that, and a little brake applications if required, 

so there can be a need for having on the right trousers or is that tyres...

[MoggyTech]

It's also a VVT engine and it uses the VVT for EGR control, so less engine braking is normal.

[SWBoy]

As already said the 1.4TSI is a relatively small capacity engine for what is in reality quite a large vehicle, so the engine braking effect will be limited - even with a manual transmission in a low gear.

 

I noticed this lack of engine braking a lot in my first few months on owning a 1.4TSI Octavia having come from a similarly sized vehicle that had a 4.2litre V8 which had engine braking in bucket loads.

Edited 9 September, 2017 by SWBoy

[ahenners]

I thought this was going to be a thread about one at a scrappy's following a write off...

 

It's "braking" 

[nidza]

Raise RPM above 3000, and it should start braking. Under 2000 even 2.0 TSI doesn't really brake, especially in Eco, I glide towards red signal traffic light  quite long, almost like coasting in 6th gear (manual).

[gregoir]

Even my manual gearbox 1.4TSI does not have a huge amount of engine braking and I need to keep pressing the brake pedal even in 4th gear on a local main road hill.

[Gerrycan]

It is at times like that when a mild hybrid makes some sense.