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Diesel - Fuel Consumption - Your thoughts?


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Hi all, just thought I'd share this. At the dealer I work for (not Skoda) there are often discussions and false statements about which is better... petrol v diesel?

 

Obviously there's the usual blah blah about city driving vs motorway miles, etc. This isn't about the environment (call me horrible but I'm more interested in how much money I fork out for fuel rather than my impact on mother nature) it's more about actual fuel consumption.

 

So, I bought a Rapid Spaceback 1.4 TDI which is on a 65 plate, with 12,000 miles on the clock, in February. I'm now at 19,500 miles.

My driving is usually city, stop-start traffic from my home in North Nottinghamshire to my work in the centre. I rarely get above 30mph for any stretch of time. However, every 6 weeks I drive to North Devon and back (other half's family live there) which is approx 500 miles round trip.

 

I absolutely love the car... it's nice to drive, well equipped and comfy. The engine is clattery but I turn the music up so not too fussed about that. It's a good looking car and has enough torque on the motorways to pull past people.

 

Wanted to see what other people's fuel consumption figures are like...

 

I easily get 60-65mpg during my stop/start city driving, just by being gentle with the throttle and letting off when I can see that traffic is slowing. Sometimes I get 70-73mpg during these journeys, which as I mentioned rarely go above 30mph.

 

There is no petrol car on the market that I know of that can match that. My girlfriends 08 Fabia Sport (1.2 petrol) does at best 40-45mpg when I've used it for the same journey, driving in the same manner.

 

On the motorway trips, if I set the cruise to 75mph I normally get around 60mpg.

 

Just wondering what other people's results are like, day-to-day?

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Update: at best I've seen my range hit 790 miles. That was just after filling the tank and hitting the M1 during slow traffic (bloody smart motorways...) so was averaging 54mph for about 10-15 miles before it opened up again. Just love watching the range climb and climb!

 

Sometimes I leave Nottinghamshire at J27 to head to North Devon, and when I reach the M5 just south of Birmingham the needle is very much on full!

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Can you drive 790 miles after brimming your tank and then put in just 45 litres and it be brimmed again.

Or how much fuel needs actually bought?

 

Have you ever brimmed it and driven about 80 miles and then seen how many litres you need to brim it again?

Or even just 65 miles of your stop / start driving from brimmed and does it take 4.54 litres to brim it again?

Edited by AwaoffSki
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Impressive numbers to be sure but no amount of mpg could convince me to buy a 1.4TDi or a 1.6TDi.

 

Both sound like concrete mixers to me, and I've had several cars at £500 or less that have been way more mechanically refined.

 

I'll put up with just the 40-50 mpg that the silky smooth TSi's give on my regular journeys.

 

 

Edited by camelspyyder
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I've no doubt you are getting good returns from your car but I also echo the previous posts that relying on the unverified claims from the computer display may be a bit optimistic.

Like you I can get better returns in my petrol car in traffic than on the open road, with the right driving techniques.

Our local urban speed limits are 50/60 kph and if I can average over 25kph then it is possible to achieve an indicated 60 to 70mpg. However while I know my computer is reasonably accurate at 55mpg averages I've not been able to confirm whether that is true up in that higher range, 

All things being equal you would expect a diesel with 10% higher calorific concentration than an equal quantity of petrol, to get better consumption, but this can be compromised by excessive DPF operation.

My theory is that economical driving of a diesel (light throttles, maintaining momentum, avoiding unnecessary braking etc) will generate less particulates anyway to be burned off.

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I had a thread with loads of photos from our 1.4TDI - though since photo bucket soiled things its screwed it all up...

 

However our 1.4TDi wiill easier get 70mpg without trying and 60mph on shorter run.... it does not drink fuel...

 

The mrs has just got back now so i will nip out and get some photos of the infotainment system

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Our petrol car has just experienced the two worst tanks consumption (over the last two months) of its life because:

The wife is using it for her regular 3km commute, interspersed with 2 km shopping trips and other short runs to support her ailing/ageing parents. Throw in more of our southern hemisphere hot to very hot days making air-con use mandatory and any thoughts of conserving fuel are a pipedream.

Lucky if we get 700 km from a tank at the moment, but that is acceptable in the circumstances and on the few occasions I get my hands on it for a journey over 10 km in moderate temperatures then it is still capable of the returns I quoted above.

I suspect that if we had a diesel in the same circumstances our returns could be even worse and the DPF would be near replacement after 40k km.

I could contemplate getting a DPF equipped diesel but it would require far higher annual mileage and/or towing requirement to justify the diesel's high initial price-tag here.

 

Just goes to show how varied the 'real world' can be and how it impinges on consumption.

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I can believe short journeys and very cold weather are not a good mix.

Should imagine a small efficient diesel will struggle to even warm up at all if the internal heater is on full.

The Scandinavians know what they are doing when they option their webasto and such-like for their conditions.

Be interesting to know how much fuel a pre-heater uses on their really cold days?

 

In our very hot weather the use of air-con has a marked adverse effect on consumption at low speeds, but much less effect at high speeds, which is quite logical.

Escaped a small bullet locally in Adelaide as they were forecasting 38 C today but unexpected cloud cover kept it below 30 C.

Really odd to see spectators at the Ashes in Perth having to wear warm clothing as that never happens there at this time of year.

 

 

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Your fuel comsumption and useage seems perfectly acceptable. That is better than I achieved overall on my Polo SE TDi and slightly better but not by much compared to my Octavia, The fuel consumption isnt so good right now due to the cold weather. 

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On ‎17‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 12:47, Gerrycan said:

I can believe short journeys and very cold weather are not a good mix.

Should imagine a small efficient diesel will struggle to even warm up at all if the internal heater is on full.

The Scandinavians know what they are doing when they option their webasto and such-like for their conditions.

Be interesting to know how much fuel a pre-heater uses on their really cold days?

 

In our very hot weather the use of air-con has a marked adverse effect on consumption at low speeds, but much less effect at high speeds, which is quite logical.

Escaped a small bullet locally in Adelaide as they were forecasting 38 C today but unexpected cloud cover kept it below 30 C.

Really odd to see spectators at the Ashes in Perth having to wear warm clothing as that never happens there at this time of year.

 

 

In 1969 in Melbourne I had a Ford auto country squire, at times it got so hot I had to put the choke on a bit to get it to get a move on! think the petrol was evaporating before it got into the engine. Was worst car I ever had, A 2 speed auto!!

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