MPG & 6th Gear....

[Russ77]

I've owned my 2.0 TDI MK3 Octavia for just over 2 weeks and absolutely love it!

I'd driven around 230 miles in it and averaged around 47mpg (lot's of idling, short runs after I'd taken delivery of it) which I was still pretty impressed with.

My wife used it on Friday to drive her and a friend from Essex to Carterton (around 127 miles each way) for a hen do so I was interested to see what MPG it'd get on a decent run.

Apart from a little traffic on the way there she had a clear run and I saw the computer was showing 56.7MPG.  She absolutely loves the car too but didn't feel confident enough to use cruise control but said she didn't really feel like she had to drive it and the journey was really good in it.  I just casually dropped in "what sort of speed were you at when you dropped it into 6th gear?".

Her reply was a classic..... "Errrmm......  I don't think I did, it wasn't until I was nearly home I realised it had 6 gears" 

 

I'm going to work on the assumption that as she was travelling within speed limits, 70mph in 6th gear would have been good for a few more MPG.......

[Gabbo]

I would say big kudos to your wifes driving as 56MPG even on the maxidot (which i find fairly accurate) requires good anticipation and moderate braking & throttle use on my vRS which is essentially the same engine.

Especially if it was in 5th gear the whole time......

[Russ77]

47 minutes ago, Gabbo said:

I would say big kudos to your wifes driving as 56MPG even on the maxidot (which i find fairly accurate) requires good anticipation and moderate braking & throttle use on my vRS which is essentially the same engine.

Especially if it was in 5th gear the whole time......

I think the fairest way to put it is that she's a lot more cautious & defensive than me  although it would seem there was hardly any traffic to speak of during the whole journey home (everyone stayed in the warm and didn't want to drive in the potential snowy conditions)

 

Prior to this journey she'd driven it twice clocking up no more than around 15 miles in total.

 

As I said, I wasn't too disappointed the 56mpg (when I filled it up before she left the actual MPG was within 0.5 of the maxidot) but it would have been interesting to see what it could have done

[2cvhound]

In my experience if you need to be doing at least 65mph to get much benefit from 6th gear. Below that and you find yourself wasting fuel as the engine is too low for uphill slopes. That said mine is only a 1.6 greenline, but I have averaged 65mpg over the last 64K on a mixture of roads, mostly A,B & dual carriageway. I have managed to get 75mpg on a long run by being featherlight on the accelerator pedal, allowing speed to drop up hills etc, but I'm never going to reach Skoda's fictitious 85mpg!! Front tyres, which were on the rear previously) have now done 69K and are not down to the guides yet.

[POWYSWALES]

Slightly different being a day but my car gets itself in 7th hear from 43mph and above, assuming that is one of the reasons I can get well over 60mpg on a daily basis, plus very little braking as always keep a good few seconds distance from the car in front.

 

 

 

 

Edited 20 March, 2018 by POWYSWALES

[Pittsy]

I wish I was getting figures like that 

[BoxerBoy]

Some pussy-footing going on here 

 

Haven't you heard of the Red Line?

[Gerrycan]

6 hours ago, 2cvhound said:

In my experience if you need to be doing at least 65mph to get much benefit from 6th gear. Below that and you find yourself wasting fuel as the engine is too low for uphill slopes. That said mine is only a 1.6 greenline, but I have averaged 65mpg over the last 64K on a mixture of roads, mostly A,B & dual carriageway. I have managed to get 75mpg on a long run by being featherlight on the accelerator pedal, allowing speed to drop up hills etc, but I'm never going to reach Skoda's fictitious 85mpg!! Front tyres, which were on the rear previously) have now done 69K and are not down to the guides yet.

Averaging 65mpg is really good! Your experiences with not letting revs fall too much reflects what I found with  a manual 1.6d Kia I hired in the UK last year. I had to ignore the gear recommendations from the screen to get the best mpg. I think running lighter engine load also means far fewer DPF regens.

I take it you have not had the 'cheat fix' applied to your car?

 

[Gerrycan]

2 hours ago, BoxerBoy said:

Some pussy-footing going on here 

 

Haven't you heard of the Red Line?

Red lining a diesel is for masochists or the hard of hearing only.

 

[Russ77]

9 hours ago, Gerrycan said:

Averaging 65mpg is really good! Your experiences with not letting revs fall too much reflects what I found with  a manual 1.6d Kia I hired in the UK last year. I had to ignore the gear recommendations from the screen to get the best mpg. I think running lighter engine load also means far fewer DPF regens.

I take it you have not had the 'cheat fix' applied to your car?

 

 

I managed to get 58MPG on my 17 mile commute to work today, in Sport mode not trying too hard to save fuel.  Putting that into context, my old Focus 2.0TDCi used to get 45MPG on a really good day!  The drive itself is a mixture of road types but lots of traffic lights and areas of congestion along the way.  The last 8 miles of the journey is dual carriageway going from 50-70MPH (The A127 from Progess Road to Basildon for any fellow Essex people )

 

Funny you say about ignoring the gear shift recommendations......  It wants to put me in 6th at around 45MPH  Even at 60 I'm having to really stamp on the gas to get a response and as per your observations, keeping the revs slightly higher and having to use less throttle to maintain speed seems to be the better way to go.

 

That's what I've always been told and practiced before...... until this car "told" me what I should be doing 

[Mr Statto]

Not had a good run in our 1.0TSi yet, but I find myself forgetting to change up the gears because the engine is so quiet! We've only done 230 miles so far & are averaging around 38mpg, but that is almost exclusively very short runs (2-3 miles) in town. Got a couple of motorway trips coming up next weekend so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can get out of it.

 

On a linked note, is it better for the mpg to use the cruise control to get you up to speed, or to get there manually & then set it?

[Russ77]

Just now, Mr Statto said:

Not had a good run in our 1.0TSi yet, but I find myself forgetting to change up the gears because the engine is so quiet! We've only done 230 miles so far & are averaging around 38mpg, but that is almost exclusively very short runs (2-3 miles) in town. Got a couple of motorway trips coming up next weekend so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can get out of it.

 

On a linked note, is it better for the mpg to use the cruise control to get you up to speed, or to get there manually & then set it?

I'm not 100% on newer cars with CC, it used to be that you could be a lot more precise/controlled with your right foot to modulate the accelerator to maintain speed without unnecessary wastage, whether CC has improved and now does a better job remains to be seen although what CC doesn't have the ability to do is read the road ahead and back off completely when you can see you're going to be coming to a stop so a guess CC would use more fuel in those circumstances.

[SWBoy]

9 minutes ago, Mr Statto said:

Not had a good run in our 1.0TSi yet, but I find myself forgetting to change up the gears because the engine is so quiet!

I've had a manual car with 6 gears before so I'm used to using all 6 gears, but my wife kept forgetting about 6th until I turned on the ECO reminder in the Maxidot, she didn't need that turned on for long to start using 6th! (it "nags" quite a lot...).

[shyVRS245]

On 3/18/2018 at 20:29, Russ77 said:

I've owned my 2.0 TDI MK3 Octavia for just over 2 weeks and absolutely love it!

I'd driven around 230 miles in it and averaged around 47mpg (lot's of idling, short runs after I'd taken delivery of it) which I was still pretty impressed with.

My wife used it on Friday to drive her and a friend from Essex to Carterton (around 127 miles each way) for a hen do so I was interested to see what MPG it'd get on a decent run.

Apart from a little traffic on the way there she had a clear run and I saw the computer was showing 56.7MPG.  She absolutely loves the car too but didn't feel confident enough to use cruise control but said she didn't really feel like she had to drive it and the journey was really good in it.  I just casually dropped in "what sort of speed were you at when you dropped it into 6th gear?".

Her reply was a classic..... "Errrmm......  I don't think I did, it wasn't until I was nearly home I realised it had 6 gears" 

 

I'm going to work on the assumption that as she was travelling within speed limits, 70mph in 6th gear would have been good for a few more MPG.......

Bought a 63 plate Octavia SE 2.0Tdi and had a re-map at AmD in Essex at 9,000miles. Journey down there about 130miles it averaged 71mpg and return trip it averaged 70mpg. Difference was it went from 147bhp to 186bhp and 246lb/ft of torque to 317lb/ft. Needless to say it pulled like the proverbial train. Top speed on a German Autobahn of course upped from 135mph standard to 150mph. Car was visually standard even running on 16" Skoda SE alloys. Proper sleeper.

[Russ77]

39 minutes ago, shyVRS245 said:

Bought a 63 plate Octavia SE 2.0Tdi and had a re-map at AmD in Essex at 9,000miles. Journey down there about 130miles it averaged 71mpg and return trip it averaged 70mpg. Difference was it went from 147bhp to 186bhp and 246lb/ft of torque to 317lb/ft. Needless to say it pulled like the proverbial train. Top speed on a German Autobahn of course upped from 135mph standard to 150mph. Car was visually standard even running on 16" Skoda SE alloys. Proper sleeper.

Sounds like you're trying to lead me astray

 

I've heard lots of stories like this about re-maps and it's soooooo tempting but might have to wait a bit until funds allow (and I can do it on the quiet to avoid detection from SWMBO........  "oh this old re-map..... I've had it ages"  )

[Gerrycan]

2 hours ago, Mr Statto said:

 

On a linked note, is it better for the mpg to use the cruise control to get you up to speed, or to get there manually & then set it?

I find the cruise control on our 1.4tsi is exceptionally economical maintaining speed on a flat road but it gets easier to beat it in hills.

I tend to accelerate to speed and set it.

If you are cruising at say 50 kph on CC and then hold the plus button down then it will accelerate with quite alot of throttle until you release it which is only ok with no cars in front.

If you press +/- button a couple of times to increase/decrease speed by a couple of units then the adjustment is slow.

[Gabbo]

At the end of the day using cruise control, you are 99% cruising at a set speed so the time to accelerate to the set-speed is negligable.

If you are far from the set-speed it is quite agressive so will accelerate fairly hard, you are only 10-20kph from the set-speed it is much more relaxed.

 

Cruise control is not designed for "fuel economy" it is for maintaining a constant speed so a good driver will always be able to achieve better fuel economy.

However, for many drivers with a twitchy foot that struggle to keep a constant speed, cruise control will give them an mpg improvement cruising on A-roads & motorways.

Edited 21 March, 2018 by Gabbo

[Mr Statto]

2 hours ago, Gabbo said:

At the end of the day using cruise control, you are 99% cruising at a set speed so the time to accelerate to the set-speed is negligable.

If you are far from the set-speed it is quite agressive so will accelerate fairly hard, you are only 10-20kph from the set-speed it is much more relaxed.

 

Cruise control is not designed for "fuel economy" it is for maintaining a constant speed so a good driver will always be able to achieve better fuel economy.

However, for many drivers with a twitchy foot that struggle to keep a constant speed, cruise control will give them an mpg improvement cruising on A-roads & motorways.

 

This is the first car I've had with cruise control (except the Citroen C4 Cactus we hired on holiday in Spain last year) so I'm getting used to its foibles & uses - I don't think it was even an option on our 08 plate Roomster 2. Was quite tempted by the ACC (my cousin has it on his Superb and raved about it last summer) but don't do enough miles to really justify the cost

[2cvhound]

14 hours ago, Gerrycan said:

Averaging 65mpg is really good! Your experiences with not letting revs fall too much reflects what I found with  a manual 1.6d Kia I hired in the UK last year. I had to ignore the gear recommendations from the screen to get the best mpg. I think running lighter engine load also means far fewer DPF regens.

I take it you have not had the 'cheat fix' applied to your car?

 

Apparently the 1.6D doesn't need remap, I think it was mostly the 2.0D. The gear recommendations are ludicrous if you are in ECO mode as they change up so early that you have no control, i.e. no power to accelerate from there. I know that ECO mode damps the low down throttle response, but it also makes it less economical  if you are driving on a real road. On an empty highway with no other vehicles around you could make the early changes and allow speed to build up very gradually, but with other road vehicles around you would be a menace!

 

[Gabbo]

1 hour ago, 2cvhound said:

Apparently the 1.6D doesn't need remap, I think it was mostly the 2.0D. The gear recommendations are ludicrous if you are in ECO mode as they change up so early that you have no control, i.e. no power to accelerate from there. I know that ECO mode damps the low down throttle response, but it also makes it less economical  if you are driving on a real road. On an empty highway with no other vehicles around you could make the early changes and allow speed to build up very gradually, but with other road vehicles around you would be a menace!

 

The gear change information is only really good when you are maintaining a constant speed from my experience with the 2L.

I would expect it to recognise when you are accelerating & delay the shift request but it seems quite a basic system & gives the same request unless you are accelerating really quite hard then it is disabled.

As you say, for cruising on an a or b-road with steady traffic the recommended gear is fine until you reach an incline or you want to accelerate & from both its better to change gear before speeding up.

[Russ77]

7 hours ago, Russ77 said:

 

I managed to get 58MPG on my 17 mile commute to work today, in Sport mode not trying too hard to save fuel.  Putting that into context, my old Focus 2.0TDCi used to get 45MPG on a really good day!  The drive itself is a mixture of road types but lots of traffic lights and areas of congestion along the way.  The last 8 miles of the journey is dual carriageway going from 50-70MPH (The A127 from Progess Road to Basildon for any fellow Essex people )

 

Funny you say about ignoring the gear shift recommendations......  It wants to put me in 6th at around 45MPH  Even at 60 I'm having to really stamp on the gas to get a response and as per your observations, keeping the revs slightly higher and having to use less throttle to maintain speed seems to be the better way to go.

 

That's what I've always been told and practiced before...... until this car "told" me what I should be doing 

On my journey home today which normally sees me struggle to get within 5MPG of the morning commute I completely ignored the gear shift indicator and averaged 60.8MPG..... as a result, "Eco Tips" has been disabled and I will continue to ignore the shift indicator

 

I also dabbled with CC, it seemed to get at least as good MPG as I was getting on a clear flat road, if not slightly better

[shyVRS245]

7 hours ago, Russ77 said:

Sounds like you're trying to lead me astray

 

I've heard lots of stories like this about re-maps and it's soooooo tempting but might have to wait a bit until funds allow (and I can do it on the quiet to avoid detection from SWMBO........  "oh this old re-map..... I've had it ages"  )

I spoke to Ben recently when I took my VRS245 in for a re-map and they even spread the cost. Just £50 deposit, drive the car away and then £37.50 per month over 12 payments interest free. Total £500, but worth it. Decided to take SWMBO with me and convinced her it was all about saving money, i.e. better fuel economy which I demonstrated by averaging 43.5mpg down to Essex, then managed 46mpg going home. That was painful driving so slowly but I had a point to prove to justify the expense. They are relatively local for you I see. Go for it!

[SashaGrace]

Even a vRS with an auto box, cruise and A/C on with no particular concern for eco driving, just a steady 70 mph cruise can be a frugal machine. The measured average over the last 3 and a bit months and 8650 miles has been 52.6 MPG. Very impressed

 

[bspman]

@SashaGrace what's the picture of 3 seats in the bottom of your maxidot indicate?

 

edit: never mind - found it. It's indicating rear seatbelts not fastened.

Edited 22 March, 2018 by bspman

[Russ77]

2 minutes ago, bspman said:

@SashaGrace what's the picture of 3 seats in the bottom of your maxidot indicate?

 

edit: never mind - found it. It's indicating rear seatbelts not fastened.

It shows if the rear passengers have their seatbelts fastened (or not)