overtaking uphill

[chrisluciofg]

mine's a 132 kW , 250 Nm 7-speed TSI Superb : to make rapid uphill progress , which is :

1) more fuel efficient 

2) quicker

 

: flooring the throttle in D, or using 75 % gas in S mode ? thanks

[JR RS]

so ur asking a forum how to drive up hill in your Superb????

[Penpusher]

For economy, if you have a long uphill stretch of road you regularly use, you could zero the mpg each time before time you use it and compare the results.

 

To find out which is quicker, if you have a passenger, ask them to time it using a stopwatch and again compare the results.

[Adrian55555]

Does it really matter lol.  

[daveo138]

Floor it in ‘S’.  Never fails 

[Nick_H]

After many hundreds of man hours spent driving  up many hills of varying gradients I now apply the following formula :

 

62.75% in Sport or a knats hair less than 100% in Drive.

[facet edge]

I'm speechless

[Boxerdog1]

I'm shocked at the dismissive responses this post has received .  For many years now I have been searching for the answer as to why I seem to be slower overtaking up a hill as opposed to down a hill . When I have asked for help in solving this conundrum I too have been presented with what can only be described as 'unhelpful' responses , in fact , some which seem to imply that I should stop driving !! 

[penguin17]

So overtaking whilst going uphill isn't illegal in the UK? 

[alf.onso]

1 minute ago, penguin17 said:

So overtaking whilst going uphill isn't illegal in the UK? 

 

Atleast you have hills in the UK

[penguin17]

Just now, alf.onso said:

 

Atleast you have hills in the UK

Not in East Anglia .  It makes the Netherlands look like the Himalayas. 

[ColinD]

I never know which is better, I do lift off near the top and let inertia take me over the top. Judging by the distance/gaps afterwards not many do this.

 

In the peak there is a road, it's called the woodhead pass. I used to commute this and if there is a lorry on it you will be doing 40 eventually. So having a morning and evening plan helped and was very comparable from day to day. Then rolling quickly I'd catch backup to the traffic, mostly all sat on brake lights. On a good run I don't touch brakes.

 

Of course late at night, there'd be no traffic or lorries, so brakes and full throttle and no efficiency calculations required

 

So not 100% and just enough to get you over the top safely. I'm not sure if this is efficient, but it's certainly entertaining, for me anyway. 

 

We can overtake up or down hill and even on corners where it's safe to do so.  I'm increasingly seeing people ignore the solid white line we have where it's deemed unsafe to do so. Darwin has much to catch upon.

Edited 28 August, 2018 by ColinD

[Ootohere]

With 177bhp minimum and a Superb surely after the first time you did an overtake uphill successfully you practised it before the next time.

If you have never tried it yet best go try it both ways, in 'D' or in 'S' or the 3rd option,  just wait.

[IJWS15]

On 27/08/2018 at 03:57, chrisluciofg said:

mine's a 132 kW , 250 Nm 7-speed TSI Superb : to make rapid uphill progress , which is :

1) more fuel efficient 

2) quicker

 

: flooring the throttle in D, or using 75 % gas in S mode ? thanks

 

1. Neither, for efficiency don't overtake

2. Neither, full throttle in S.

 

For safety spend as little time as possible on the wrong side of the road.

[@Lee]

I think the Colin McRae mantra 'If in doubt, flat out' works well.

[Aspman]

Mongol General - Conan! What is best in life?

Conan - To exit a roundabout at the bottom of a hill in a BMW 335d in sport mode and at full throttle. To leave Audis behind you and hear the lamentation of their drivers

Mongol General - That is good! that is good.

[SC03OTT]

4 hours ago, Lee01 said:

I think the Colin McRae mantra 'If in doubt, flat out' works well.

 

That ultimately didn’t end well for him though...

[Babs]

It's more economical overall to get to your desired speed quicker. All Sport does it make the box use a lower gear.

[facet edge]

22 hours ago, Babs said:

It's more economical overall to get to your desired speed quicker. All Sport does it make the box use a lower gear.

When you accelerate to say 60mph from rest you use a specific amount of energy to do it.

It is immaterial whether you do it fast or slow.

[FelisBengalensis]

Stick it manual mode and select whatever gear gives you the correct level of acceleration to get past the vehicle you need to and get back over to your correct lane smoothly and at the earliest safe opportunity.  Seeking economy should form no part of any planning, or in the execution of an overtake.

Edited 29 August, 2018 by FelisBengalensis

[Ootohere]

Babs,  while 'S' might well be a lower gear it is in that lower gear because it is allowing it to go to a higher RPM before changing up 

and if you look at your Max PS or Max Nm torque that might well be at higher RPM.

[Babs]

4 hours ago, Offski said:

Babs,  while 'S' might well be a lower gear it is in that lower gear because it is allowing it to go to a higher RPM before changing up 

and if you look at your Max PS or Max Nm torque that might well be at higher RPM.

 

Well yes... but foot flat to the floor is full throttle no matter what the gear is. S just holds onto lower gears longer, but if your foot in burred in the carpet then S or D will behave the same, in my experience.

[ionelmc]

On 28/08/2018 at 10:13, IJWS15 said:

 

1. Neither, for efficiency don't overtake

2. Neither, full throttle in S.

 

For safety spend as little time as possible on the wrong side of the road.

What he said plus this: it's a small engine so you can't make "rapid uphill progress". Because of that you'd inclined to keep small distance to whomever you're trying to overtake to have smaller overtake distance but that is very wrong. It's better to have big distance and start accelerating ahead of time, so you have bigger speed. But you need to predict overtake opportunity a bit. Basically it's faster to brake than to accelerate.

[PipH]

On 29/08/2018 at 20:17, facet edge said:

When you accelerate to say 60mph from rest you use a specific amount of energy to do it.

It is immaterial whether you do it fast or slow.

Not strictly true.

 

There are losses within the engine that increase with revs.

Water & oil pump, alternator, pumping losses, friction within the engine internals.

All use more energy as revs increase.

 

So mimsing up to 60 at low revs will use less fuel than flooring it in lower gears, but will of course take longer.

[BriskodaJeff]

On ‎27‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 03:57, chrisluciofg said:

mine's a 132 kW , 250 Nm 7-speed TSI Superb : to make rapid uphill progress , which is :

1) more fuel efficient 

2) quicker

 

: flooring the throttle in D, or using 75 % gas in S mode ? thanks

There are just too many variables to answer it that simplistically IMHO. Firstly, if I want to overtake rapidly (I'm assuming you mean single-carriageway, not dual / motorway), fuel efficiency doesn't come into it - I want to be on the wrong side of the road for the shortest possible time. So in my case (190TDI) I will usually put it into S which reduces throttle lag, then select manually the gear and throttle setting that will give me the *right* amount of oomph at the right time to get round in the time and space available. Getting the *right* amount is a matter of experience, and a combination of things. It could mean dropping one, two or more cogs, though the more you have to drop, the more questionable the manoeuvre is IMHO. It could mean 75% gas or it could mean flooring it, though again the more power required, the more questionable the manoeuvre is likely to be. It might also mean changing gear as I pass, to keep the car in the most advantageous rev band. It will be different depending on whether I can start accelerating long before I get to the vehicle I want to go round. Lots of variables.

 

Weather conditions will also have a bearing. Dropping three gears, flooring it in S and spinning the wheels ineffectually on a cold, wet road isn't going to get you around the guy in front. General road conditions are just as big a concern. It seems in the UK the approach to re-laying roads is to scatter loose chippings and let the traffic pile them into the surface - not conducive to good grip if they only re-laid the road a day or two ago (anyone driven on the A420 recently?). And of course the tyres will also need to be considered. I doubt many Mk3 owners are driving on ditch-finders, but the OEM tyres (mine at least) are not brilliant for fast overtaking on greasy or badly-maintained roads. AWD v FWD will also make a difference. More variables.

 

Regarding fuel efficiency, unless there is literally just one slow-coach between you and a quick run home, the chances are that not overtaking at all is the most fuel-efficient approach, and unlikely to seriously dent your journey time. I see people hammering to get round a lorry at the end of a stretch of dual-carriageway, only to come to the end of a line of traffic going slower than the lorry was! Most professional HGV drivers will be driving at around the speed limit on single-carriageway roads unless someone else is holding them up. Even though they may take a while to get up to speed, they will not affect your average speed by more than 1-2mph and your journey time by more than 3-5 minutes per hour of driving. This is my anecdotal finding having spent the last 18 months doing the same long drives at the same time every day. Apart from a couple of outliers (accidents at one end of the spectrum and all the stars aligning at the other) my journey times are within 5 minutes of each other regardless of whether I am "bimbling" or "making progress" over a 90 mile run. MPG is very similar in either case. Of course on short journeys the outcome may be completely different. And tractors are definitely excluded from the HGV category above!

 

To @boxer dog's point - I think there is some physics and a lot of psychology involved. 0-60 will always be slower uphill than either level or downhill just due to the effects of gravity apart from anything else, and the steeper the slope the greater the difference. The perceived sense of slow acceleration is heightened since the car is not accelerating as quickly as you were expecting based on experience on the flat; and if you are on the wrong side of the road at the time you are going to notice it even more. At least that's the way I've always rationalised it.