@shyVRS245Seemingly in Wales lots of things are found under a bush.

1 in your hands are worth 2 in the bush.

 

In the same vain, with a DSG dropping 2 gears fair helps get a shift on, or 3 when doing a double kickdown with a 7 speed with some power.

Edited 1 August, 20196 yr by Roottootemoot

17 minutes ago, Roottootemoot said:

@shyVRS245Seemingly in Wales lots of things are found under a bush.

1 in your hands are worth 2 in the bush.

 

In the same vain, with a DSG dropping 2 gears fair helps get a shift on, or 3 when doing a double kickdown with a 7 speed with some power.

 

You need to try a Bentley W12, 635PS, 900NM and a direct shift from 8th to 2nd is possible with kickdown.  

 

I'll keep putting the lottery on.

 

Lee

@logiclee

I have driven a VW Phaeton W12 and it was quite an experience.

4 minutes ago, logiclee said:

 

You need to try a Bentley W12, 635PS, 900NM and a direct shift from 8th to 2nd is possible with kickdown.  

 

I'll keep putting the lottery on.

 

Lee

Whilst we are completely off topic once drove a Ferrari F430 with paddle shift at the same time I had my 2015 Mk Octavia Vrs TDi DSG. Went from 181bhp on the road to 490bhp on the track but the gearboxes were very similar its just that the Ferrari got you to the corners a lot quicker and sounded amazing.

3 minutes ago, shyVRS245 said:

Whilst we are completely off topic once drove a Ferrari F430 with paddle shift at the same time I had my 2015 Mk Octavia Vrs TDi DSG. Went from 181bhp on the road to 490bhp on the track but the gearboxes were very similar its just that the Ferrari got you to the corners a lot quicker and sounded amazing.

 

I did the Double Ferrari Challenge last year with my Nephew and drove the F430 and California.  This year we are doing the Double Lamborghini Challenge with Gallardo and Huracan. We buy it each other for our birthdays, done quite a few now, rally experience, single seaters, supercars etc.  

20 minutes ago, Roottootemoot said:

@logiclee

I have driven a VW Phaeton W12 and it was quite an experience.

 

It is and the Phaeton "Only" had 450PS, 650NM and a really old school 5 speed auto. The new Bentley is  635PS, 900NM and the latest 8 speed ZF.

 

Perhaps this thread should be 1.4 or 1.5tsi and the gearbox discussion thread.

Edited 1 August, 20196 yr by logiclee

17 minutes ago, logiclee said:

 

I did the Double Ferrari Challenge last year with my Nephew and drove the F430 and California.  This year we are doing the Double Lamborghini Challenge with Gallardo and Huracan. We buy it each other for our birthdays, done quite a few now, rally experience, single seaters, supercars etc.  

I had the contrast with a Lambo Gallardo V10 but a manual gearbox. The auto's kept breaking at Every Man Racing, Loughborough the instructor told me.

3 minutes ago, shyVRS245 said:

I had the contrast with a Lambo Gallardo V10 but a manual gearbox. The auto's kept breaking at Every Man Racing, Loughborough the instructor told me.

 

I haven't driven one yet but the Gallardo had the e-gear auto which was basically a manual gearbox with hydraulic actuators controlled by computer. I think more or less hated by everyone.

11 minutes ago, logiclee said:

 

I haven't driven one yet but the Gallardo had the e-gear auto which was basically a manual gearbox with hydraulic actuators controlled by computer. I think more or less hated by everyone.

My Mum has one on her CitiGo - Automated Manual - horrid - but she is happy with it.

Just now, Gti Jazz Blue said:

My Mum has one on her CitiGo - Automated Manual - horrid - but she is happy with it.

 

Yes if you see my signature we also have one for a family member who can only drive auto due to disability. The Citigo ASG is particularly slow to change though, it's a poor effort.  Back in 2001 I had an Alfa 156 Selespeed Veloce which had an automated manual and paddle shift. In normal mode it was quite relaxed but much quicker than an ASG. In sport mode, which automatically engaged when pushing on it was actually very quick to shift. 

12 hours ago, ords said:

Europe maybe , but SE Asia it's near enough 100% automatics

I live in europe!

19 hours ago, logiclee said:

 

 

Need to look further than Ford.

 

Take the typical rep mobile the new 3 Series.  The manual has been dropped from all petrols and is only available on the 2wd 318d and 320d.

The  Auto has lower emissions 118g/km manual, vs 113g/km auto for the 320d

The Auto is  1% lower on BIK tax. 31% vs 30%

The Auto is three tenths faster 0-62mph.

 

Lee

Move away from the biggest selling cars on the road, why to suit your flawed arguments?

 

Nearly all current manuals are more economical than their auto equivalent, especially slush box but also most dct’s including Skoda. Including latest BMW 118i which has a DCT box not slushbox! Oh add the diesels to that too! WLTP Economy, not the currently dodgy irrelevant NEDC CO 2 numbers which are soon to be replaced. DCT is usually only slightly worse, but slushbox usually far worse as in the case of Ford and smaller engines, where you can actually compare like for like and the biggest selling  cars by a big margin and for a reason. 

 

 

 

 

Edited 1 August, 20196 yr by teescom09

You can compare like for like by actually driving cars in the way you drive them.

Lots of people with Manuals or Autos are not driving gods but then do not need to be.

 

People can share cars, do similar trips in the same time and get totally different economy from one driver to the next.

 

Luckily there is a car for every bum, and people can choose what suits, or just take what comes their way and make the most of it.

5 hours ago, teescom09 said:

Move away from the biggest selling cars on the road, why to suit your flawed arguments?

 

Nearly all current manuals are more economical than their auto equivalent, especially slush box but also most dct’s including Skoda. Including latest BMW 118i which has a DCT box not slushbox! WLTP Economy, not the currently dodgy irrelevant NEDC CO 2 numbers which are soon to be replaced. DCT is usually only slightly worse, but slushbox usually far worse as in the case of Ford and smaller engines, where you can actually compare like for like and the biggest selling  cars by a big margin and for a reason. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BMW is in the top 20 cars on sale in the UK.

 

The new 1 Series has moved from longitudinal engine to transverse engine for packaging and space reasons so BMW can no longer fit the ZF8HP from the previous generation which is widely acclaimed to be the best Auto on sale. I agree having had four.

The new M135i will get a transversal 8 speed conventional Auto from Aisin as the DCT can't take the torque.

 

We can't deny the trends, most of the developed world prefer auto (USA, Asia, Australia)  and sales are increasing across Europe. In the executive/luxury sector manual are nearly non existent now which is very different from a decade ago. Jag have just dropped the manual XE from the newly announced facelift, BMW now only have a couple of 3 series available with a manual, C Class only has one manual option.. And the big players away from VAG have little in the way of DCT development.

Then there's the new EV platforms the major players are developing and where the big money is going, $50 Billion for VAG alone. You wont find a manual box in any of those as they are not needed. We know that internal combustion engine cars are to be legislated against, the current legislation sits at 2040, only two model cycles away, but the Parliamentary review have advised that should be bought forward to 2032  and PHEV and EV will not be manual.

 

So it's something we have to get used to.

 

The big question for me is not economy, a few mpg either way makes little difference. What is important is driveability and reliability. No point saving £5 a week on fuel then paying £3500 for a mechatronic. No point in making £20k to £30k purchase of something that doesn't really suit you to save a few quid a week in fuel. A car purchase certainly is not about saving money. The biggest cost is nearly always depreciation.

 

 

 

 

Edited 1 August, 20196 yr by logiclee

2 hours ago, teescom09 said:

I live in europe!

I'm just making an observation.

20 hours ago, cr_2dman said:

 

i prefer a manual over auto, the auto doesn't know about junctions and traffic. it goes to low in rpm or to high.

On the other hand if i'm in busy traffic i do prefer the auto.

 

 

20 hours ago, maffyou said:

Each to their own, I guess. I’ve found it nothing but a pleasure to drive over the 500 miles it’s done so far...

 

 

I think cr_2 wants the best of both worlds..............

 

Make mine a DSG barman please, and one or two of these . ............. (sorry, that should have been bar 'person').

Bought a new Octavia 3 fl style manual gear box 1.4 tsi 150hp year and a half ago. No problems so far - 17k km. 

 

I'm very happy that i didn't choose 1.5 tsi as i intended to do. After all i read about it, it's no brainer what is the correct answer for the question of this thread.

Edited 4 August, 20196 yr by Pijomir

Apologies for being on topic but I've had my 1.5TSI SE Octavia now for around three months and here are my experiences :

 

Car was an ex lease (read that as ex rental from Europcar) - reasonably immaculate when I picked it up bar a very small scratch on the rear wheel arch, had possibly been smoked in and was missing a valve dust cap.

 

Car was 11 months old, had done around 13k miles.

 

I've averaged around 54mpg over the couple of thousand miles I've put on it. I use the car mainly for my daily commute - 13 miles each way with mixed town and dual carriageway driving. I normally manage around 60mpg in (best has been 64.5mpg) and around 55mpg back. The average is messed up as I'm often caught in lengthy jams if anything happens on the M1 or route home.

 

My car came with a free wallaby - it is like a kangaroo but doesn't jump so high ...... minor jerkiness for the first few miles at low revs. It kind of amuses me as I work at a company that does WLTP / PEMS testing as well as engine development and testing and I know someone will mention the issue at some point .....

 

Mine seems to vibrate a bit at 70mph, road noise is akin to a wheel bearing on it's way out and the noise changes depending on whether the car is on a straight line or going round a bend. The car is a bit wallowy compared to my previous car (Vectra 1.8 SRi) but the economy makes up for this. I was getting around 34-38mpg from the Vectra on the same route with similar driving style. Performance is far brisker with plenty of power low down in the revs - more like a diesel than petrol. Power drops off quite rapidly at higher revs though so you end up keeping them down with plenty of gearchanges.

 

Potential reliability terrifies me. I've spent years watching engines on dynos running at full rpm / power for hours but the complexity of all these new engines introduces many more points of failure. I predict the small amount of environment we save by reducing emmisions will be greatly reduced by the earlier failures of overstressed or overcomplicated engines but time will tell.

 

In hindsight I probably would have gone with an older 1.4 TSI as these have a more proven history.

 

I do however quite like this car and if nothing goes wrong with it over the next 5/6 years will have considered it a reasonable purchase.

Scores on the doors so far.

Early starts help avoid the traffic which kills the mpg on commutes.

47 minutes ago, shyVRS245 said:

Early starts help avoid the traffic which kills the mpg on commutes.

It was a weird one today - I drove like a bit of a saint at 60mph on the way in today. Not much traffic at all and all the lights were in my favour.

 

On the way back, I got caught in loads of traffic including 5-8 minutes of stop start because of an accident then did 65-70mph all the way back with the aircon on for 50% of the time - still managed 59.9mpg until I reversed up the driveway which lost me 0.9mpg (scary how quickly it loses it !).

 

One day I'll take it for a proper motorway run to see what I can get out of it. The only problem is my wife has a brand new 420i MSport BMW that I get to drive at weekends so I don't tend to use the Skoda other than work runs during the week.

 

(Edit - she only manages around 35mpg out of the BMW !)

Edited 5 August, 20196 yr by BBDom

Even heavy traffic can be neutralised using the built-in stop/start too many people deactivate it when it will save you money in wasted idling.

14 hours ago, shyVRS245 said:

Even heavy traffic can be neutralised using the built-in stop/start too many people deactivate it when it will save you money in wasted idling.

 

Here we go again 

22 hours ago, shyVRS245 said:

Even heavy traffic can be neutralised using the built-in stop/start too many people deactivate it when it will save you money in wasted idling.

 

It's not idling that kills economy in stop start traffic, it's accelerating the car from rest time after time and only using the lowest gears. 

 

You can't nuetralise that with stop/start.  Even in the lab Urban and Extra Urban figures tell that story.

 

My 30 mile eachway motorway commute is off peak and I currently achieve 50mpg (1.6TDi Octy 65mpg). If there's a motorway issue I end up going through Nottingham but it's shorter, around 25miles.  I'm currently looking at 30mpg (1.6tdi Octy 40mpg)  taking that route. 

I had an Aux Battery issue on the XF and stop start was broken for a few weeks. Can't say I noticed any change in economy.

Edited 6 August, 20196 yr by logiclee