Official Fuel Economy Thread (formerly Highway economy).

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P.S. Nulon Pro Strength Octane Booster is gooooooooooooooooooooooood!

does that stuff still turn your exhaust tip red and make your exhaust fumes smell purdy? I used to use it in the bikes, but the Aprilia didn't like it. Never tried it in a car. Talking to one of the bike mechanics that pulled the head of one of the bikes, he wanted to know what I was using as the valves and plugs had a similar red coating. He did also say that whatever it was it had kept everything very very clean.

[Pullstarter]

Only done about 60kms on it so far, definitely a noticable difference. Not so much in the power department but in responsiveness, seems to pull from lower revs better.

I have a very slight rattle under load which I've had since about the 2000km mark (pre chip) and I wanted to totally discount pinging from the equation. It is still rattling so theres no way it could be pinging running on that stuff. Oh well the search continues Nothing really that bad, just annoying, oh and i'm a fussy barstood

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I have a very slight rattle under load which I've had since about the 2000km mark (pre chip) and I wanted to totally discount pinging from the equation. It is still rattling so theres no way it could be pinging running on that stuff. Oh well the search continues Nothing really that bad, just annoying, oh and i'm a fussy barstood

maybe give Guy a call?

[Pullstarter]

It's definitely nothing to do with the remap as it was doing it pre APR. I have a feeling its a heat shield just a matter of finding it.

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It's definitely nothing to do with the remap as it was doing it pre APR. I have a feeling its a heat shield just a matter of finding it.

That's OK then. I had a vibration rattle seemingly coming front passenger door. used to drive me crazy. Turns out it was the bloody iPod cable inside the glove box! (just another reason to remove everything in my life that has that little "i" at the start of it's name ).

[jimbomort]

Fuel economy - 125 TSI

Fuel economy for 125TSI is also proving very good.

Have got as low as 6.2 l/100km in ours and in the mid to high 6's is regular now on hwy trips. Got 6.5 on a longer trip not long back and more recently 6.9 loaded to the hilt, with a roof box and bike rack and air con on for half the way. Pretty good for a petrol SUV that weighs almost as much as a falcon.

With that said:
- those figs are driving very economically, my wife regularly consumes 0.5 to 1.0 more per 100 than me on the same trips.
- manual is the go for better go and fuel economy

How are other 125 owners going with fuel economy?

[jimbomort]

arctra its the auto's in part, they don't help, we regularly do as good as 6.7 in our petrol manual on hwy trips. friends have both an auto and manual tdi tig and they say the manual tig is quite a bit better on go and fuel. Of course nothing wrong with having an auto, just seem to lose a fair bit in fuel efficiency and go in the tigs. As another eg the 125 manual tsi has the same 0-100 fig as the more powerful 147 tsi, as it comes auto only. cheers - Jimbo

[Transporter]

arctra its the auto's in part, they don't help, we regularly do as good as 6.7 in our petrol manual on hwy trips. friends have both an auto and manual tdi tig and they say the manual tig is quite a bit better on go and fuel. Of course nothing wrong with having an auto, just seem to lose a fair bit in fuel efficiency and go in the tigs. As another eg the 125 manual tsi has the same 0-100 fig as the more powerful 147 tsi, as it comes auto only. cheers - Jimbo

It is the city driving what kills the fuel economy. You also can't take seriously fuel economy on hwy, since even V6 and V8 engines will do really well on hwy. The driver affects fuel economy a lot, I would say more than 70%. I get 9.8L/100km in our Touareg and my daughter 11L/100km under the same conditions (and she drives the beast 99% of the time).

The diesel engine will always be more economical in morning city traffic than petrol, regardless how good the driver is.

[Sharkie]

The Tig autos are all heavier on fuel than their manual counterparts.

Diesel Tigs (in manuals) will be best for inner city driving (fuel consumption wise) so long as you stay off the boost . This is offset by the increased comfort of the autos in heavy traffic though ......

In morning traffic ie low speeds and lots of standing still there is no chance of generating and using boost anyway ....

For long distance driving the difference between the TSIs and the TDIs should be less than 1l/100kms ..... the TSIs are very efficient petrol engines under conditions of low load.

[donweather]

Just wondering how many of you have the aircon on full bore most of the time? I live in Brisbane and I can tell you I have it on all the time and most of the time set down to 17-18 deg just to combat the heat coming in from the windscreen/dash area (even with tinted windows). I've only done city driving at the moment (still running the car in) and so I wasn't expecting to get down to some of the figures quoted above for the 125 TSI, but still, I'm yet to get anything under 11-12L/100km (only on my 2nd tank though).

So my question is, does the aircon really suck the power from the engine and hence require more fuel for powering the car? Was watching the real time consumption figures driving into work this morning and I was getting up to 20-30L/100km when up around the 4000k rev range and that wasn't even pushing the car hard at all (ie no real boost).

[Arctra]

Yeah, it definitely sucks some power from the engine. Sitting idling at traffic lights with Tig in neutral and no aircon it reads 0.6L/Hr, in drive with no aircon or in neutral with aircon it reads 0.8-0.9L/Hr, and in gear with aircon it reads 1.1-1.2L/Hr. So it seems to sip about 0.2 to 0.3 L/Hr more with the aircon on when in idle.

[jimbomort]

11-12 really isn't that bad in heavy stop/start traffic. Aircon defintely makes a diff, especially where idling a lot in traffic, but generally no where near as much as your driving style etc. You probably already know this, but just in case some thoughts if they help. We are in a country town, so not a lot of lights and more scope to maintain momentum with some anticipation, but I regularly get down into the 8's in short trips into town and back. Have got into the 7's going across town

If you really put the foot down, you will see the current fuel consumption climb up to 50l/100klm! 20-30 is almost par for the course with any kind of acceleration in 2nd. Of course these are for short periods but in stop/start can have a big impact. I get into third and fourth pretty quickly where I dont need to accelerate much (from 30klm/hr or even less in 3rd and from 45-50 in 4th which is quite OK for the car and gearbox as long as you dont ask much from it at low revs). Of course this can be harder in traffic.

stop start driving, especially if using the accelerator and brakes a lot, will kill fuel economy. For fuel economy momentum is your friend and so is full engine braking (ie coasting with your foot off the accelerator). Under those conditions you will notice that the consumption is actually zero, which is not just a trick, it actually is because most modern fuel injected motors cut off the fuel supply altogether in such conditions. And in a high gear you will also coast longer or even accelerate going down a hill while using no fuel at all.

So more you can do to anticipate traffic to reduce avoidable acceleration and braking and maintain your momentum the better.

There are plenty of good sites on economical driving if you are interested, Greenfleet have some good tips or just search on google.

[marcsamus]

Picked our 125 up from Melbourne on the weekend and drove back to Brisbane. Got an average of 8.6L/100KM. Pretty happy with that when you figure in a couple of foot flat to the floor overtaking 2 trucks in a row manuvers

[Arctra]

That's not bad, but I can better it

We just did out trip from Port Macquarrie to Gold Coast today and managed to average 6.3L/100km's. Was very impressed with that given there was some spirited foot-flat accelerations to overtake slow vehicles. I thought they'd spoil the economy a bit, but wasn't bad.

BTW, Anyone travelling around the Port Macq area beware. We spotted about 8 cop cars and 6 cop bikes pulling people over within the first 100km's of our trip.

[jimbomort]

Picked our 125 up from Melbourne on the weekend and drove back to Brisbane. Got an average of 8.6L/100KM. Pretty happy with that when you figure in a couple of foot flat to the floor overtaking 2 trucks in a row manuvers

congrats on your 125, no doubt you have seen the perfor/tuning thread re potential to increase the power and fuel efficiency of the 125 even further .

I have been very impressed with the fuel efficiency of the 125. As the engine beds in with an economical driving style, you will find that the fuel economy of the 125 will just get better and better (see below, ours has done 8500km now).

On a recent trip in our 125 up to Brissy I averaged an incredible 5.8 l/100km. Mostly hwy, but some suburbia. Amazing fuel economy for a petrol - almost too good, perhaps an MFD glitch, we'll see if repeats. There was a southerly blowing so a tail wind on the way up, but hell it wasn't exactly a gale and amazing either way. This was stock (my car now has APR stage 1). These figs were with steady cruising at 100km/hr, mostly using cruise control.

On the trip back (remapped to APR stage 1) not as good, albeit still only 6.5 l per 100 and that with a head wind and probably more aircon. I've done 6.5 a few times now, so have confidence in that, will see if those high 5 figs repeat. Regularly in the 6's per 100km is possible on longer trips in the 125 and with the remap you have the capacity for low 6's for 0-100 acceleration as well!!. Gotta love the Tig. On yeh baby