Vw tdi

[seafish]

I am surprised about the low mileage on those newer TDIs.
Wife has a 99.5 TDI that gets 50 mpg in town or highway. It's getting up there in mileage (172K) but we'll keep it till it pukes.

The lower MPG's on the newer TDi(s) are a direct result of tuning for "peppier" performance to sell more cars as well as requirements for fewer emissions then the older motors. Those are always the trade-offs, no way around it... NOT that there is anything wrong with the better MPG of the older motors!!!

 

[The patriot]

The newer models are bigger/heavier than the oldies too.

 

[TRAMPLINEMAN]

I am surprised about the low mileage on those newer TDIs.
Wife has a 99.5 TDI that gets 50 mpg in town or highway. It's getting up there in mileage (172K) but we'll keep it till it pukes.

To me, 172K miles on your VW is NOT getting up there in miles. That car has a lot of life left. Guy I work with has a '00 TDI with a touch under 500K miles on it. He keeps up on maintenance and that car just keeps going.

 

[BarryG]

My 2015 golf never got below 40 and on occasion would top 50 on the "right" trip but my normal day to day city hwy mix would get me 43 ish pretty consistently

 

[MichaelOverfield]

I could live with the 2MPG loss on my wife's TDI. This is a 2011 with only 48,500 on the OD. We bought the car for longevity, she normally keeps her car 10+ years. So the little mileage drop won't effective us that much.

I can report the exact mileage drop over a couple of months of usage, since I track all of my fuel mileage on both vehicles. She right now is seeing 31.1 MPG around town and some county road driving. The highest MPG she had was 34.3 for the yearly average when she took a couple of road trips with the car that year and the lowest was 32.4 with her normal driving around town for a year.

As others have pointed out, you MPG is low for a TDI, my 2012 Jetta with the DSG was always average over 40, even with mostly city miles, on highway, over 50. That said, my 2015 Chevy Cruze Diesels beat that, with a less efficient transmission. Over 40 mostly city, and real close to 60 on the highway, best 50 mile score is 62.5MPG. The newer Cruze (2017 on) Diesel does much better than that from what people are reporting on Cruzetalk.

 

[Jim W]

Here is my wife's yearly average in miles driven and fuel (gallons) used along with MPG. She does about 80% of all of the driving of her car in the city. It is all stop and go along with driving in the drive mode on her automatic trans, When I drive the other 20% the trans is in the sport mode most of the time the car will see no faster than 30MPH, sometimes getting to 55 MPH.


Year Miles Fuel MPG
2012, 9025, 261.12, 34.3
2013, 8585, 253.62, 33.8
2014, 7691, 229.58, 33.5
2015, 8649, 259.54, 33.3
2016, 7471, 230.2, 32.4
2017, 6451, 196.14, 32.9

This is way better than her last vehicle, which had an average of 12 to 15MPG in town. We bought the vehicle for improved mileage and longevity, she normally keeps a car between 10 and 12 years before trading in.

 

[BarryG]

If previously was 12-15 then increasing mileage over 100 percent is significant even if it is low compared to others

 

[MichaelOverfield]

This is way better than her last vehicle, which had an average of 12 to 15MPG in town. We bought the vehicle for improved mileage and longevity, she normally keeps a car between 10 and 12 years before trading in.

This is also about the shift I did from a 2004 Land Rover Discovery 2 to the VW Jetta, the savings in fuel at the time, (over $5/ gallon, Premium) to the VW was enough to make the car payment.. it was huge savings. If you are mostly city, your numbers are not too far off from what one might expect for that type of driving. When you are up for the next, take a close look that the Chevy Diesels, now Cruze, Equinox, and Colorado have diesels getting fantastic MPG numbers.

 

[dieseldanhowes]

Just to post what I have seen with our 2012 VW Jetta TDI Sportwagen 2.0 with the manual trans......on several round trips from the SF Bay Area, CA to Seattle, WA on the I-5 with 2 adults and 2 children & luggage cruising 70-75 MPH we consistently average 37 MPG hand calculated on these trips.
IRT the newly approved EPA "fix" for the 2012 VW TDI with manual trans. I will be waiting until mid 2018 before I reluctanly take the car in to VW for the "emissions alteration" I figure waiting until next year will allow me to have a longer period of warranty, since the new warranty period starts after the "fix" is completed...the car has 109,XXX miles right now.

 

[The patriot]

I dont know if I already posted this, but I've gotten as high as 52mpg with my 2012 TDI Passat from NJ to Maine when I still had it.
I averaged about 70mph. No full throttle blasts and the cruise was on most of the time. A/C on , windows up.

 

[fest3er]

Elgin, IL to Princeton, WV on Tuesday in my '98 12V. 631 miles, 31 gallons fuel, 8 oz. Stanadyne treatment, 8 oz. pure 2-ethylhexyl nitrate, running 73-78MPH, stock plate slid forward. Yeah, 20.35 MPG; think I had a bit of a tail wind across Ohio. Best I'd ever seen long-distance before was 19.6 MPG.

My point is, if I can get 20 MPG from a 20 year old P/U with 300k miles, a smaller vehicle with half the weight and much better aerodynamics should get better than twice that fuel economy. Look at the cetane rating of your fuel; it's probably about 40. Raise it as much as you can. (Blue Ridge Diesel sells 2-ethylhexyl nitrate from a 55 gal. drum. And Gerry Tobey there was going to research a few other cetane boost compounds that are supposed to be even better.) I suspect raising cetane that much might effectively advance ignition a little, which would reverse some of the emissions tuning.

 

[JR]

Some VW dealers near the Pikes Peak TDI holding facility have apparently started buying cars through an auction VW has set up for it's dealerships.

http://www.denverpost.com/2017/08/30/diesel-volkswagen-for-sale-colorado-springs/

 

[Jim W]

OK; I have an update on my wife's 2011 TDI Jetta. Granted it has been only one tank full of fuel since her emission recall work has been done to the vehicle. She fills up about twice a month, since we filled up right before the recall work was done and the car went in with a full fuel tank at the time. So the mileage for the first tank full of fuel was 31.97 MPG. Right before the work was done the mileage was 31.94 MPG. I guess she has not loss any MPG with the work done to the engine for the emission recall.

So, far I can accept the emission recall work to the car. We will see late as winter approaches us and how the car fuel mileage is.

 

[MichaelOverfield]

OK; I have an update on my wife's 2011 TDI Jetta. Granted it has been only one tank full of fuel since her emission recall work has been done to the vehicle. She fills up about twice a month, since we filled up right before the recall work was done and the car went in with a full fuel tank at the time. So the mileage for the first tank full of fuel was 31.97 MPG. Right before the work was done the mileage was 31.94 MPG. I guess she has not loss any MPG with the work done to the engine for the emission recall.

So, far I can accept the emission recall work to the car. We will see late as winter approaches us and how the car fuel mileage is.

That is good, keep in mind one of the challenges for the OEM is the mandatory long emmisions warranty. There is a bit of life lost for each Regen, so more frequently doing a regen will affect life, and DPFs are insanely expensive. Is her 2011 a DEF/SCR, or LNT car? What is the post recall strategy?

 

[JohnsonG]

I took the money. Had 130K on my 2012.

 

[Jim W]

That is good, keep in mind one of the challenges for the OEM is the mandatory long emmisions warranty. There is a bit of life lost for each Regen, so more frequently doing a regen will affect life, and DPFs are insanely expensive. Is her 2011 a DEF/SCR, or LNT car? What is the post recall strategy?

Her car is the first generation of clean diesel technology which has the EGR and DPF with the NOx catalyst. This is the 2.0L TDI, the vehicles with the DEF/SCR are the 3.0L engines in the Pasat and the Touareg I believe.

The repair on her car was reprogramming of the EMC and a new NOx catalyst along and some other parts listed as a conv. kit.

I am very familiar with the Regeneration process and the DPF/EGR system on vehicles. Since I was involved with the emission program at Caterpillar from Tier II to Tier1V bin 5. I also have had this system on my 2008 Dodge Cummins truck.

 

[MichaelOverfield]

Jim,
That is interesting, I recall the discussion on the TDI club where they thought the LNT vehicles would need a conversion to the SCR/DEF system. The Passat also has the 2.0 engine, but they did it with SCR emissions from 2012 on. Not going SCR on the Jetta was to save about $330 per car, that came out during the investigation. I'm pretty surprised they got the LNT to comply with emissions, but I'd be a bit concerned on how long that catalyst will last. I also have this system on my 2009 Cummins, so far it's been OK, but I drive it in a way to minimize issues.. which means I end up not driving it as a daily commuter car, and mostly when towing or long trips, where the emissions systems work best. I was also really worried about the HPFP on that TDI, mine was a 2012 Jetta. When I found metal flakes in the fuel filter, and VW said it was OK.. that is what led me to off-load that car much earlier than planned. There is a kit made by a guy up in Canada to convert the fuel pump to the much more reliable CP3 pump, if was going to have a VW, I'd have that kit.

 

[Jim W]

Mike,
Yes, I was/still a member of the TDI club but there was way too much negatively on that site for me. Maybe a lot of younger people who are more vocal.
There was a lot of speculation on what VW was going to do and that was just it. I know from my days at Cat, we would get a lot of speculation from outside interest on what Cat was going to do in the on highway engine market. Do to the EPA boondoggle on what would be accepted during Tier IV bin 5 testing. At one time the EPA was not going to accept DEF as a means to meet the diesel emission as a solution.

I am not really concern on the emission equipment at all, since this is under warranty for some time/mileage. When it is time to replace the catalyst, do to failure than there is always the Malone option.