Not owned the car very long (1.6 petrol Seat Leon) and not paid too much attention to fuel usage, however it got filled up yesterday and we worked out its done 30mpg on the last tank, most of which was done driving to / from the wifes work (5 miles across the city, couple of miles on dual carriageway) with a few short and long trips in between. Air conditioning has been used about a 3rd of the time but as far as I’m aware shouldn’t make too much difference.

The official figures are –
Urban – 27
extra urban – 47
combined – 37

I’d say that the driving would fall closer to the combined rather than purely urban so was hoping for closer to 35mpg. The exhaust sounds a bit throaty at times so was wondering if there was a slight leak / problem there that may contribute to this rather disappointing economy.

Any other thoughts / things to look at (apart from checking tyre pressure) much appreciated.

Short journeys then so 30 sounds about right.

Is it new? That doesn’t help. Plus there’s a knack to getting good MPG out of a car.

Your drive though sounds the worst of all possible worlds so I don’t think 30mpg is that bad.

Its 5 years old.

Ho hum, should’ve bought a lupo

For that sort of drive you might want to consider a hybrid, they like city stop-start driving.

30mpg on a 5 year old car, in the city, with the aircon on sounds about right to me given the quoted figures.

EDIT – my 10 year old 306 HDI gets about double that and only cost me a bag of sand.

I’ll add that putting aircon on a 1.6 Petrol will make a difference, it does with my Bora you can even here the engine drop in power. Probably the same Engine too.

The short journeys are killing the fuel consumption.

But:
Check the tyre pressures
When was it last serviced with new plugs and air filters?

And the biggie – How do you drive it? I’d be willing to bet driving style could get you another 2-5mpg. Remember, every time you brake you’ve wasted fuel becasue you were going too fast, or you could have backed off the throttle earlier (Traffic lights, roundabouts etc) It’s all about keeping moving, every time you stop you waste fuel getting going again!

(It can be done. I’m currently averaging 42.1mpg out of a 1.6 petrol Ford Focus estate, same age as yours…. 🙂 )

You can chop a big chunk off official figures in the real world anyway. Testing at optimal driving style on a rolling road, doesn’t give a true world figure. Either that or they just lie.

Get a diesel. Passat, 2.0ltr 140bhp does between 50 and 60mpg …and its a chuffin big car!

Its also about the driving style as well though …if I thrash it ….down to 45mpg. About 40mpg with bikes on the roof too.

Get a diesel. Passat, 2.0ltr 140bhp does between 50 and 60mpg …and its a chuffin big car!

Go on then, show us yer figures, not just trip computer readings… 🙂

Long term average about 52mpg (from trip computer).

Calculated the old fashion way over a 70ltr tabk full always just over 50mpg. I can normally get 60mpg on the way to work and about 48mpg on the way back (its slightly uphill and heavier traffic).

Think the combined figure is about 57?

Get a diesel. Passat, 2.0ltr 140bhp does between 50 and 60mpg …and its a chuffin big car

I get the same.

PP one of these days I will sign up to that geeksite you use and show you.

tbh For any car I usually look at the lowest official figure as a reasonable guide to what I’d get

Service? Change air filter, plugs and leads and check for vacuum leaks or have a garage check it.

Check tyre pressures too.

Strange that, I ran a 56 plate 2.0l Passat from new for 2.5 years and the best I got was around 40mpg, but that was with the trip computer.

the official figures assume you drive like miss daisy, if you have any inclination to use the accelerator you can expect probably something like what you’re getting.

It’s not driving slowly that achieves the figures – I drive the speed limit everywhere and get them.

It’s constant speeds, smooth driving, lifting off at the right times etc. And not doing much town driving. And other tricks like if you know you are getting on a dual carriageway for a mile or two, don’t boot it up to 75mph, go to 56 and sit with the lorries – on a short run this makes a difference.

In fact, on windy roads driving cornering as fast as you can helps – less braking and accelerating 🙂

The official figures don’t assume a thing – they are a simple series of tests that everyone can repeat. The problem is that manufacturers have tuned their cars to specifically match those tests.

Currently averaging 65 in my diesel Honda Civic with careful driving

Molgrips – Spot on 🙂

Driving style definitely makes a big difference, I recently got a tracker fitted to my works Transit, they know what time I get home now so no need to rush about…I cruise with the lorries, change up earlier (actually I miss out 2nd and 4th about 50% of the time) play at lifting off before roundabouts so that I can go approach and go round them without touching the brakes at all, and the predicted range after a £100 fill up has risen from 360 miles to about 410 miles 🙂 Not that it makes any difference to my own pocket, but it keeps me amused. This is probably 60:40 urban/country driving. With the exception of motorways, I drive at the limit and don’t hang about whilst getting up to speed.

Wife has also noticed that if she drives at 70 instead of 80 on her 45 minute commute, she gets 5 days commuting from the tank rather than 4 and a bit. 1.6 Ford Fusion.

Those official figures are about the same as mine (3 lt diesel XF) but I go get slightly higher than you in the real world, average on the iphone app is currently at 36.2, but I do 25 miles each way, through town onto 15 miles of the M1 (normally cruise set at 75mph) then through town again at the other end.

Around town dashboard tells me 32, on motorway low 40’s.

When I first got it it was much lower, although was assured that there is no longer a recognised “breaking in period” so was not put down to that. The dealer plugged it in at 5K and reloaded the mappings which picked up around 4 mpg from that point on. Could pay to check with dealer if they have similar issues?

Also add in a bit of “new car madness” which didnt help initially, I now tend to upshift earlier around town (when I can be bothered) which seems to help (premise being with such a low torque peak may as well stay at low revs).

Other thing that helped was going from a set of made of cheese Pirellis to dunlop sports, again added approx 2-3 on average.

And the above is not driving like a Nana the majority of the time.

Molgrips – Spot on 🙂

rs – Member
the official figures assume you drive like miss daisy

Well, IIRC Miss Daisy drove her car into the garden and then got Morgan Freeman to drive her around. Are you suggesting we get chaffeurs? 🙂

When I first got it it was much lower, although was assured that there is no longer a recognised “breaking in period” so was not put down to that.

You no longer have to baby engines when they are new, but they are still tight when they are new and loosen up significantly over the first 20k miles or so. The Prius achieved better and better peak MPGs in summer each year up til about 50k miles. However they were hotter summers though, and air temp has a huge effect on economy in that car.

molgrips – Member

The official figures don’t assume a thing – they are a simple series of tests that everyone can repeat. The problem is that manufacturers have tuned their cars to specifically match those tests.

Exactly. It think if you take a look on at something like spiritmonitor.de you’ll see that real world economy has improved much less over the last few years than manufacturer figures would have you believe.

For example I think an old 2L Focus has combined figure of around 30mpg, and the new (more powerful) 1.6 turbo claims 47mpg (in the new bigger heavier car). While i’m sure the newer engine is more efficient, I’d be amazed if it genuinely gets more than 50% better mpg.

My dad used to get 43mpg ish from his 1.4 fiesta and now gets 43mpg ish from his larger 1.6 Focus with the same performance. So there’s at least some improvement over the last 8 years 🙂

p.s. re the OP, if my car had a combined figure of 37mpg, and I got 30, I’d be fairly happy. My old car claimed 59mpg and never managed above 50.

Anybody know what the official figures are fo an 05 1.6 Focus?

It might be quite interesting if you’re a geek like me 🙂

driving a Passat is too big a price to pay for decent fuel economy IMO

Nothing wrong with Passats!

“Driving to/from wifes work” ! was she driving ? Without sounding chauvinistic (OK mabe a little bit then). I drive everywhere faster than my wife (and to be fair, she is a good driver) but I get far more to the gallon than her. Driving style can release a lot more economy than than most people realise 8)

ive got a leon FR TFSi – my total MPG average is 28.5, I usually get about 30 on the way to work which is 13 miles on B-Roads combined with a 10 minute crawl through town. I try to drive it carefully to eek out the extra miles, sometimes however I like to give it some welly and the MPG drops dramatically!

My wife gets as good MPG as me, but she doesn’t do any of the things I do to improve it.. it’s got me baffled!

Nothing wrong with Passats!

once you get a passat you lose all perspective – as this proves…

I feel a lot better about the 27.24mpg I get out my ovlov now(V70T5 2.3turbo – and thats real mpg worked out on miles driven by how much I had to fill to thank up to top it ( 390+miles from 65litres ish).

Only one short motorway run 20 miles or so on that tank the rest is in town and A roads in traffic. Recently I haven’t seen much difference between running it on full fat or normal unleaded (mpg tested after its done a couple of hundred miles on either to allow the ECU to adjust to fuel)

I tend to use the accelerator too 🙂

However, I shift early, try not to break hard etc, it’s all about smooth driving and anticipating the road / road users ahead.

once you get a passat you lose all perspective – as this proves…

Clever circular arguing – well done 🙂