S3 MPG advice

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Leeecs

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Hi,

I currently have an Audi A3 tdi 2.0 170 and do a daily commute up the M5 about 40miles each way, with very little around town driving. I'm getting about 40mpg out of it.

Thinking about getting a newish (09/10) S3 and wondering what sort of mpg you guys are getting on the moterways?

Am I making a costly mistake? I think I'd be happy if I can get 30ish.

Cheers
 
I've got my brother's Corsa VXR atm, and I find myself constantly looking @ the needle, never ever need to in my car. Be a long time before I go back to petrol :laugh:
 
If you drive smoothly you can get 30+ mpg on motorways. But the minute you turn off that Motorway it decreases savagely!! More like 24mpg!
 
40 isnt bad, however you can easly get 45-48 when you delete dpf or remap it. Mine did 50 once but that was 60miles run with 20miles road works :p (fith gear 50mph).
 
Well the truth is that if you want 30ish and the price of petrol is a factor you need to bargain on the price only going up. The S3 is a nice car but not something you buy if petrol is a factor because if its just ok now it will not be in 6 months. I know its not what you want to hear but thats life. But some nice bits for your 170 and maybe a remap and it might actually be a better car for commute than an S3 especially if you fit cruise.
 
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TDI is the way to go if you want to save money due to fuel prices & insurance /road tax etc. S3 is great car but sadly for people who can afford high running costs.
 
RedDejavu said:
TDI is the way to go if you want to save money due to fuel prices & insurance /road tax etc. S3 is great car but sadly for people who can afford high running costs.
Click to expand...

Or don't commute or drive far.... My car is a pleasure car but if it were to be used for work then a diesel would be in the garage...
 
audi upgrades
Hi, I've just made a similar move from a Seat Leon FR TDI (still a SeatCupra.net member:salute:) which has the same 170 engine. Was getting 40-42 over the tank with the leon now just getting 30mpg. Interestingly when I drove to collect the S3 I managed just less than 40mpg with the leon over a 300+ mile journey but almost got 31mpg returning in the S3 which was driven a tad harder on the way home. I can live with that however, in traffic/town mpg is awful - start stop for 15 mins covering 2 miles saw <14mpg this week albeit up at 25mpg once home. The plus side is that in moving traffic going to work over a 17 mile journey I have seen 37mpg (Leon would do 50mpg over the same journey). So far I have covered 200 miles on the current tank and it's showing 28mpg. I hope this gives you an idea of what to expect compared to the 170 lump and by the way that is on V Power which costs more or less the same as diesel. As for the driving experience, you can expect the low down power to disappoint compared to the diesel but further up the revs is where the S3 comes into its own:icon_thumright:.

I was expecting to get 30mpg over a tank with a mix of driving, I don't think you can bargain on getting any better.
 
Over 6000 miles from new, mainly A road and M-Way, I've only averaged 24mpg.

I just can't get it to go over 30mpg. Did a 40 mile M-Way journey at a steady 55-60 to test it out and still only got 28mpg, don't understand how some of you guys say you can get over 30mpg on a journey. Mine is re-mapped now, but have seen no difference in mpg before/after.

I'm thinking on going the other way to a TDi 170, as personal circumstances are changing at the moment ( miles about to shoot up, income coming down ) - do you want to swap :laugh:
 
Well i got 34mpg yesterday on a 40mile trip but 90% duel carriageway and sticking to 70mph..:) it always gets better when the warmer weather comes :)
 
Yaks said:
Over 6000 miles from new, mainly A road and M-Way, I've only averaged 24mpg.

I just can't get it to go over 30mpg. Did a 40 mile M-Way journey at a steady 55-60 to test it out and still only got 28mpg, don't understand how some of you guys say you can get over 30mpg on a journey. Mine is re-mapped now, but have seen no difference in mpg before/after.

I'm thinking on going the other way to a TDi 170, as personal circumstances are changing at the moment ( miles about to shoot up, income coming down ) - do you want to swap :laugh:
Click to expand...

Dont trust DIS, do figures yourself. Dis showed me 44mpg doing 190 miles journey but when I did counting myself real consumption was 48mpg.
 
paddy said:
Well i got 34mpg yesterday on a 40mile trip but 90% duel carriageway and sticking to 70mph..:) it always gets better when the warmer weather comes :)
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Where did you find a 40 mile stretch of DC which was entirely downhill Paddy?
 
30 Mile commute.

-4 Mile Town
-4 Mile fast A Road
-22 Dual Carriage

31mpg from 3 Dr S3 with REVO Stage 1

-Same journey driven slightly more enthusiasticaly ((and having to deal with the obligatory MK4 Golf Tdi that seems to fill you rear view every ****** where you drive. (why is that?, what is wrong with these people?))
27 mpg

-5 hr drive from Slough to Newcastle, std car, not hanging around neither - 31mpg.

My long term average doing 95% town driving and lots of rush hour bumper to bumper stuff, 22mpg

The S3 is a superb car, if you can live with the running costs (tyres/fuel) then dont hesitate. I would be tempted by a DSG next time.

Good luck.

Cheers
Paul
 
Don't think about one if MPG is a concern at all! half decent economy is only possibly on m-ways and dual carriageways and when your cruising steadily, otherwise 25 and below.
 
akash_sky1 said:
Don't think about one if MPG is a concern at all! half decent economy is only possibly on m-ways and dual carriageways and when your cruising steadily, otherwise 25 and below.
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Totally agree, I averaged 25mpg from new, 30 on a long motorway run doing 70-80mph, most i ever achieved was 35mpg doing 50-60 on the motorway, 15mpg on a spirited drive.

Mark
 
Treat it nice I get 30 MPG on all roads, even with the odd over taking, except in heavy traffic inner city, and can quite often get like an average of 33 mpg on some journeys just following traffic, but as others say, hoof it and it drops like a stone, to low 20s.
My Average on the computer since the last reset is like near 29MPG but tbh that is some serious driving sometimes and long distance high speed on the motorways.

DSG Stage 1
 
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Seems to me that anyone getting over 27 and that includes me might as well be in a 170 d anyway because we are obviously not driving the thing as an S3 anyway :))
 
paddy said:
Seems to me that anyone getting over 27 and that includes me might as well be in a 170 d anyway because we are obviously not driving the thing as an S3 anyway :))
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haha so true!!!
 
jon208 said:
Where did you find a 40 mile stretch of DC which was entirely downhill Paddy?
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Well it was a run from North Surrey down to the coast so technically...... i was heading South all the way :)
 
MPG is a bit of a killer but as long as you dont drive mental its ok (ish) i average22/25 mpg in central london traffic...ive had it down to 11mpg quite a few times...not nice. V max last onger tho....
 
Thanks for the advice, looks like I might keep the 170 for a bit longer...I do really like the S3 but maybe wait until I move nearer to work :(

How much difference would a remap make to mpg on my tdi? Does it feel noticeably more punchy too?
 
spencer361 said:
What kind of mpg would you get out of a remapped 2.0T, not S3?
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There sin't much difference btween the S3 and 2.0T engines with Quattro so around the same as I get the same sort of figures as S3 drivers...
 
Checked out a few remaps and they list CR170 or PD170. What's the difference and how do I know what I've got?

Keen to give a remap a go.. What difference does it make to insurance ?
 
RedDejavu said:
Dont trust DIS, do figures yourself. Dis showed me 44mpg doing 190 miles journey but when I did counting myself real consumption was 48mpg.
Click to expand...
Opposite for me - did a 230 mile A road run yesterday, DIS said 27, filled it up and worked it out and it was 24 !!
 
Leeecs said:
Checked out a few remaps and they list CR170 or PD170. What's the difference and how do I know what I've got?

Keen to give a remap a go.. What difference does it make to insurance ?
Click to expand...

The 170CR is the newer common rail engine which came in around late 2008/2009 where as the 170PD is the older pumpe duse engine which is well known to have DPF and injector problems. The 170CR engine has a more progressive feel to it and less kick.

As for a remap personally I would say don't bother with the 170PD unless you remove DPF as you are more than likely to have reliability issues - DPF sensors with regular DPF regen. If you go for the latter expect the clutch/flywheel to have a hard time with 350+ft/lb torque! I know of a DPF delete 170PD car which needed a clutch after 17k of which 9k were covered with DPF delete remap! That said this could be an extreme case and there will be cars which last much longer.

I don't know as much about remapping the 170CR but I know they have almost no DPF issues as standard. Oh and declaring it to insurance will increase your premium but you'd be daft not to.

I would also check the new MOT regs as I'm sure that post 2008 diesel cars require a DPF to be fitted during the test from next year which basically kills that mod unless you know a dodgy MOT tester or you can be bothered with the annual swap over.
 
mine is Dec 2007 so looks like a PD170. Gave insurance a quick call and they quoted me £92 to go to 200BHP, as it costs me £2k already that didnt seem too bad :)

I basically just want something a bit more punchy. I started with this thread thinking of getting an S3 but looks like MPG is gonna be a killer, could go for a remap but cant be ***** with DPF issues. Anyone else had these problems?

I do pretty high mileage and lots of motorway (which should help the DPF) so a new clutch every 20k is gonna be a ball ache

Maybe I'll just move closer to work and get an RS3 :)

Lee
 
If fuel costs are a concern do not buy an S3 , ok maybe you can get high 20s maybe even into 30s mpg but you will be driving it as slow as possible ! whats the point ? Along with insurance road tax and all other running costs the s3 is not a cheap economic car to run . i owned one for 18 months and loved every minute , great fun and a great place to be in, it is now gone as i want a bigger car, at the moment i am using our golf 2ltr 4motion and i forgot how far you can go with diesel and pretty fast, in reality cant go much faster anyway ,unless you want a ban !
 
In answer to the question about remapped 2.0T quattro MPG:

The EU official MPG is 31.7 for a pre-'08 model, which is about the same as an S3. Mapping seems to have made little difference to mine.

I'm a low mileage driver (21k on a 56-plate) and my average is 28.2 on the DIS. Most of the actual mileage (as opposed to trips) is done on long drives, where I seem to get about 33mpg at 70 leptons. I've broken into the low 40s with extra care on motorways but rarely over 25mpg in urban streets.

The main cost of motoring is depreciation. It's significantly cheaper for me to run my 2.0T quattro than it would be to run even a 1.6TDi, because the cost of buying and depreciating a newer car far outweighs the cost of fuel unless you do mega miles.
 
Ben H said:
In answer to the question about remapped 2.0T quattro MPG:

The EU official MPG is 31.7 for a pre-'08 model, which is about the same as an S3. Mapping seems to have made little difference to mine.

I'm a low mileage driver (21k on a 56-plate) and my average is 28.2 on the DIS. Most of the actual mileage (as opposed to trips) is done on long drives, where I seem to get about 33mpg at 70 leptons. I've broken into the low 40s with extra care on motorways but rarely over 25mpg in urban streets.

The main cost of motoring is depreciation. It's significantly cheaper for me to run my 2.0T quattro than it would be to run even a 1.6TDi, because the cost of buying and depreciating a newer car far outweighs the cost of fuel unless you do mega miles.
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Yeah exactly the same figures as I get with the same driving... Mine is an 07 with 23k on the clock but not mapped.
 
audicruiser said:
There sin't much difference btween the S3 and 2.0T engines with Quattro so around the same as I get the same sort of figures as S3 drivers...
Click to expand...

Not trying to cause trouble here but how can there be any truth in that statement if your car has circa 70Hp less than an S3??

Unless it's been remapped or driven hard I can't see how the figures add up?

G
 
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