Efficiency & Performance - Running In Period

a3_phil

a3_phil

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Just wondered how long it takes for the car to achieve its final fuel economy figures ; 1,000mi, 2,000mi?. I've done about 600 miles so far and the numbers are a little lower than expected but I'm guessing it's still early days...?

Similarly, is there any kind of bedding in period for performance? I still haven't gone full throttle to the red-line but when I do in the next few hundred miles is that the ultimate performance I can expect or will it free up even more over the first few thousand?

(FYI I've got the 184 2.0 TDI)
 
I also have a 184 TDI but mine is a quattro version. I have just spend two weeks driving on the lovely roads in Germany doing a total of 3000 miles. 1500 miles was fast driving including some autobahn driving at 120-130mph getting to our hotels, one in Northern Germany and the second in the Mosel Valley. The other 1500 was generally pottering around on country roads and not exceed the out-of-town limit of 60mph in both areas. My A3 has now done 9000 miles and the overall mpg for the whole holiday worked out to be 53mpg.

Under normal circumstances at home my mpg is around 45mpg.

I treated mine reasonably gently for the first 500 miles but was doing 90mph by the time 1000 miles came up.

As with most TDI engines the mpg will improve over time and the engine will begin to free-up a little as more miles are added.
 
Done just under 400 miles in my S3 so far and seeing about 24mpg even when driving like a saint and some of that includes a 50 mile motorway run which didn't see any better economy.

I'm guessing it takes some time before you see even close to "quoted" figures.

But again that does include some booting, my god The Hulk is fast!
 
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I've been fairly gentle so far and my current figure is 53mpg from purchase and I'm hoping to hit 60mpg given the nature of my commute.

Fingers crossed it improves over the next few thousand then ;)

Interestingly I feel that ACC actual impairs fuel economy compared to how I used standard cruise previously. With ACC (even set on max distance) it keeps catching me out on DCs and motorways by braking for the vehicle in front long before I'd considered moving over. While with normal CC I'd have maintained constant speed and pulled out without braking.

Just something to get used to I guess.
 
I just got my best whole-tank average (60.1mpg) for the usual commute from my 8P 2.0tdi. The car rolled over 100k miles a few months back ;)
 
Not sure I can wait 100,000 miles!
 
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hehe. Point is there isn't really a final value - for just about any car it's quite likely to keep increasing, gradually, over time. Eventually it may start going down again as various bit wear out etc. but even after 100k that's not happened yet for me. I would expect it to improve the most early on however.
 
I had my Mondeo for just over three years and doing essentially identical mileage the economy went from 49mpg to 52mpg while the mileage went from 80,000 to 140,000.

I did get into the whole additives thing though with 2-stroke oil added to every tank and BG244 treatments every 10,000 miles. Seemed to work though looking at the mpg figures and the fact I never had any fuelling related problems.
 
I've done 1500 miles in my S3 in the first 2 weeks. Most of that was driving in the highlands with family and was gentle apart from a few spirited overtakes on the way up and back down. I gave the car it's first spirited fast drive across twisty moorland roads on Monday night with lots of fast acceleration and heavy braking. Up until Monday I was getting 33.5mpg average over the first 1450 miles (where it was taken easy). Last fill up was more like 27mpg with spirited drives and more like I tend to drive normally. I didn't buy an S3 for the economy but for the first 2 weeks it has been gently run in with the occasional fast blip... Will it improve over time? Not sure. ^The diesel should though.
 
I have a 184 tdi, just clocked over 14K. Mileage started at ~43mpg avg (brim to brim), and has increases up to ~48mpg or so. According to the DIS (whose figure i take with a large pinch of salt ive had 58mpg or so average on a couple of lobg journeys so maybe hope to improve further?
 
I've done just over 1500 miles my 150 TDI and i'm getting about 55mpg on my commute into work of a morning. I've been pretty easy on the engine though and haven't even taken it over 85 on the motoway.

One thing i've noticed though is it doesn't seem to have much grunt in 1st/2nd like my old Civic did and actually feels like there's something holding it back??
 
Pickle1970 said:
I've done just over 1500 miles my 150 TDI and i'm getting about 55mpg on my commute into work of a morning. I've been pretty easy on the engine though and haven't even taken it over 85 on the motoway.

One thing i've noticed though is it doesn't seem to have much grunt in 1st/2nd like my old Civic did and actually feels like there's something holding it back??
Click to expand...

Different engines I know but what do you have set for drive select? In economy mine is very slow on the pick up and only really jumps off if you go past the kick-down click. In dynamic though it's much perkier even on part throttle.
 
Pickle1970 said:
One thing i've noticed though is it doesn't seem to have much grunt in 1st/2nd like my old Civic did and actually feels like there's something holding it back??
Click to expand...
I'm not authoritative on 8V, but I know 8P had software crippled torque in 1st in order to preserve the clutch/DMF.
 
Is it not that the turbo just doesn't kick in in 1st gear? I'm sure that was the case on a Golf 6 I briefly drove
 
Ive only just taken delivery of my A3 saloon 1.4. I was rather disturbed even at this stage with the consumption figures given by the DIS. Very low. But once I zeroed memory 2, it shows fine. So I think it must have been in some strange initial state.
 
I've drove my 1.8tfsi hard since the beginning.. almost 5,000 km on the clock and experiencing better gas mileage..
 
7,000 miles on my S3, I can get around 35 mpg on a motorway run, which is better than when I first got it I think.
 
I have heard from some manufacturers that diesels particularly need quiet a few miles on them (10k+) before they reach anything near maximum efficiency.
 
Well a steady drive in to work this morning gave me 62mpg compared to low 50s at the start of the week so it's starting to increase.
 
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