Poor Fuel Economy

vbking

vbking

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Chaps,

I have a 2001 A3TQ, and from reading many of the other post of the forum I am concerned about the fuel economy I am currently getting. The DIS is currently reading 24.7mpg and this is from a mixture of about 50/50 motorway/town driving, with me trying to drive as economically as possible. Am I right in thinking this is below what I should be getting? Does anyone have any suggestions as to what could be causing this? Any help would be much appreciated. The car is standard apart from 18" rims.

Cheers guys.
 
Just for comparison, our Golf which is 180bhp too, but fwd. Its doing 26.4mpg (according to the DIS) which is almost all town driving.

Now, I know your A3 is quattro. But most of the time the Haldex 4wd system runs with about 95% Front and 5% Rear split. Unless you boot it. So if you have been *really* trying to drive economically, then its likely the 4wd system isn't being used much. What I'm trying to say is, the 4wd system shouldn't be having much effect on your fuel economy, if you are driving the car lightly.

So with that out of the way...you do look to be using a bit more fuel.

AL
 
If you're driving as moderately as possible then yes, that seems like poor economy.

I get about 30mpg combined, not booting it all the time but certainly have some fun.

Solely round town it's more like 25mpg. On a motorway, driving economically, cruising at 70mph, I can get up to 38mpg.
 
i have recently changed over to RS4 18's and noticed straight away that the fuel economy went from an average 28-29 down to 24-25
 
I though it might have been my driving style at first, so have been making an effort to drive economically. Now I get accused of driving like a granny and still no improvement in the MPG. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Any reason the RS4's would be causing a drop in economy?
 
I average about 23mpg! i put this down to the wait of the quattro system. You have to compensate fuel for handling unfortunately.Plus i mainly drive it round town and i do like to open it up every now and then. I have had the revo ecu upgrade which they say gives more mpg...i disagree. Think i was averaging around 25 b4. Im also running on 18s never occured to me this would alter the mpg.
 
no idea - anyone clever people care to enlighten us ?

there was a marked reduction in economy after putting them on
 
Dunno about being clever, but the wheels are physically heavier and so harder to turn so you will be labouring the engine more.
 
plus the fact if the alloys came with cheaper tyres which give more rolling resistance, this will decrease your mpg & heavier wheels of course

what tyres have you got btw?
 
Cheers for the replies guys. Currently running Michellin Pilot Sport PS2s. Didnt realise the extra weight would cause THAT much of a difference!
 
2 things:

Firstly, check the DIS against a manual calculation, i.e. brim the tank, measure mileage and refill.

Secondly the economy of my 1.8T has been low over recent months due to the colder weather and the engine talking longer to warm up - what is your MPG like the rest of the year?

Kev.
 
Manual calculations seem to be in the same ball-park as the DIS. The most I every acheived was 37mpg, which was during the summer and on the standard 16"s.
 
I've a similar problem with fuel on my 2002 A3 Quattro.
When got it a year and a half ago with standard Michelin 16s, i was geting an average of around 31 with up to 34 on the motorway.
I then fitted it with 17" TT alloys and whacked on a set of Goodyear F1s and the mpg remained the same - may have been helped by the tyres.

Got an AMD Remap (which is fantastic by the way) but my mpg has dropped to around 21 on average with a MAX of 24 on the motorway (when driving like me nan).

By the way, I've cross referenced the DIS to actual petrol usage and they're pretty much similar.

Also it may just be me but the engine sounds a little rougher when i use Optimax (95% of time) compared to BP Ultimate (remaining 5%) - it kind of feels like a spark plug may be misfiring but i'm no expert and VAGCOM didn't show anything was amiss (would it show up a dodgy spark plug - does my car even use them??!) - I'm gonna get a service soon (was on long life but i'm probably gonna jump in and get one at the 10k mark).

So to answer your query - I've no idea

I'm now thinking that if i can put up with the 21mpg I may as well get a 911.
 
I have Avon ZZ-3's and am currently getting iro 24-26m/pg

I was running on 16 Michelin Pilots and was regularly seeing 28-29 m/pg
The car was given full service(hahaha) by AmD few weeks back so should be in tip top shape

the only change was the alloys which are from Rochford
 
I'm driving my car conservatively at the mo. I'm seeing 43mpg!!

Just got 430 out of the last tankfull. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

K03s jabba remap.
 
When was it last serviced? When did you change the Air filter last? A dirty air filter can cause poor economy.
 
Could be running rich - can temp sender and/or MAF cause that?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Could be running rich - can temp sender and/or MAF cause that?

[/ QUOTE ]

temp sensor, lambda and clogged throttle body can all cause rich running.

Faulty MAF can, but most likely to cause lean running.
 
your ecomony will go down if running lean too - it will be underpowered so you will need to compensate by applying more throttle.
 
im sure that with any car that runs lean the tailpipes go white-ish on the tip and darker if running rich... that used to be a basic thing i remember when running my old nova, hehe
 
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