Altea DSG Economy?

[Tell]

I register about 15 or 20 MPG driving over to the tube station in the morning, 2 miles away, at the minute to catch the train, but I record it as 5 miles each way for tax purposes since I can't see why I should apportion out car mileage on that basis, when the consumption is twice normal on short journeys... so far I haven't had a visit from the tax or vat man... just as well.

There has been stuff about how manufactures twig their cars to get good MPG figures in the government tests... perhaps the Altea was one or you just don't get good performance when the engine is cold. I've got the Altea brochure here it says for the DSG TDI 2.0:

Urban 37.7 MPG
Extra Urban 55.4
Combined 47.1

that's a joke

for the standard 2.0 TDI it's listed as 36.7, 58.9 and 47.9. DSG making hardly any difference.

Must be our very sub-urban roads in the UK that give us these low figures....

What I would say is that with aircon, I don't see the large savings that I use to get with other cars in the summer, so the aircon running absorbs the summer savings that you normally get. Still I'm not complaining, it's a big car and a lot of weight.

 

[Magnus]

Urban 37.7 MPG
Extra Urban 55.4
Combined 47.1

When I look at these official figures I see them as:

Urban = what you'll get in the real world of mixed driving, not payin any special attention to economy.
Extra Urban = what the car will consume, just by moving along at a cruising speed, to move the air and overcome rolling resistance.
Combined = what you can achieve on a run. Out of town. If you're careful.

A big part of my decision to buy the Altea was economy, but was resticted to choosing an auto (partner can no longer drive a three pedaled car). That meant a no-brain decision; it had to be a TDI DSG of some flavour. No other auto box comes close. Plus the car had to be fun to drive. I still look forward to getting in to it even at stupid o'clock before the sun has got up in the middle of winter.

Previous car was a Volvo V40 1.8i ( there must have been a good reason for choosing it, I just can't remember what!) which did a brim to brim average of 32mpg with 40mpg just possible on a gentle motorway run. The Altea is a similar weight, but returns a much better mpg and is cheaper to service (54 quid for sparkplugs every 20000 miles; not anymore!).

 

[TDI_luver]

New Toledo 1.9 tdi reference......10,000 mile son the clock now and just about run in...getting about 490 miles to a full tank...translates to about 46 mpg...this is real world driving...daily grind to work, mix of A and B roads, also heavy town driving, no motorways, will easily do 54 on long dual carriageway or motorway run at 65-70 constant. MPG figures calculated, not displayed by computer !

 

[Tell]

Well the 1.9 TDI does deliver better MPG than the 2.0 according the Altea manual Issue 03/05 back page.

Here's a comparison on the published figures:

1.9 Ref/Stl 2.0 TDI 2.0 TDI DSG
Gov Cycle 105 PS 140 PS 140 PS
Urban 40.4 36.7 37.7
Extra Urban 61.4 58.9 55.4
Combined 51.4 47.9 47.1

If you ratio the 2.0 TDI DSG against the other cars this is what you get

1.9 Ref/Stl 2.0 TDI 2.0 TDI DSG
Gov Cycle 105 PS 140 PS 140 PS
Urban 1.07 0.97 1.00
Extra Urban 1.11 1.06 1.00
Combined 1.09 1.02 1.00

That's to say that the 2.0 TDI manual does worse than the 2.0 TDI DSG on the Urban cycle by 3 percent. The 2.0 manual is better by 6 percent on the Extra Urban cycle and the combined cycle the manual 2.0 is 2 percent better than the DSG.

The 1.9 TDI is 7 percent better than the DSG on the Urban cycle, 11 percent better on the Extra Urban cycle and 9 percent better on the combined. All of this is missing the point that with the 1.9 TDI you have a car with 105 BHP rather than 140 and you get arm ache by changing the gears and manual drivers don't shift as fast as the DSG .... even thou they think they might.

My brim to brim reading over 16,000 miles give me 39 MPG which is closer to Urban than to the other types of driving although I don't do a high amount of urban driving most is high speed motorway and fast roads. So if we engage in a bit of model building and why not, my 39 MPG can be weighted by the 1.07 which would suggest he should be getting about 42 MPG ... he must drive very slowly. Another way of looking at it is that the 46 figure is placed on the 1.9 TDI table above as better than Urban, similar to everyday DSG driving. Oh yes and he's driving a Toledo which would be heavier.