What MPG are owners getting in the real world?

[stevereeves]

Medium time watcher, first time poster: reckon y'all must have brakes binding or a boot full of bricks - my 2016 1.4TSi petrol Mk7 Golf Match Edition easily does an indicated 45MPg around town, 50+MPG on a longer run. But seriously, once the new engines are less 'tight' and 'free up' a bit the MPG should increase by a noticable amount.

I'm very happy indeed with my car, so what am I doing here ever so slightly winding folk up ? Well, I'm looking to maybe change to a new Polo. 2 years in and my Golf has covered a paltry 10,500ish miles as I cycle the 1.6miles to work, not that I'd leave any car there and out of sight all day (!), I'm easily bored, the Golf Mk7.5 is very similar to mine save for a bigger screen, and the Golf Mk8 is 18months plus down the line, so maybe I'm looking what is available and the VW Polo 1.0SEL looks very nice, so watch this space. Maybe....

Quoting myself, finally got around to adding a pic.

Golf MPG.jpg (33.29 KiB) Viewed 2973 times

Admittedly it rose by about 3-4MPG as the weather improved. Apologies for the dust, it's often like that ....

[monkeyhanger]

In the real world, mpg is going to differ hugely from person to person, and when stop-start was implemented, simulated mpg went up 20% (reality mpg went up 3% for most that aren't constantly gridlocked).

If you buy a "48mpg combined" Polo GTI, and you do 5 miles to work on national speed limit roads then expect to get 30 mpg on uncluttered roads and 26 mpg on cluttered roads.

Similarly expect 33mpg/30mpg under same conditions fir a 10 mile commute and 40mpg/35mpg for a 20 mile commute. Subtract 5% for petrols in winter and 10% for diesels.

A cold engine is a thirsty engine - the warm-up cycle hammers your mpg and a diesel takes linger to reach optimum temp.

You can apply silmilar ratios to the official combined mpg of any recent car with stop-start.

[Leif]

Don't disagree with your general message, for example that stop start unrealistically skews official figures. However, 3 pot engines warm up quicker than older ones. I do seem to get decent mpg after a mile or so, according to the onboard computer, albeit during this warm weather.

A related cheat is hybrids. The official test allows them to run most of their test under electric power so no wonder they do 1,000,000 mpg! What a farce.

[stevereeves]

I drive neither like Miss Daisey nor Lewis Hamilton, I just drive. Not suggesting the indicated MPG figures are 100% the most accurate, though they might be, just sayin' the new broken-in / run-in Polos should easily achieve my figures if not quite a bit more....

[Alan Mc]

Just after a week of ownership and 200 miles I’m getting 35 mpg according to the car. Not taken it for a long run yet only town driving. No mad driving mostly in normal mode the road I live on is a pain 4 miles of 40 then 30 then 40 so thinking this could have an impact on the mpg ?

[mike sel]

SEL 115 DSG I am on 508 miles from new. and today on my usual 11 mile run to work I got 55mpg. climate control off, in eco mode and doing 56mph.

So in sport with climate on 19degrees. and pushing the speed limit all the way....49MPG

I have to say in sport mode the car does pull away....promptly. Once your running on a motorway at 70 for a couple of hours Sport is then useless, but from 0-35 its fun.

[monkeyhanger]

Mike: There's no appreciable fuel saving not being in Sport - lighter steering and a dulled throttle response, I wouldn't sweat leaving the car in Sport all the time.

[Leif]

I wonder if it'll be possible to have the ECU adjusted to tighten the steering on a standard Polo? The steering on mine is much lighter than I like, almost vague.

[SRGTD]

I wonder if it'll be possible to have the ECU adjusted to tighten the steering on a standard Polo? The steering on mine is much lighter than I like, almost vague.

Don’t know if it would be possible; it may be possible to ‘tweak’ the steering weight using a tool such as VCDS. On Polos equipped with the Driving Pofile Selection option, it is possible to adjust the steering in ‘Individual’ mode in the car’s settings via the infotainment screen.

[Leif]

I wonder if it'll be possible to have the ECU adjusted to tighten the steering on a standard Polo? The steering on mine is much lighter than I like, almost vague.

Don’t know if it would be possible; it may be possible to ‘tweak’ the steering weight using a tool such as VCDS. On Polos equipped with the Driving Pofile Selection option, it is possible to adjust the steering in ‘Individual’ mode in the car’s settings via the infotainment screen.

Thanks. Apparently it is possible to set a new code for the steering. For example 'sporty'. I wonder if the dealership can detect if the settings have been changed? I imagine they could refuse warranty work on that basis!

[stevereeves]

I have Driver Profile Selection and confirm it helps and makes quite a difference, presumably it will perfrom the same on Polos. VCDS: now there's a can of worms. Peeps tell me I should get one these devices, an OBD2 fro £35ish, to adjust so much stuff on my car, VW will be perfectly ok with it apparently. Haven't as the car still under warranty and don't 100% trust my 'ability' not to make things worse. And posters will be relieved to know since I took the pic I've since washed the outside and cleaned the inside of the car....

[silverhairs]

At the end of the day, your MPG depends on how heavy your right foot is. and if you can read the road, no fast acceleration or hard braking. Simple

[mike sel]

Mike: There's no appreciable fuel saving not being in Sport - lighter steering and a dulled throttle response, I wouldn't sweat leaving the car in Sport all the time.

yea, Its a DSG so I have noticed in sport mode the revs before gear change go up about 1000 rpm over the revs for normal. at low speeds pulling away is a lot quicker in sport. I think if the car was manual, you would be right because its me controlling the engine speed at gearchange, but in DSG its defiantly revving higher in sport mode. so that must burn more fuel. I think you right once you have pulled away the revs drop back to normal when cruising and idling.

Example. So in this POLO my way of dealing with the stutter when auto stop start kicks in and DSG allows you to pull away is to ...as I get to Alpha 1 on a busy junction, switch off the stop stat auto, go to sport mode, when I am defiantly Alpha 1 I start building the revs with the foot break on and as my target gap appears I let the breaks off whilst simultaneously putting the throttle to the floor and the little 115 hp engine does get the car moving fast, the rev counter reading 5,500RPM on gear change. it defiantly does seem to make an appreciable time difference to getting from 0-35/40mph.

Obviously I have only driven the car 500miles as of this morning, so im still learning the quirks of this new Polo and how to use the DSG (I was a manual guy). Every day I am learning more. I will keep an eye on the sport function to see if it is all in the mind or if there is a difference in pulling away speed, at this point in time I really think there is on the DSG.

Regarding MPG,

At the moment I necked the tank about a week ago so im driving in mixed modes in every day driving to see what MPG I get from a tank in the real world.

Next tank I will try all normal driving (NO sport or eco) & acclimate control left on all the time, then the same with climate control off all the time. Then the tank after I will go for eco then after that, sport only. I will report back on the MPG I actually get in each different Mode.

[silverhairs]

One thing nobody has come up with yet is the Air con, while that's running, it's drawing power from the car's electrics, OK might be much, but the engine has to work that little bit more for the air con to work. There have been debates in a few forums whether it's best to have a window open (something else that can use more petrol?) or to use the air con. The more electrical items you have running, the more fuel you use.
The thing is during the summer months, like right now, the engine doesn't need a lot of choke when first starting up from cold, where as in the winter and the cold air through the rad, it takes a lot longer.

[Leif]

I expect fuel consumption to drop about 10% in winter based on previous cars. The air is denser, the engine takes longer to warm up, and you tend to use headlights more often. Also the fuel composition changes slightly, to suit colder temperatures, which reduces mpg by roughly 2% or about 1mpg.

My fuel meter says that mpg is high when I’ve only done half a mile, so it does warm up quickly in summer.