800 Mile Club

I started drivers ed - ouch, once a week that will definitely kill mine. I know it cut 2 off last week. My car is still new, 6500. I am above 40 lifetime and I think I can hold it. Maybe come November I can cut the A/C to 50%. As far as hitting 55, I just do not see how. Only if I took a trip no A/C can I get near those numbers and 51 is about it. 17" wheels just do not think 55 is ever possible.

JJTDI said:

And I thought I pulled off a miracle getting 701.4 today. I see now that I was going a little too fast with the cruise set to 77mph.

Oh - and I ran that sucker dry. I drove 36 miles AFTER THE MFI said 0-till-empty! I may have set a TDI Club record... I'm looking at the receipt now... I put in 15.450 gallons!

I probably could have squeezed more in there, but I wasn't sticking around for the foam to settle.
I was desperate for fuel so I pulled off at the first exit I saw... and ended up in a neighborhood where while I was at the pump, a guy was showing me his tattoos, talking about doing 8 years in prison to pay his debt to society, and he just wanted a few bucks for dinner He said he doesn't hurt people anymore, he just wants $6 for a burger at Sonic!

For future reference, what is the impact of using the AC vs the vent only? I tried to keep the AC off as much as possible, but it was hot and muggy-as-hell in south Georgia yesterday.

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On small 4-cyl engines you are probably looking at a 5% MPG hit. Opened windows will tax you 2-3%. V6 and V8 have almost zero A/C penalty.

BioThomas said:

...
I just returned from my fillup and I put in 14.596g, which resulted in 700mi/14.596g = 47.958mpg. I am overjoyed with those results.

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Here is the 700 thread in the A5 section.

wjdell said:

I am headed into my 70 F season, in January there will be some 60 F days. Yesterday still 91 F so the air was on. I have been driving as slow as I can go. My new approach is to go 60 as not to hold up traffic hope they pass. When they do then I slow back to 52, 1750 rpm. I am at 6.5k on ODO

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Don't worry too much about mileage with only 6500 miles. Follow DBW break-in procedure. Your car is practically brand new.
But you should be seeing a steady improvement in your mileage.

nmea2020 said:

Thanks very much for sharing and for the advice . I've been practicing some of these techniques recently and have noticed a difference on the fuel gauge. I have a VAG but I just ordered the Scan Gauge II to give real time info.
5spd with 28.5K on the clock and mostly driven by the wife(soccer mom) with exception to the occasional trip to Atlanta or So. Fla (where I drive).

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I have a package 2, so it has the trip computer, but I bought a ScanGauge 2. It is a nice tool.
It will take a couple of tank to get it reasonably calibrated.
I know if my wife drove my car she would not get any way near the mileage I get. You really have to work at it and be conscience of every thing you do.

I've been over 800 several times on the NB...I hit an 850 on my last tank....ventectomy has been performed.

It is harder for us in an A5 though. Two gallons or so less and heavier.

PDeezul said:

I've been over 800 several times on the NB...I hit an 850 on my last tank....ventectomy has been performed.

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The gear ratios in the transmission for the A5 might be different too.

Ok, so I finally did it, though I bent over backwards to do it.
800 miles on one tank, though I didn't do the ventectomy, I bypassed it so I effectively did and was able to squeeze just over 15 gallons in. In the end, I got 53 miles per gallon... but here's what I gave up:

My sanity, my road-self-respect, pride, etc. I stayed under 50MPH the WHOLE 800 MILES! Thankfully, most of my commute has a speed limit of 55 or less, so it wasn't horrible, but still. It was painful.

But here's my worry: what if I did the same thing with a gasser? Would I get the same mileage? If I were able to, then wouldn't that show that either there's something seriously wrong with my car, or that diesels aren't really all that much more efficient engine-wise?

What gymnastics have other successful 800 mile clubbers had to do?

Also, when I'm on the hyway doing like 65 to 80, I get terrible fuel economy. Like 30mpg ish. Scangage reports that at a constant speed, flat road, warmed up engine cruising at 50mph, I get 50mpg (in fifth gear).

Can anyone else do this same test to see what they get?

wsh said:

Also, when I'm on the hyway doing like 65 to 80, I get terrible fuel economy. Like 30mpg ish. Scangage reports that at a constant speed, flat road, warmed up engine cruising at 50mph, I get 50mpg (in fifth gear).

Can anyone else do this same test to see what they get?

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Wsh, it's great your making 800 MPT but, did you check which group you are posting to? This is the A5 Golf/Jetta.
We CAN'T vent. We have 14.5 gallon tanks, filled to the brim 15 gallons. If I had 17 gallons to use I'd be posting 900 MTP. We have to be making low to mid 50 MPGs to hit to the 800 mark.
There is an 800 club post in the Fuel Economy group.

Yikes - my bad. Sorry folks.

DavidG said:

Wsh, it's great your making 800 MPT but, did you check which group you are posting to? This is the A5 Golf/Jetta.
We CAN'T vent. We have 14.5 gallon tanks, filled to the brim 15 gallons. If I had 17 gallons to use I'd be posting 900 MTP. We have to be making low to mid 50 MPGs to hit to the 800 mark.
There is an 800 club post in the Fuel Economy group.

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Yikes - my bad. Sorry folks.

Make it 8, 5 in a row. This tank had my best mileage so far, but not by much, 55.84.

Well I see no one is made 800 in an A5 since November of last year.
I just did 807 with 14.722 gallons => 54.8 MPG

Probably due to that speedo TSB!

Lightflyer1 said:

Probably due to that speedo TSB!

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It's "only" 1.3%! But does make a difference.

Posted this on another thread....803 on a tank from Albuquerque to San Antonio....could have gone a BIT further but chickened out! It was done with NO AC, 62mph on GPS (garmin and tomtom), 2100 or so on RPMs, tires at 41psi, just me in the car with one suitcase and one cooler with sodas, 8oz Power Service Grey....

Thanks to LF for the tips!

Jealous

I am happy for everyone in this thread as it must be a great accomplishment to get 800 MPT. On the other end of the spectrum there are a ton of us out there that struggle to get 600 MPT. I guess I dont understand how these cars can vary so much. I understand that you guys are sacraficing a lot to achieve this (i.e driving slow, no AC etc etc) but it looks like most of you on this thread are getting 700 MPT driving it like you stole it. I have to coast down hills, drive no faster than 70MPH and shift at 2k to achieve 600 MPT. I work nights so deal with absolutely no traffic and have 35 miles each way with 95% of that being wide open highway. I would say those conditions dont get any better for optimum MPG.

Anybody else been reading this thread and are in the same boat as me (more or less a "wanna be")?

by the way...my car is 06.5 pkg 1 5sp w/ 30k on the clock...lifetime average is approx 38-39mpg. No problems ever with it except for the fact that I would like to at least join the 700MPT club!!!

jjohns72 said:

On the other end of the spectrum there are a ton of us out there that struggle to get 600 MPT.

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people who are in the "high miles per tank" clubs are almost always vented. are you familiar with venting? it allows about 2 more gallons in your tank, that would really help you get more miles per tank.

MrErlo said:

people who are in the "high miles per tank" clubs are almost always vented. are you familiar with venting? it allows about 2 more gallons in your tank, that would really help you get more miles per tank.

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Unless there's been a discovery that I missed, I thought venting was not possible on the A5.

TDI 4 RD said:

Unless there's been a discovery that I missed, I thought venting was not possible on the A5.

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appologies, i had not properly ready his car description.

jjohns,

I too thought that even a 700 mile tank was impossible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I sacrificed not a whole lot...just the AC...it sucks about 10% or greater off your MPG.

No other special things.

I was told somewhere that 2100-2200 rpm is the most efficient range for a 2005.5 TDI Manual. So I put on the cruise control and let her rip. Lightflyer really helped on this......

DONT MASH ON THE GO PEDAL!!!!!!!!!! Get up to speed reasonably and then "set it and forget it".

What I found killed me was the stops and then the accelleration to get back up to speed. Try to minimize these. My 700 and 800 MPT trips were done on a long planned trip.

Local trip and around the city driving it like I stole it nets me about 36-39 MPG. I have a drive to work of all of 5 miles now and the MPG is on the 36 side.

I think you can do it. It is all about the conditions you drive in and realize that LONG runs really help in my experience. I too thought that it was impossible...thats why I set out to see if I could do it.

Best wishes and hope my ramblings helped you!

Coasting and idling

Yes, our rate of acceleration and our shift points greatly influence our fuel economy. Here is something else that does!

• When I see the traffic in front of me is slowing down I cancel the cruise control to coast, take my foot off the accelerator completely to coast, or ease off the accelerator so I'm not pressing it as hard with my foot.
• If traffic is slowing down due to congestion I will quickly ease off the accelerator and coast as much as possible. Maybe when traffic picks up speed I will not have to accelerate as much because I will not have lost as much speed as the traffic in front of me.
• If traffic is slowing down due to a traffic light then I try to coast to a stop.
• If I am approaching a stop sign then I try to ease off the accelerator and ideally coast to the stop sign as much as possible. Of course I try not to bother any vehicles that might be behind me when doing this.

The point is as soon as possible I try to reduce the fuel going to the engine or I try to stop sending fuel to the engine, and then coast as much as possible. Doing this allows me to spend a little less time stopped. What does this mean? When we are stopped we are getting the worst fuel mileage: zero miles per gallon. Ouch. Doesn't get any worse than that. But when we are coasting we are getting the best fuel economy: using just enough fuel to keep the engine operating yet we are still traveling - as a matter of fact we'll see the instantaneous fuel economy reading increase dramatically to 60 MPG, 80 MPG, 100 MPG, 120 MPG, 140 MPG, 160 MPG and then nothing since in our ratio the denominator is approaching zero. (I suppose if we turned the engine off while moving then we'd be getting infinite fuel economy - but I don't suggest doing this for many, many reasons.) So instead of idling without moving try hard to coast to a stop to maximize the amount of time getting the best fuel economy and spend as little time as possible stopped to minimize the amount of time getting the worst fuel economy.

For the record I have not (yet) achieved 800 miles per tank. But I have achieved 700 miles per tank.

Okay, now I'm wearing my flame-retardant suit, gloves, boots, and helmet...

One again.... 821 miles 14.664 gallons 55.99 MPGs

Thanks!!

Diesel David and Guttboy, thanks so much for your posts as I am now eager to try harder to hit 700 with your tips. Should almost be a sticky on driving technique for A5 maximum fuel econ.

775 almost there for me.....775 on 14.25 gal...

DieselDavid said:

Okay, now I'm wearing my flame-retardant suit, gloves, boots, and helmet...

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No flames here. You do pretty much the same thing as me.

But I will add, when you coast in gear you are not burning any fuel. So I try to coast in gear, but the trade off is lost speed. So I do both ( coast in and out of gear) to "try" to optimize the fuel usage.

829 miles with 14.656 gallons used => 56.56 MPG
This is my best tank to date.

My first 800 mile tank! Starting with a full tank I went 803.9 miles before refueling. When refueling I squeezed 14.802 gallons into the tank until it began pooling at the top where the cap screws on. Pumping 14.802 gallons into the tank is also a "record" for me. 803.9 miles divided by 14.802 gallons equals an average fuel economy over the last tank at 54.31 MPG.

In case anybody is wondering, the MFI displayed 61.1 MPG, 5 miles to go before empty, 804 miles traveled, an average speed of 43 MPH, elapsed time of 18 hours 57 minutes. The odometer read 29,225 miles and of course the fuel gauge needle was on empty.

PDX to Reno about 550 miles and I needed 9.5 gal to fill. I pushed the car on our trip to 785 miles and the next truck stop was 80 miles or so. I was wise and filled up 785 on 14.37 gal.... 800 miles per tank is there. I was suprised the difference without fuel additative.