Mpg

Hi all. Just curious what others are getting for mileage? I have an 04 with an auto and the best I get from it is 38. That’s not common, but it happens on longer trips. I see people advertising on CL claiming 45MPG and I just have a hard time believing it!


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05 gets 38 on long runs

About 42 is be best i get but that's long stretches of 55 to 65. At 70 to 78 its around 40.

I have a sedan, the wagon is heavier.

Tire size/choice also makes a noticeable difference. I have factory 16s running stock sized whatever the car came with el cheapo tires

I average mostly city driving 520 miles from full to fuel light. Sometimes 500...once 530. Hold @ 14 gallons at fill up.

I've seen the liar meter hit near 45 mpg....not sustainable outside being towed back up hills.

The EPA rated highway mileage was 38.

That is pretty close to normal, with maybe 40 being achievable without too much drama.

I'm sure you could get 45 under some real ideal circumstances, but I'd never want to drive THAT slow.

The difference with the B5s is not as dramatic as the smaller cars gas vs. diesel, but still noticeable. Best my FWD 1.8t B5/automatic could hope for driving the same speeds is about 29. My 4mo 1.8t B5 struggles to hit 25.

Remember, the BHW is a 2.0L making 136hp moving a car that weighs several hundred pounds more than the A4 cars that are powered by a 90 or 100hp 1.9L. Those smaller, less powerful cars are the kings of TDI fuel economy. You won't ever hope to match those. A manual conversion with the proper gearing will help, but not dramatically as the automatic is already geared pretty tall.

And take CL ads with a grain, or a sack, of salt. People tend to throw the "50 MPG runs forever never needs a tune up yada yada yada" blabber all the time with every diesel Volkswagen, and we all know that is not the case.

With a 5spd conversion I typically go 650 to 700 miles or so on a tank when the fuel light comes on.

I guess that doesn't really help with your CL searches though. With the failing auto before I swapped I was getting around 35-40. Very flat where I live with lots of 55 mph highways.

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38 is right. Once in blue moon 40. These are both hwy figures. Around town 30-32 ish

In my former 2002 Jetta - 4 speed auto, my average over 13 years was about 42Mpg measured by entering fuel and mileage into an App on my iPhone. This is a real life figure and keeping within no more than 10Mph over the posted speed limits.


Not like people here in these forums claiming to get 70 Mpg and driving 85 Mph!

I figured about 38 was max for normal driving. I have an older B4 TDI, totally different ballgame there!! Also an 02 Jetta TDI that gets a consistent 40. Good to hear my B5 is in the average range.


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With some effort and right foot mods you can get a lot better than 38.

I've done several long trips to Oregon Coast on two lane highways, about 300 miles each way and got about 49 mpg going and coming back, speed kept to 55 mph and summer fuel, tires at 38-40 psi. The experiment was repeated several times so I know it was not a fluke.

The way I look at it is that, from my experience, on level ground at about 45 mph steady in 5th gear the drive train is at its maximum efficiency, with instantaneous mpg holding steady at or a little over 50 mpg. If you can sustain that or something close to that for a long time your mileage will be, guess what, close to 50. (my Oregon trips prove that) All the stops and starts, red lights, needless accelerations, cold engine, idling, winter fuel, low tire inflation, etc etc. just drops you down from the asymptote of about 50-52 with this vehicle. These conditions are present during my daily driving and I am getting anywhere from 30 to the low-mid 40s per tank.

Mine does 37-38 with about 90% freeway driving. City is more 28-32. Usually 35 at 75 and 38 at 70. Speed kills FE.

I only ever dipped into the 32mpg range towing a 18 ft trailer with large ocean fishing kayaks and our gear....5 hrs to the coast and back.

BHW + 6 speed manual = 40-42 mpg highway.

I was always in the low 30s. I don't drive for fuel economy though, that's why I own a diesel.

burn_your_money said:

I was always in the low 30s. I don't drive for fuel economy though, that's why I own a diesel.

Click to expand...

That is my thinking too. Even with daily triple digit speed exploits, my Golf still nets me nearly 50 MPG tanks all year long.

with a "DUK" 5-speed I get 37mpg. Mostly city driving.

my 04 I got at the beginning of Dec. 2018, purchased new 7/04

In my 04 I got at the beginning of Dec. 2018, purchased new 7/04 by origninal owner I have used mine as my daily driver since I started driving it, I have ~2k miles clocked with a pen & paper checked with a high 20s to mid 30s mpgUS obseved ....Haven't really played with the car's dream meter that much yet...

I have been using some B20 (~0.20-0.30 cents a gal less than D2 right now) mixing it in the tanks I have filled since getting it to make sure the fuel system is clean as possible...

I have had fills of as much as ~15 gals when I purchased it, many fills are around 10-12 gal fills to try to keep the tank in the cold above half a tank to prevent any possibility of gelling from my BD use...

What is the maximum fill that anyone has clocked on one of these using the pressure bleed valve in the neck? An educated guess on how much a maximum fill could be on an empty tank fill..?..

It seems to take 2.5-3.1 gals above auto shut off when you hold the bleed valve in while trickling fuel in...

It seems to crank/run much more smoothly, after two glow cycles a couple of rpms then takes off in the cold with some BD mixed in....

Mostly I am clocking 29-32 mpgs on the short drive back & forth to my wife's work 5 days a week(7-9 miles a day)....well aware how much lower that would be on this car with a gas engine. Have first hand experience with a 1.8T one of these from similar year that can barely get out of the high teens while driving similarly....

On tanks that include highway/freeway jonts around the denver metro area on interstates posted @ 65-75 with observed travel speeds in the gps of 65-78 mph, (touching a max of 80mph)in 2k miles clocked I am seeing numbers closer to a solid 35 mpgs.....

I believe that when I get a chance to do highway mainly tanks I should be able to see around 38-40 mpgs as the original owner clocked for the life of the car when he drove it mainly from Denver to Ft. Collins a couple of times a week for work, with a few days a week going less than ~10 miles a day per tank....

2011 Jetta M6, 40 -42
2011 JSW DSG, 36-38
2015 Cruze Diesel Auto 40-42
2013 JSW M6 36-38
2006 Ram MegaCab M6 3500 17-22

#dieseleverything

Have a look at my fuelly. I do a lot of small town driving (5-10km trips). 7.1L/100km is about 33MPG. This is with a European AVF engine in a W8 4motion vehicle. Best I can get is just over 40mpg on long highway trips.

rotarykid, why don't you just do the " Ventectomy" on your fill system.
Search TDIclub for how to do it!

I have a 2005 with a GGB manual swap. Malone stage 1. Winter tires at 36PSI. Mountain Driving at 75 - 80 MPH. I saw 33 MPG.

City/HWY Mix under 70MPH on HWY I saw 33MPG.

This is all on winter fuel with a centene post/injector cleaner in the tank. Under 1000 miles driven.

I hit a deer so the car is parked. Damn girl scout cookie deliveries at 9:30 on a Sunday night.... I have a new turbo and FSD's to be installed.

Rotary kid- the most I have ever squeezed into the tank while venting is just over 18. It was running in fumes at that point.

Jzallan said:

Hi all. Just curious what others are getting for mileage? I have an 04 with an auto and the best I get from it is 38. That’s not common, but it happens on longer trips. I see people advertising on CL claiming 45MPG and I just have a hard time believing it!
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Click to expand...

I presume you have a sedan. Fuelly is another source. The more miles accumulated the more real work expected average MPG.

For the 2005 Passat sedan with the BHW engine and automatic transmission (perhaps there migh be one or tow converted to manual):

"Based on data from 15 vehicles, 813 fuel-ups and 409,467 miles of driving, the 2005 Volkswagen Passat gets a combined Avg MPG of 35.17 with a 0.36 MPG margin of error."

For the 2004 Passat sedan TDI you get:

"Based on data from 4 vehicles, 896 fuel-ups and 438,168 miles of driving, the 2004 Volkswagen Passat gets a combined Avg MPG of 32.20 with a 0.50 MPG margin of error."

So assuming a 50/50 city/hwy mix on the above 19 vehicles and 847,672 miles you are looking at an overall average of approximately 34 MPG for a sedan with an automatic transmission.

I would say this figure is the best expected MPG with the available data.

My B5 Wagon with a 5 speed manual conversion gets around 42 at 60 MPH.
When I calculate the fuel economy at the pump longhanded, the MPG always comes out better than the car's computer.

05 passat GLS TDI BHW Pd Auto 17" tires. My Trip last week fron Denver to Yakima Wa. Winds around 20 mph. I trying to hold 80 mph, ac on. The trip was 1140 mile, my math put came in at 36 mpg. The the car was 35 mpg but the the speedometer reads 3 mile an hour fast.
I was not babysitting the mpg, lol the only thing note wearth to pass me were VW Galfs. Not to shabby, the only think is my 05 TDI with 15" ride softer and quite, db ran about 80db ( with new ap on phone problems not very accurate reads 40db in a quet truck cab). Ps I have only owned this vw for 3 weeks.

I get 42-44 mpg (65 to 70 mph) highway and 36 city with the Passat 5 speed. On longer trips it's always about 42 mpg because I have an extra passenger and the car is loaded to the hilt with extra supplies.