tgray
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2004
- Location
- Marengo, IL
- TDI
- '02 Beetle, '05 Golf, 2000 Jetta, 2001 Jetta, 2002 Jetta
I adjusted the timing up in adaptation when I first got the car about 7 years ago. That bumped my mpg up a mpg or 2 and for the past 7 years I enjoyed 49-50 mpg on my daily commute. At my last timing belt change at the 200,000 mile mark I had time to try some more adjustments mentioned on this forum. I set my egr higher a few numbers rather than lower as many on the forum do and don't realize that this actually makes the mpg go down as the computer compensates by retarding the timing. I am not too concerned about intake clogging as I did mine at 200,000 and it was not too bad with a fully funtioning egr valve all those miles. As well, I set my timing to the top end of the graph from the adjustment bolts on the injection gear. With all of these adjustments it runs better than it ever did, starts very easy and has a lot of smooth power. (Still running on the same stock injectors). I now have been getting a solid 52-53 mpg without much effort at all. I pretty much drive with the flow of traffic and my hit 70 mpg once in a while so I am not hyper-mile driving to get these numbers. My car is a new beetle so the wind hits me a little harder than the others. All I can say after 7 years of driving I am still impressed. My one nagging question is what could a tune chip do with bigger nozzles over and above the mpg's I am getting now? I see many claim better mileage after the tune and nozzles but I wonder if they have just ended up with the same end results of advanced timing over the stock settings. Bigger nozzles by themselves end up advancing the timing by getting the fuel delivered quicker into the combustion chamber for a longer burn.