munly
Veteran Member
This may be long winded. My car (2002 Golf, 5 speed) has never got great mileage. I bought if from a VW mechanic in Newfoundland June 2012 with 90,000km. He bought it from an old lady, I gathered there was some catastrophic failure of the engine which made her not want to fix it, just buy a new one. The VW mechanic bought it, fixed it, drove it, then sold it. I'm assuming the timing belt failed.
Anyways, driving it in Newfoundland on mostly short commutes resulted in low mileage (36-38mpg). Now the car is with me in the Vancouver, BC area. The mileage hasn't improved too much, still high 30's. Over the past year I started fixing the car. Things like suspension rebuild, new rear brakes (and e-brake), cleaned intake, EGR removed, CTS, thermostat, etc. Mileage remained much the same, keep in mind my commute in Vancouver was short as well.
Next step was .216 nozzles and stage 3 Malone tune. This made the car fun to drive and didn't really effect MPG at all.
Finally, I'm now living outside of Vancouver. So my commute will be roughy 130km round trip. It is a mountain highway (hills, turns, downshifting, etc.) I was hoping to see a decent jump in MPG but my first tank since my longer commute gave me 39.5 MPG. Yesterday (after filling up and calculating MPG) I made my first attempt at playing with the VCDS. I was getting a decent amount of black smoke when accelerating hard. My timing was just above the max specification, I dialled it back to 56ish. Its in the middle of the upper portion of the graph. My IQ was also lower than I would like, in the neighbourhood of 3.2 I think. I moved it to 4.2. Hopefully this produces some improvements.
One final thing. I have a roof rack, which is a necessity to me for biking. What kind a mileage hit do you think that would cause? I would like to get mid to low 40's, any suggestions would be appreciated. I'll attach a photo of my bike rack as soon as I remember how.
Anyways, driving it in Newfoundland on mostly short commutes resulted in low mileage (36-38mpg). Now the car is with me in the Vancouver, BC area. The mileage hasn't improved too much, still high 30's. Over the past year I started fixing the car. Things like suspension rebuild, new rear brakes (and e-brake), cleaned intake, EGR removed, CTS, thermostat, etc. Mileage remained much the same, keep in mind my commute in Vancouver was short as well.
Next step was .216 nozzles and stage 3 Malone tune. This made the car fun to drive and didn't really effect MPG at all.
Finally, I'm now living outside of Vancouver. So my commute will be roughy 130km round trip. It is a mountain highway (hills, turns, downshifting, etc.) I was hoping to see a decent jump in MPG but my first tank since my longer commute gave me 39.5 MPG. Yesterday (after filling up and calculating MPG) I made my first attempt at playing with the VCDS. I was getting a decent amount of black smoke when accelerating hard. My timing was just above the max specification, I dialled it back to 56ish. Its in the middle of the upper portion of the graph. My IQ was also lower than I would like, in the neighbourhood of 3.2 I think. I moved it to 4.2. Hopefully this produces some improvements.
One final thing. I have a roof rack, which is a necessity to me for biking. What kind a mileage hit do you think that would cause? I would like to get mid to low 40's, any suggestions would be appreciated. I'll attach a photo of my bike rack as soon as I remember how.
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