2014 Q7 TDI Gen 2 POST UPGRADE Results

clt1wjs

New member
Joined
Nov 16, 2017
Location
Mims,FL
TDI
2014 Q7 TDI S line Prestige
I had my Gen 2 2014 Q7 emissions upgrade scheduled to be completed on the first day according to Audi site 11/6/17. It was scheduled for 7:00 am. When arriving at the dealer they told me they couldn't complete it because the mechanics and supervisors were all in training and they would get to it late in the afternoon. On the 7th they called and told me it was done. On my way to pick it up I received another call saying it wasn't done and do I have my CLAIM number. They need the claim number to down load the fix for your specific car. That wasn't in the training!. when I got to the dealer they told me they had good news and bad. The good was the car was done, the bad was the car was quarantined until the EPA approved my specific repair results (2-3 days). while driving home in my loaner they called and said my car was now approved?? UNREAL!!! I went back and retrieved my COMPLIANT 2014 Q7TDI :). The mechanic told me the ADBLUE was topped off and I will notice a slightly louder diesel sound and no more than 1 mpg loss in efficiency. I had a trip planned to the Midwest for the holiday's so I left Florida the next morning. when I crossed into GA my ADBLUE warning light went off and said I had 500 miles left. I called the dealer and they said bring it in immediately. I told them the closest dealer was in Atlanta (367 miles) from where I was located. I made to Atlanta and they looked at it for 2 hours and determined that the ADBLUE pump from the big tank to the small tank was bad but did not have the parts. They topped off the tank and said I would be good to drive it to the Midwest??? I did exactly that and arrived in OMAHA. The dealer there spent another 4 hours trying to fiqure it out since the Atlanta guys cleared all the codes. Needed a new pump just like I told them. Had to order it. 2days late I have my vehicle back and working. It is slightly louder. It accelerates much better but I am getting almost 4.5 mpg less than before. I averaged 28 mpg trailerin a boat 4000 miles this summer and now with no boat I just drove 1400 miles and got 23.5 mpg. Maybe it will get better with a new ADBLUE pump. I doubt it! Anyway I was told mine was officially the first one completed on the East coast. I hope everyone else has a better experience.
 
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14q7tdi

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2016
Location
pa
TDI
q7
Wow, thanks for the update. Somehow I'm not surprised by your experience. As much as I want to just get the fix done to get the rest of the payment, I think I'll wait until there is more real life experience behind the resulting "fix". I had a feeling that the 1mpg loss would be optimistic, but 4.5mpg loss is terrible. I wonder what VW's response will be if this is the reality of the fix and complaints start rolling in?
 

MBQ

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2012
Location
Houston, TX
TDI
2012 Golf TDI 4Dr DSG
The lawyers already got paid, they don't really care anymore.

EPA/CARB thought they handed enough punishment to mother VW, no need to push more there.

The judge just handled the biggest consumer/environment case in history. The feat is enough.

VW? They can’t even care less. Lawyers don't speak anymore, judge don't speak anymore, the government let it go. Why should they? LOL

You're still moaning and groaning? Wipe your tears with those 100 Benjamin Franklin bills handed to yah!
 
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Mythdoc

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
TDI
2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
I had my Gen 2 2014 Q7 emissions upgrade scheduled to be completed on the first day according to Audi site 11/6/17. It was scheduled for 7:00 am. When arriving at the dealer they told me they couldn't complete it because the mechanics and supervisors were all in training and they would get to it late in the afternoon. On the 7th they called and told me it was done. On my way to pick it up I received another call saying it wasn't done and do I have my CLAIM number. They need the claim number to down load the fix for your specific car. That wasn't in the training!. when I got to the dealer they told me they had good news and bad. The good was the car was done, the bad was the car was quarantined until the EPA approved my specific repair results (2-3 days). while driving home in my loaner they called and said my car was now approved?? UNREAL!!! I went back and retrieved my COMPLIANT 2014 Q7TDI :). The mechanic told me the ADBLUE was topped off and I will notice a slightly louder diesel sound and no more than 1 mpg loss in efficiency. I had a trip planned to the Midwest for the holiday's so I left Florida the next morning. when I crossed into GA my ADBLUE warning light went off and said I had 500 miles left. I called the dealer and they said bring it in immediately. I told them the closest dealer was in Atlanta (367 miles) from where I was located. I made to Atlanta and they looked at it for 2 hours and determined that the ADBLUE pump from the big tank to the small tank was bad but did not have the parts. They topped off the tank and said I would be good to drive it to the Midwest??? I did exactly that and arrived in OMAHA. The dealer there spent another 4 hours trying to fiqure it out since the Atlanta guys cleared all the codes. Needed a new pump just like I told them. Had to order it. 2days late I have my vehicle back and working. It is slightly louder. It accelerates much better but I am getting almost 4.5 mpg less than before. I averaged 28 mpg trailerin a boat 4000 miles this summer and now with no boat I just drove 1400 miles and got 23.5 mpg. Maybe it will get better with a new ADBLUE pump. I doubt it! Anyway I was told mine was officially the first one completed on the East coast. I hope everyone else has a better experience.
Winter diesel would account for lower mpg.
 

RebelTDI

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Nov 1, 2009
Location
Boston, MA
TDI
2016 Audi Q5 TDI, 2016 BMW 535d Xdrive
That sounds like a painful experience. I agree that winter diesel could account for reduced mpg. It will take a bunch of fill ups over time to know what effects the mods have on mpg. Thinking about it logically, it seems strange that you would have to use more fuel to produce less NOx.
 

DanB36

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Joined
Jul 13, 2003
Location
Savannah, GA
TDI
2014 Q5 Prestige TDI, Monsoon Gray
Thinking about it logically, it seems strange that you would have to use more fuel to produce less NOx.
That actually makes quite a bit of sense, as NOx becomes an issue in lean-burn situations. If there's more fuel, there's less NOx. However, most of the folks who have gotten the 2.0 fix aren't reporting significantly worse mileage. On the gripping hand, the 3.0 fix is fully emissions-compliant, while none of the 2.0 fixes is.
 

bird67

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Joined
Nov 18, 2012
Location
Snowy North
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2014 Touareg TDI*
Winter diesel would account for lower mpg.
Sorry, I call BS on suddenly losing 4-5 mpg due to winter fuel. My winter/summer MPG differential has always been minimal. I agree, though, that we do not yet have a critical mass of "fixed" 3.0s from which to draw reliable conclusions. I'm in no hurry to have mine done.
 

Mythdoc

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Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
TDI
2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
Sorry, I call BS on suddenly losing 4-5 mpg due to winter fuel. My winter/summer MPG differential has always been minimal. I agree, though, that we do not yet have a critical mass of "fixed" 3.0s from which to draw reliable conclusions. I'm in no hurry to have mine done.

Ok, then I call BS on OP’s reporting “28mpg trailering a boat” with a Q7. As for winter diesel, a roughly 10% decline in mpg in winter is widely reported. YMMV, but your own experience doesn’t agree with mine or with that of many, many posters on this site.
 

bird67

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Nov 18, 2012
Location
Snowy North
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2014 Touareg TDI*
Ok, then I call BS on OP’s reporting “28mpg trailering a boat” with a Q7. As for winter diesel, a roughly 10% decline in mpg in winter is widely reported. YMMV, but your own experience doesn’t agree with mine or with that of many, many posters on this site.
Assuming 10% reduction solely due to winter fuel is accurate, 10% of 28 is 2.8. He reports 4-5mpg reduction.

You are right, my experience does vary. Must be either my light winter foot or the mild winters we have up here in the Snowy North. :) I could understand some decline in the dead of a Northern winter when folks let their cars idle to warm up, use snow tires and drive in resistance-increasing snow and slush. Few of these conditions exist anywhere right now, though, especially in Florida where the poster with the 4-5mpg reduction lives.
 
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Mythdoc

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Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
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2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
Assuming 10% reduction solely due to winter fuel is accurate, 10% of 28 is 2.8. He reports 4-5mpg reduction.

You are right, my experience does vary. Must be either my light winter foot or the mild winters we have up here in the Snowy North. :) I could understand some decline in the dead of a Northern winter when folks let their cars idle to warm up, use snow tires and drive in resistance-increasing snow and slush. Few of these conditions exist anywhere right now, though, especially in Florida where the poster with the 4-5mpg reduction lives.


But if you read, he was traveling via Atlanta and Omaha when he recorded his 24 mpg, which sounds much more reasonable to me than 28 towing a boat. Oh well...
 

nayr

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Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Location
Colorado
TDI
2014 Audi Q7
I've never seen 28mpg out of mine even without towing, with a lightweight Cricket camper I got between 16-20mpg depending on how fast I was going.

23-24mpg is bout my average in the Q7 so far, 26mpg or so on interstates..

hand calculated, but I cant recall seeing MFD higher than 28mpg unless I was coming back down the mountains.. I got a good 40mpg coming home after a concert at RedRocks, but those situations dont count when its all downhill..

I do have big heavy all terrains which seemed to hurt fuel economy by a mpg or two, mostly in city driving tho.. when traveling highways they have a much smaller impact on fuel economy.

edit: http://www.fuelly.com/car/audi/q7/2013?engineconfig_id=238&bodytype_id=&submodel_id=
 
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bird67

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Joined
Nov 18, 2012
Location
Snowy North
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2014 Touareg TDI*
But if you read, he was traveling via Atlanta and Omaha when he recorded his 24 mpg, which sounds much more reasonable to me than 28 towing a boat. Oh well...
I am with you on that, 28 while towing something heavy seems a stretch.

The winter blend diesel fuel factor continues to have my curiosity. I presume that up here in the North, our diesel has already been reformulated for winter. I have filled up twice in the last couple of weeks. My fuel mileage remains unchanged at 28 to 29 MPG. I have my snow tires on now too. Where is my 10% dip?
 

piotrsko

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Aug 11, 2013
Location
Reno Nv
TDI
2013 Golf, 2000 F-250 (7.3)
Mine got done monday last, must be going deaf since it sounds the same. Performance went up, probably since adaptive got reset, mileage down because I can't keep foot from floorboarding throttle. Regens more often. Net result: glad its done, got check FEDEX Friday.
 

2turbosX2

New member
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Location
Southern CA
TDI
2014 Q7
I took my 2014 Q7 to the dealer on Wednesday Nov 9th, it took them until Thursday evening to finish. There were some parts that they hadn’t ordered.

The results: The engine is somewhat louder at low rpm and idle (more diesel ticking). I’ve noticed that the turbo whistle is much less noticeable while cruising around at high load and low rpm. It seems as if they have increased rpm and lowered boost for similar power.
Overall power seems down substantially. They did make it jump off the line better, but then it is missing a bunch of midrange torque. Acceleration from 35-60 is nothing like what it used to be.
MPG has plummeted too. I used to get 28 on the highway, and now the best is 24. 5% is 1.4 mpg not 4. But even worse driving around town dropping the kids off at school, I used to get 18.5, now it’s 15.5.
Basically VW continues its shenanigans. I could handle 5% not 20%. I hope a magazine does a side by side test on before and after recall. I’ll offer up my 14 Q7 TDI Prestige sport plus for testing.
 

psd1

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2011
Location
OR
TDI
2006 Jetta 2013 Passat SE 6Man
I am getting almost 4.5 mpg less than before. I averaged 28 mpg trailerin a boat 4000 miles this summer and now with no boat I just drove 1400 miles and got 23.5 mpg.
Are these hand calculated numbers or from the MFD?

28 MPG towing anything seems suspect to me.
 

Mythdoc

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
TDI
2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
The only way this will be scientific is to pre fix test and then post fix same car on a dyno. Second best: someone who keeps hand calculated records, look up what they got under similar driving conditions for 5 tanks last winter vs 5 tanks now.
 

nayr

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Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Location
Colorado
TDI
2014 Audi Q7
When I went in to get emissions tested I choose a facility that offered dyno print out for a little extra money.. unfortunately their printer was broken and they wouldent sell it to me.

Ive got every fuel receipt since I owned it, for the last 10k miles.. but it would be nice to get graphs of the original tune, the fixed tune, then my fixed-fix stage 2 tune.. but thats not gonna be cheap to get :\

Might record some 0-60 runs in Drive and Sport just too compare what they did to the shift points.. I can do that for free.
 

bloc

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Joined
Apr 25, 2006
Location
Austin, Tx
TDI
2013 Touareg TDI
Got mine done a couple days ago. Same off the line, feels WAY flatter in midrange and higher RPM.

More "diesel clatter" in certain conditions.. definitely less downshifting/engine braking than before.

The battle between extended warranty and stage 1 or 2 malone is tipping toward malone...
 

dyehead

Active member
Joined
May 11, 2017
Location
Los Angeles
TDI
2013 Q7 Prestige
My 2013 Q7 feels like a lesser car now for sure. You can’t feather the gas and have any effect, merging into traffic feels way more dangerous because the timing is way worse. I have to basically drive it in sport mode when merging or changing lanes or risk an accident. Feels like it will refuse to downshift unless you press down hard, and then when it does it drops you multiple gears.
 

bloc

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Joined
Apr 25, 2006
Location
Austin, Tx
TDI
2013 Touareg TDI
Yeah, i'm not happy with the big flat spot on the lesser half of throttle pedal travel.

Taking a right turn from one road onto another I dip into the throttle expecting it to go somewhere and it just sits there until I stomp on it.

I'm thinking the idea of a tune is gaining some traction in my head.
 

Twohorses

New member
Joined
Dec 3, 2017
Location
Boston
TDI
2014 Touareg TDi
Reduced power, reduced MPG and terrible engine sound, no fun to drive anymore

Just got my 2014 Touareg TDi fixed at dealer. Driven 2 weeks now post modification. Contrary to VW claim, I can say with certainty that 1) the car lost a lot more than 1 MPG. I am seeing mpg value as low as 18.5 which never happened in my pre -mod 27,000 miles of driving under any condition. I was getting 31-32 on highways pre-mod. Will find out later how much MPG loss in highway condition. 2) there is significant loss of accelerations power. This was one of the character I like the most. 3) the engine sound noisier all the time with a completely different feel when driving. My conclusion, I am getting a much worse different car after VW modifying it. I believe VW deliberately understated the changes resulted from the emission modification.

I was not angry when VW was first caught cheating. I am much angrier now realizing that they decided to cheat their consumers out the second time and our government appears to be helping them rather than us.
 

bloc

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Apr 25, 2006
Location
Austin, Tx
TDI
2013 Touareg TDI
1) the car lost a lot more than 1 MPG. I am seeing mpg value as low as 18.5 which never happened in my pre -mod 27,000 miles of driving under any condition. I was getting 31-32 on highways pre-mod. Will find out later how much MPG loss in highway condition.
Until you document miles driven against fuel you actually pump into the tank you can't claim a mileage hit post-fix. The car's calculation of mileage is notoriously inaccurate, and may be more-so with VW having been mandated to change operational parameters of the engine, but not being required to make the MFI accurate.

Also, mileage MAY increase as the vehicle learns and adjusts certain values.

I'm not saying people's mileage didn't drop.. I'm saying going by the MFI is not an accurate way to support that argument.
 

bird67

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Joined
Nov 18, 2012
Location
Snowy North
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2014 Touareg TDI*
Until you document miles driven against fuel you actually pump into the tank you can't claim a mileage hit post-fix. The car's calculation of mileage is notoriously inaccurate, and may be more-so with VW having been mandated to change operational parameters of the engine, but not being required to make the MFI accurate.

Also, mileage MAY increase as the vehicle learns and adjusts certain values.

I'm not saying people's mileage didn't drop.. I'm saying going by the MFI is not an accurate way to support that argument.
Truly not trying to be antagonistic here. I get that calculating MPG by taking odometer reading and dividing by fuel burned is a more accurate determinant of MPG. I also get that comparing pre-"fix" calculations by hand with post-fix MFI readings tells little about relative MPG pre- vs. post-"fix." But what I don't get is why comparing pre-"fix" MFI readings with post-"fix" MFI readings isn't a valid indicator of whether the "fix" has adversely affected MPG.

So long as it's an apples-to-apples comparison, why isn't comparing pre- vs post-"fix" MFI readings a reliable way to see if your TDI is less fuel-efficient post-"fix"? For example - if I got 28 MPG on my MFI pre-"fix" and now get 24 MPG on my MFI post-"fix", why can't I draw the conclusion that the "fix" hurt fuel efficiency? My MFI MPG was consistent pre-"fix" at about 1 MPG over hand calculation, and since it was consistently the same 1 MPG off, time after time, I don't consider it "notoriously inaccurate."

Again, not trolling for a fight. I just don't understand why comparing apples-to-apples is invalid.
 
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Mythdoc

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Tennessee
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2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
Truly not trying to be antagonistic here. I get that calculating MPG by taking odometer reading and dividing by fuel burned is a more accurate determinant of MPG. I also get that comparing pre-"fix" calculations by hand with post-fix MFI readings tells little about relative MPG pre- vs. post-"fix." But what I don't get is why comparing pre-"fix" MFI readings with post-"fix" MFI readings isn't a valid indicator of whether the "fix" has adversely affected MPG.

So long as it's an apples-to-apples comparison, why isn't comparing pre- vs post-"fix" MFI readings a reliable way to see if your TDI is less fuel-efficient post-"fix"? For example - if I got 28 MPG on my MFI pre-"fix" and now get 24 MPG on my MFI post-"fix", why can't I draw the conclusion that the "fix" hurt fuel efficiency? My MFI MPG was consistent pre-"fix" at about 1 MPG over hand calculation, and since it was consistently the same 1 MPG off, time after time, I don't consider it "notoriously inaccurate."

Again, not trolling for a fight. I just don't understand why comparing apples-to-apples is invalid.

First, because of small sample size. How many tanks did it take to arrive at an MFI pre fix? How many tanks post fix?

With the small sample, you have all sorts of variables: diesel blend and quality, route, traffic, headwind, who knows? My Touareg showed up to a 15% variation in MPG from one tank to another on I-75 trips back in the day. One time I had a 31.5 mpg tank but typically it was 26-28. I would stop at the same pumps but in different season and in different weather. The 31.5 tank was when there was a stiff south westerly wind literally blowing me all the way from Virginia to New Hampshire. I hand calculated everything and was totally perfectionist about filling the tank exactly the same amount every time, zeroing out and record keeping. If hand calculating showed this much spread, the MFI will show even a bit more.
 
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nayr

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Mar 26, 2013
Location
Colorado
TDI
2014 Audi Q7
So long as it's an apples-to-apples comparison, why isn't comparing pre- vs post-"fix" MFI readings a reliable way to see if your TDI is less fuel-efficient post-"fix"? For example - if I got 28 MPG on my MFI pre-"fix" and now get 24 MPG on my MFI post-"fix", why can't I draw the conclusion that the "fix" hurt fuel efficiency? My MFI MPG was consistent pre-"fix" at about 1 MPG over hand calculation, and since it was consistently the same 1 MPG off, time after time, I don't consider it "notoriously inaccurate."

Again, not trolling for a fight. I just don't understand why comparing apples-to-apples is invalid.
Because its well known that getting an aftermarket tune borks the MFI and it needs re-calibrated afterwords.. When my 2.0L got tuned the MFI went from being pretty accurate compared to hand calculations to far off from hand calculations..

If MFI thinks that injectors firing so many times == so much fuel, and then they tweak how long injectors are open or the pressure of the fuel then suddenly the MFI's calculations are nonsense until manually adjusted to compensate.. it could think its using more fuel than it actually is pretty easily with the fix in place..

also calculating it by the tank averages it out better, the long average on MFI isint that far out.. for example, if you just had a regen its usually not that accurate either.
 
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bloc

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Apr 25, 2006
Location
Austin, Tx
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2013 Touareg TDI
Truly not trying to be antagonistic here. I get that calculating MPG by taking odometer reading and dividing by fuel burned is a more accurate determinant of MPG.

.....

Again, not trolling for a fight. I just don't understand why comparing apples-to-apples is invalid.
Others brought up good points but I had one big point to add.

We don't know exactly how fuel economy is calculated, and whether anything about those calculations changed with the fix.

Yes, I get that you can calculate fuel use over distance, but there is no direct measurement of injected fuel volume. There are calculations based on measured fuel pressure, injector open duration, and an offset entered into the ECU to tell it exactly how much each injector flows (the fact that this changes over time isn't relevant to this conversation, but is to overall reported MFI on a high-mileage vehicle).

Even then, does it compare calculated fuel use per hour, then adjust that by MPH to get MPG? Does it calculate fuel usage over a 100yd distance? 1/4mile?

Ultimately there is a lot we don't know about the inner workings of the ECU, as well as what exactly the fix did. We don't know whether some element of the fix could have impacted the way the ECU does FE calculations for the MFI.

Basically, there are too many unknown variables. Until you compare actual fuel pumped vs actual odometer change it isn't a valid comparison. Even the difference in how one fuel pump shuts off vs another or the tendency of the fuel to foam or not can impact this measurement, but as long as the fuel pumps are calibrated this will average out pretty quickly over a few tanks.

That said, I'm on my first tank post-fix and with 1/4 left it sure seems like I'll get significantly less miles out of it. But, I'll calculate MPG for this tank and a couple more (to allow for adaptation within the ECU to the way I drive) before drawing a conclusion.

My gut is telling me that I lost significant FE. I'll wait to complain about it until I have hard numbers.
 

bhuizer

Well-known member
Joined
May 26, 2017
Location
Iowa
TDI
2014 Toureg TDI, 2014 Q5 TDI, Past: 2012 Touareg TDI, 2012 Jetta TDI
Does anyone else notice their engine warms up much faster than before? I don't have a complaint about this, but I do worry about how they are doing it. One can only assume that they are doing significantly more EGR than before to get everything up to temp. Not a big deal, but too much EGR is hard on an engine and is also bad for engine oil quality. If I plan to keep this Touareg a while, I'm wondering if this is going to be detrimental to the longevity of the engine. Granted it's all under warranty now, but not in a few years when I'm over 120k and VW is no longer taking care of the bill.
 

nayr

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Location
Colorado
TDI
2014 Audi Q7
the cold start idle is higher and it shifts later when cold, in my Golf I got an aftermarket tune that provided the dynamic idle and it reduced warm up time significantly.

they coulda mucked with the EGR too, but its not ALL to blame on the EGR.
 
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