A while back, Paul noted in an article the death of the the light duty diesel. Well, my experience with my 2018 Golf SportWagen is proving his point.
This is the result of the first sort of “highway” trip in the Golf. I went from Nanaimo, British Columbia, to Tofino. This isn’t exactly freeway stuff: most of it is twisty, windy and hilly. Yet the Golf delivered what I consider to be excellent fuel economy.
The last Rabbit diesel I had would do about 5.5L/100km (43 mpg) on the highway, and about 7.0 (34 mpg) in the city. This car weighed all of 800 kg and had a blistering 48 horsepower.
Fast forward to 2018: my Golf gets 5.9 L/100km (40 US mpg) on mountain roads and 7.4 (32 mpg) in city traffic. This from a car that weighs 1400 kg and has 170 horsepower.
Diesels? We don’t need no stinkin’ diesels. Why would one bother of very similar levels of fuel economy can be met without all the added complexity of a diesel?
I can remember a time early in the first diesel boom of the 70s when (at least in the US) an added benefit for the diesel was that the fuel was less expensive than gasoline, most likely due to lower taxes. Somewhere that changed and the value proposition evaporated for most of us.
My sister and brother in law were (and kind of still are) diesel people. He farms and is used to diesels on the rest of his equipment, and has a couple of Ram Cummins trucks. Sis let go of her last Jetta diesel some time back and has not looked back. They had the benefit of having a tank of road diesel (taxed) on the farm so fill-ups were extremely convenient.
For someone like me, not only is the fuel much more expensive but it is much more inconvenient to find. I was cautioned years ago by my BIL to avoid low-volume city stations because you have no idea how old that fuel is in their tanks, and the odds of pumping a summer blend into your car in December can be high.
So diesels have been completely irrelevant to my life for a long time.
Yup I want to say it was 10-15% cheaper where I lived, than leaded regular when the diesel Rabbit became and overnight success.
In Denmark diesel is cheaper than gasoline, but the annual owner’s tax is higher, so if you have a long commute, diesel makes sense because they get better mileage and the fuel is cheaper. But the gap is narrowing and you have to drive ever more miles to make that equation favor diesels.
And of corse for cars that are just five or eight years old, the gap in mileage heavily favors diesels.
And now that newer diesels require periodic fillups with D,E.F. the value proposition got a bit steeper. (Wal-Mart sells a 6 pack of D.E.F. for $72, a small car like the Jetta would require a bottle about every 6-10 thousand miles….or so I seem to remember reading.)
Most folks nowadays probably still buy a diesel powered vehicle for the torque. I am no expert but if you are towing anything regularly, don’t you look for the most torque a powertrain will provide?
BTW, word is that Ford may FINALLY have a diesel for the F-150 this year, and has a diesel engine for the New Ranger, if demand is there.
Ford has been selling the F-150 diesel since part way through the 2018 MY.
Yes you want toque but the gas Ecoboosts also have lots of torque. For example Ford’s gas 2.7 is built a lot like a diesel, twin turbos with compacted graphite iron block and offset connecting rods. The result is 400 ft/lbs at 2750 RPM. In comparison, the Ram Ecodiesel puts out 420 ft/lbs at 2000 RPM…and 85 less HP. Ford’s gas 3.5 puts out 470 ft/lbs at 2500 RPM while their 3.0 diesel puts out 440 ft/lbs at 2250 RPM.
A diesel is still the most economical for a lot of towing but the boosted gassers will perform very well at that task, maybe even better than the diesels with all the extra HP. And if you are towing that often do you really want to be doing it in a half ton or midsize? That’s why I just don’t see much appeal in these new small diesels. It’s a pretty narrow use case where they make sense.
I love Diesels, however here in Holland roadtax for an Alfa 159 JTDm would be € 1600, making it impossible to drive if you do not make 40k kilometers per year.
But I loved the 159, the smoothness the six speed gearbox its hughe alloys the six SIX headlights the Giurgiaro design , the whole shabang of the 159 saloon.
Don’t be fooled by the writing press the car was nose heavy, it would go faster and better through a curve then my 1998 Impreza STI Coupe.
It was quiet and comfortable.
Its successor is an Alfa Mito Veloce, 1.4 petrol, 170hp, etna black which gives a red glow when parked in the sun, mean 18″ alloys, lovely, but it does not have ‘it’ like the 159 Diesel had.
Come to think of it, Je suis Diesel from the crappy 74 404 Diesel I salvaged from the breakers yard for holiday in Greece and later that year the car went to Egypt with a friend, the bronze metallic 504 2.3 Diesel from the boss who hated driving and gave me the xar for the week end, the 504 LD Diesel stationwagon which I drove over 300000 kilometers chasing ships all over Europe, Bertha the Mercedes 207Diesel van, the B5 Passat 130hp TDi not to speak the numerous vans and trucks from a humble Citroen C15 van to Peugeot J5, Mercedes 213 Sprinter, Fiat Ducato, numerous Iveco trucks (i am an Iveco kindaguy) to the company Golf I sometimes now drive visiting customers.
The whole public correctness annoys me, Europe has chosen for the semi to haul goods, a semi the pollutin semi, next time you light your woodfire, realize yourself it pollutes as much as SIX semi trucks!
I’d be amazed if a new Golf diesel chewed that much fuel or is VW really that far behind in diesel technology, I have a 15 year old Citroen that does better fuel consumption figures than those posted and its a much bigger heavier car, a friend has a C4 1600cc diesel manual that uses half the posted figures and goes and handles really well, I’ll be buying diesels for some time to come, I’m unlikely to change brands either.
Bryce, I’d wager my driving conditions are quite a bit different than yours.
The new 1.4T engine in the 2019 Golf (FWD only) gets even better fuel economy, up about 3 mpg, even though torque is about the same as the 1.8T and horsepower is only 20hp less, and the engine is lighter. Acceleration is only slightly slower – worth it given near diesel mpg.
I’m not sure if it is the same everywhere else in North America, but here in New Brunswick Canada, diesel is significantly more expensive than regular unleaded, at least over the past year or so.
Case in point, The lowest local price for gasoline here is 92.9 c/L. Diesel is 125.9 c/L. This also needs to be considered when fuel economy is an issue.
Same in the US, and for some time. In Europe I think I saw that Diesel fuel was generally a little cheaper than petrol.
Agree with Len. Have a 2015 Golf SportWagen (same generation as his) with 5-speed manual, and get similar mileage. Very little city driving, but cruising between Calgary and the mountains it uses between 5.2 and 6.2 l/100 km depending on season, headwinds, etc. That’s about the same as my 1993 VW Passat 1.9 turbo diesel would do, which was rated at 75 hp/ 100 lb/ft.
EPA ratings for 2015 VW Golf gasoline vs. diesel, both with manual transmissions: 25/36 vs. 30/43 mpg. Difference appears significant, but actual fuel costs vary greatly throughout North America. Modern diesels today have only about a 10% real world fuel efficiency (not cost) advantage over a similar gasoline engine, as opposed to the 15-25% most sources agreed upon decades ago. One advantage of the turbo gasoline engine: it warms up much faster than the diesel, much appreciated in the current cold spell here!
“This from a car that weighs 1400 kg and has 170 horsepower.”
Does Canada still use HP [which is non-metric]? Versus kW [?] as the Australians?
Canada is officially metric but unofficially quite a number of things are measured in non-SI units.
Your doctor will weigh you in kg and measure you in cm, but in casual conversation it’s pounds for weight and ft/in for height. Produce by weight must be advertised in $/kg or $/100g, but generally they also show $/lb in a larger font. Beverages come in 12 ounce cans labelled 341 ml. We order landscape materials in cubic yards. Etc.
As we’re so tied to the American auto industry, horsepower has remained the de-facto unit. of measure.
I have two identical Mercedes, one gas, one diesel. Gas gets 20 MPG, diesel get 30 MPG. Hard to argue with. DEF is cheap and lasts for 10,000 miles per fill up. Maintenance is very similar on both. Both have a couple hundred thousand miles on them.
Yup, that’s about what we get on the highway with our 5-speed Focus. Actually we had 5.5 l/100km indicated, but we are using slightly undersize tires for winter so it’s probably about 5.9
Not the most comfortable car on long trips though..
I grew up reading car magazines that quoted an American philosophy – “there’s no substitute for torque”. Living in Ireland for the last 40+ years I became used to a regime that taxed engine capacity punitively, but all that changed in 2008 when tax was shifted to CO2.
My wife drives an early 08 Accord diesel, that last of the DPF free cars, the last “dirty” diesel. Diesel here is taxed at a lower rate than petrol. Fuel economy is 4.7 – 5.6 l/km. I seldom use more than 2500 rpm when behind the wheel because it simply isn’t necessary – there is so much torque. You can’t use full throttle for more than a few seconds because of speed limits. Now this will be our first and last diesel, because the technology that cleans up new diesel cars is expensive, intrusive, and potentially very troublesome. Only worthwhile if you spend your days cruising for long distances at 75+ mph, which we very rarely do now. Since my beloved now yearns for an auto, our Honda will soon be history, but it’s been a blast !
I had a 1997 Ram 2500 4X4 Automatic and 5.9 12 Valve Cummins and could get 26mpg at 55 on 4 lane highway empty and 17mpg when pulling a trailer on 2 lane roads. Try to find a new diesel 3/4 Ton that can get 17 empty. High horsepower kills diesel efficiency due to pumping loss etc. Oliver corporation (yes the one that made farm tractors) proved in the 1950’s that a Spark ignition engine could get diesel efficiency. If you ran them at the optimal compression ratio of 12.5:1. That required 140 octane fuel at the time, however gas direct injection has solved that problem.
That’s exactly what my new 6.7 Super Duty gets, overall.
My light-duty diesel pickup truck average is 28 miles per gallon in mixed driving. It averages 25 in City driving and on freeway only well over 30. It has similar horsepower to my last gasoline powered pickup truck and double the torque, and the gasoline powered truck averaged 16 and a half miles per gallon in mixed driving and 18 on the freeway. And this is in a 6000 pound full size truck.
I’ve had several Diesels, and here are my results: All averages tracked on Fuelly.com
’95 Diesel Jetta: 43MPG
“06 Jetta Diesel: 46 MPG
’91 Dodge Cummins 4X4 22-26MPG depending on auto or stick (have had several)
’05 Ford F350 Crew cab 4X4 Auto 6 liter Diesel: 16.3 MPG
’14 Mercedes Glk 250 Diesel :36MPG
For comparison, the GLK gas equivalent is 21MPG ( GLK 350 )
Diesels are not the same, don’t drive the same or get the same results.
What is hurting the diesel market is Bio Diesel, which depending on the state you live in can make a diesel a paperweight in a hurry if its newer, ask Mercedes about that one.
My 2006 1.6 litre 5 speed petrol Focus did 38-42 mpg (UK); the 1.4 litre diesel Fiesta did 50-55 with a five speed and the much more powerful Alfa 1.6 diesel with a 6 speed box does over 50 mpg practically all the time.
Fuel cost are £1.28 a litre for diesel, maybe £1.22 a litre for petrol, so the cost/mile saving is definitely there – miles per pound around 30% more. Add in the torque and zero annual vehicle tax, easier/cheaper maintenance and you can see the benefit over 20,000 miles a year. And 700 miles on a tank.
I’m diesel, for my daily driver until I go electric….
Petrol – Does that mean 5-quart gallons?
20 fl oz in a pint, 8 pints in an imperial gallon, so yes.
Pints also used for measuring beer.
Agree absolutely with our kid. My Golf is the 180hp GTD, and I get 50mpg cross country and 60mpg on the motorway, but all the fun of a GTi.
Why would you buy petrol for 30% higher fuel costs if you do the mileage to fund the price premium (which, at least in a Golf, is also a resale value premium)?
The time for diesel cars in North America seems to have passed. Even in 2010 when I was buying a Jetta Sportwagen with the thirsty 5-cylinder gasser, the remarkable fuel economy of the TDI was not worth the price premium to me. Of primary concern was the complexity of this engine compared to the dirty 1.9 before it. VW’s durability history made me nervous, I wasn’t about to risk such a complex powertrain from them. Now, with their 1.8 and 1.4 being so efficient, I don’t see any argument for diesel.
Pickups are probably different, although now it seems that with the old soot-belchers replaced by DEF, you are again trading simplicity and high mpg for emissions and power output. I don’t think the new 6.7L Powerstroke gets anywhere near the mileage of the old 7.3L smoker, does it? Hauls arse, though. Hard to believe how well such a heavy truck moves out when the transmission shifts into the power peak of that engine.
In the days of the Mk VI Jetta wagon, a TDI was “the thing to have”. Every time I mention I have a Jetta wagon, or anyone sees it, the first thing out of their mouth is “is it a diesel?”
Besides not wanting to deal with finding the fuel, or dealing with topping up the “add blue” aka DEF tank from time to time, or dealing with a clogged particle trap, the economics of a TDI were terrible, especially for someone who drives fewer than 10,000 miles a year, like me. Besides the fuel costing more, and the maintenance on the DSG trans costing more, the cars themselves cost thousands more than my gas engine version. I swear people get hypnotized by the low fuel consumption and don’t give a moment’s thought to the thousands in extra expense they bear to get that low consumption.
Mine has the normally aspirated 2.5. I don’t get the mileage people with the 1.8T do, but I run around 32mpg.
I have found the trip average consumption computer to be optimistic.
Holy cow. What did that come out to hand-calculated? The best tank my 5-cylinder Sportwagen ever pulled was 34 mpg.
Holy cow. What did that come out to hand-calculated?
I don’t know how that specific tank came out. Thumbing through old gas receipts, I saw a couple that were over 35, but 32ish is the norm in the summer, when I usually head somewhere on the highway every weekend. In the winter, with cold weather and short trips, my mileage drops to 27 or so. I suspect the Michelins I replaced the OEM Bridgestones with last year have slightly higher rolling resistance.
My car has the Aisin 6 speed automatic.
My 98 Civic 5spd, routinely ran in the 41 range. I also had a 97 Civic coupe for a bit. The 97 was also a 5 speed, but did not have hydraulic power steering like the 98 did. The 97 routinely topped the 98 by about 1mpg.
Diesel fan here, having owned a number over the years. Our current 2016 Peugeot 508 is full of modern-turbo-diesel technology, and is relatively big and heavy, but averages between 5-6L/100km and goes over 1,200km on a tank of diesel. Of course it helps that diesel is significant;y cheaper than petrol in New Zealand.
Just returned from cruising the south island I was working down there and stayed when the job ended car is showing 6.2L/100kms city and highway driving and mine is an old single cam 8 valve HDI engine but manual which may help.
Well, Bryce, I have shown you that my larger, more powerful gas engine gets better mileage than your diesel.
Shown you.
I don’t think that VW trip computer is very accurate for your 2018 VW. Try plugging the numbers in to Fuelly.com and see what you get. Our 18 Alltrack Manual has had a best tank of 41.9 imp mpg…that was from Calgary to Creston over the not too steep Crowsnest Pass.
As a better comparison to the new Golf, we had a 2013 Golf TDI Manual that was regularly getting 50+ imp mpg on the highway with an all time high of 59.2 imp mpg. One tank we topped off in Radium Hot Springs and drove to Pincher Creek Alberta and then back over to BC and all the way back to Osoyoos on 1 tank with all those passes and high summits and still got 57 imp mpg! Try that on 1 tank in the new Golf.
Give me the TDI any day.
It is accurate. I have checked it.
Diesel is more expensive now in California, and the difference between it and premium can be significant at the stations. We get 37 mpg on the highway and around 27/28 around town in our ‘13 MB E350 BlueTec. It normally takes a bottle of the blue every 10k miles. It’s the first diesel we’ve owned and, since the plan is to hang onto it for awhile (currently 47k miles), no complaints on my end. We like the ride and pretty much everything else about it.
In France, diesel has been much less taxed than gasoline for ages.
Moreover, unlike gasoline, VAT on diesel was tax deductible for professionals or companies.
Then, starting 2008, government introduced a bonus / penalty system relying on CO2 emissions. As a consequence, new diesel cars got you a tax credit while gasoline cars got their buyers a penalty tax.
Consumers were lured into buying diesels and sales skyrocketed till they reached 75 % of new car sales in 2012.
Then we “discovered” that particulates matters from diesel were cancerous (a fact known in France since 19-freaking-83 !) and that both direct injection and PM filters increased toxic NO2 emissions (documented since the mid-00s…).
And now, government, both national and local, are passing low emission zones restricting the use of older cars, no matter if they’re gasoline and diesel, and old motorbikes, to lower PM and NO2 concentrations in cities, although these are emitted by those diesels companies, France and EU were so eager to sell, and NOT from gasoline engine.
Am I pissed off by all these diesels, the state and the EU, because I kinda feel I’m paying their bill since I own a old gasoline car forbidden during weekdays ?
You bet I am.
So, you’re okay with the pall of diesel soot that hovers over Paris?
He’s not saying there’s no problem (the opposite in fact): he’s saying that taxation and incentives led everyone into diesels, despite the previously-known health issues, and now they want to turn all that about and on the way end up banning his older petrol car which isn’t the cause of the problem! In short, massive pissing about at the behest of the clod-footed EU and govt, resulting in a (stinking) mess.
It’s a significant factor in the whole “yellow vests” movement, seen as a manifestation of contempt by “elites” (a highly-charged word, I know, but I’m only relaying what I’ve read), with the govt now entirely abandoning big diesel tax hikes which they saw as the way out.
Frankly, if you’re driving an older car, there’s a good chance it will be for economic reasons, and to be now told you can’t use it because of long-term stuff ups by the powerful, it’s fertile cause to be extremely pissed off..
Actually, I don’t know what to think about the “pall of diesel soot that hovers over Paris”.
All I know from official sources (namely Airparif, the official entity measuring air pollution) is that PM and NO2 concentrations were much much worse 15 years ago and nobody made a fuss about it. Although it’s been steadily decreasing since then, it’s now the number 1 priority.
Does the soup we’re breathing in Paris have changed and is more dangerous now ? Or is it once again this “state of emergency” communication we’ve been having for the last 10 years in France (no matter what the subject is) ?
What also pisses me off is that France made a conscious choice in the 1980’s to steer buyers to diesels and, to that effect, swiftly buried a report telling that diesel and PM were cancerous (PS : I’m not paranoid here. The existence of that report has been told by Le Monde, the french equivalent of the New York Times).
Why such a choice one may ask ? Fuel shortage ? Nope. It was seen as a very effective way to block an impending invasion of japanese cars. And it worked. Japanese cars truly started to sell in France when those could have diesels as good as french cars.
Also we had to wait till 1990-1993 to have emissions regulations as strong as US ones (before those years, catalytic converters and unleaded gas were NOT mandatory, quite the opposite actually).
So I have that tingling feeling that France, unlike the USA, put the car industry interests before pollution matters (bearing in mind that both France and Europe never had and still don’t have the equivalent of EPA to enforce emissions regulations…).
The most obvious consequence of that policy was that diesel cars were sold to people that didn’t need them ! With the blessing of car salesmen and companies.
Diesels are useful if you need to pull stuff or rack up miles.
Yet, small diesel cars flooded cities although their owners would never recoup the higher price of purchase since they didn’t use them enough.
Hence the high concentrations of PM and NO2 in Paris and many other cities and the will of many officials to ban older cars (and motorbikes, although those are even less responsible for PM and NO2 than gasoline cars).
Basically, officials are transferring the cost of their former policies to the consumer, who will have to change his car (or bike) if he wants to keep up driving.
To put it in a nutshell, all of this sounds like we’ve been conned.
Is it true that passenger cars and trucks are a relatively small portion of polluters?
In Australia – a big polluter per head of population – ALL transport is 20% of Co2 emissions, with cars 45% of that, so about 9% of total.
When it comes to city pollution factors, my understanding is that that varies greatly depending on the geography of a given city, the proximity to power source (if it’s a smelly one) and the amount of heavy industry. The car and truck factor is a bit dependent of quality of public transport and the weather conditions.
As a totally anecdotal case, Sydney (5.5 million) has great trains but no trams. The many buses and ferries are all diesel, and I personally reckon the place stinks! Melbourne (5million or so) relatively poor trains but hundreds of miles of trams (and no ferries) and it’s fine.
The 15 largest ships in the world emit more pollution than all the world’s cars put together.
Personally I believe emission controls have been very important to reduce local pollution, but we seem to have reached a point of diminishing returns. I’m not sure what a practical solution will be.
It depends on where you’re measuring pollution.
In France, I think traffic is responsible for one third of air pollution (mainly PM and NO2).
But in crowded cities with narrow streets preventing evaporation of air pollution, such as Paris, it is responsible for 40-50 % of particulate matters engine emissions and maybe 70 % of NO2 (bearing in mind that 90 to 95 % of PM from the engine and NO2 emissions are coming from diesels).
Tokyo essentially banned diesels ten years ago or so. As a result being a pedestrian in Tokyo is a breath of fresh air compared to Hong Kong or Manhattan or London. I’m glad diesel cars were never big in the US. They really do stink up a city compared to gasoline cars.
Yep. I lived near downtown Perth, Western Australia where taxis were LPG and buses CNG. Diesel cars were relatively uncommon and being able to see or smell exhaust fumes was unknown.
Moving to Glasgow, Scotland, the contrast was huge. Diesel taxis and shamefully smoky First buses made it feel like you could chew on the air. I was incredulous at the number of people who chose to cycle in the city, sometimes following one of those First wrecks for miles.
I suspect as vehicle size increases, the diesel factor becomes more relevant. (That’s also my anecdotal experience). Paul N’s van is a good case in point. Petrol is pricey in Aus, and as a working tool – say, deliveries – you couldn’t make money using the 17-20mpg he quotes: the diesel versions here (all about 2 litres-ish) average more like 30 mpg in the city, almost double for all intents and purposes. For sure, the last Hyundai (2.5litre) I rented got 32 mpg, and that was driving it in “rental” mode…
Nobody here buys big 4wds as petrols, nor as light commercials. Falcons and Commodores were often converted to LPG for heavy use, even available ex-factory as such. There’s no policy – we’ve had a shameful 10 years with no meaningful energy/greenhouse policy – just cost as the incentive.
Where it gets a bit silly is for people like my sister, a non-car person. She bought a top-range little Mitsubishi 4wd, an ASX, which came with a diesel. Great mileage indeed, and stupendous go, but I do not trust the clean-up tech. It is already giving trouble at 3-odd years and 30K miles, (and the industry is not good at understanding or fixing the issues) which arise because like so many, she does mostly low-speed traffic driving. There are many such vehicles on Aus roads. For them, the mileage advantage will almost certainly be one day outweighed by the complexity of turbo, intercooler, DPF filter, as it all ages.
And in the meantime, as it defaults or ages, they pollute.
So on balance, no, I don’t want no stinkin’ diesels either.
Mitsubishi has been using the exhaust clean up tech for quite a while in its Fuso truck range it works ok, intercooled turbo diesels have been around for decades, they dont go wrong very often and arent complex to repair,
For sure, bryce, but for innocents like my sis, the usage of the tech seems not to work as promised. Long-haul users, yes, but short-haul suburbanite usage leads to problems. I reckon the “burn off” tech is a lawyer’s compromise so that buyers don’t have to be told that a high speed run is mandatory every couple of weeks.
Put it this way: I don’t trust the manufacturers. They had huge investment in engines ready to go, but couldn’t meet more stringent emission standards – so they simply lied. VW engaged in huge fraud to “overcome” a problem Mercedes-Benz couldn’t without their AdBlue tech, and Mitsu themselves have a similar problem.
I agree it should be easy to fix in the basic time-tested tech, but the DPF and associated things are not well-understood by the mechanics, and without meaning to be repetitive, I just don’t trust that the original design of this stuff as being long-term sustainable, particularly when used in frequent cold-start short-use low speed conditions.
I’ll add that I’m sure you know that your 8 valve Tdi C5 – which I love, btw – wouldn’t pass new diesel standards.
Agree that this is all new technology that is questionable long term. In practice: so far in my immediate family – my Renault with DPF, 3 years from new and father’s Peugeot 2008 HDi with AdBlue, 4 years from new, both stop start, no issues either one.
On the other hand VW Passats are known to have blown their injectors even before DPF days..just wouldn’t trust that particular manufacturer, rather than all of them by default.
My best result on current car. Tested accuracy by topping up at start of the trip and then topping up again at the end – actual result was 3.94. Achieved in warm weather (a/c on), on open road, some hills, mostly rolling countryside and moderate bends.
Consolation for North American readers – this car is unavailable in your markets. Admittedly the car in question only has 110 hp. Same size as the Golf though.
Sorry about the undecipherable language on the trip computer, but I think the key figures are easily understandable (total distance, average speed, average consumption). And sorry the pic is on its side!
Gingo, two things. You haven’t said if the car is petrol (gas) or diesel, and secondly, you haven’t told us what car it is?
Good point, I haven’t said but yes, it’s a diesel. A mark IV Renault Megane with the 1.5 “dci” diesel in a 110 hp tune. Edit: a 6 speed manual.
For full disclosure, more likely average consumption on open road is around the 4.5 litre mark, and town driving is somewhere between 6 and 6.5 litres depending on the traffic etc.
Gingo – interesting to compare your Megane with the Prius we’ve had since 2004.
The best I’ve seen on a long trip (Sydney to Melbourne) is 4.7 l/100k. That’s also what I get on longer suburban trips if there’s few stoppages and some urban freeway driving. So, not as good as what your Megane is capable of.
Where the hybrid system shines is in stop-go traffic. If it’s just that, the Prius is around the 5.3l/100km mark. Our long term average which includes a mix of stop-go, short and longer suburban trips is about 5l/100km.
Some people write that hybrids get the best efficiency in stop-go traffic, which is silly because those conditions knock fuel economy for everyone. But the hybrid system does greatly reduce the gap between fuel consumption in best and worst conditions. Your figures for the Megane show it gets much better fuel economy than ordinary (but otherwise similarly configured) petrol engined cars – but, compared with the hybrid, the significant gap between the best and worst figures remains. This suggests that purely from a fuel efficiency point of view, the best solution will depend on one’s usual driving conditions.
Ghillie, absolutely agree with you about the gap. If I had a hybrid, I would on average probably spend less on fuel since I do a lot of town driving.
However, I calculated the viability of a hybrid vs a diesel and the purchase price difference was so huge in favour of the diesel that there was no point in even considering the hybrid.
I posted the picture of the fuel economy figure to show that diesels can be very frugal without any sacrifice in comfort or performance – the Megane is very quiet and a completely capable performer. A VW diesel uses more fuel because VW make poor cars (with the best marketing).
Of course, it all comes down to each individual’s circumstances – someone in Australia where as I see diesel is considerably more expensive than petrol may well decide a hybrid or a petrol is a better buy. I didn’t even consider petrol because a petrol Megane with comparable performance (130 hp petrol) cost exactly the same as the diesel.
I was still surprised at how economical it turned out to be.
2500 lb. 1986 Jetta GL, 1.8 k-jetronic 5 speed got 36 MPG (US gallon) on a August summer road trip, AC on all day, speed 65-75 MPH. As a work car in heavy traffic and mixed city hwy, averaged about 30 MPG. Now mostly just short hops locally, getting around 27-28 MPG. But only 90 HP (when new, less I’m sure now). Now over 300k miles and original drivetrain still in good shape, uses a quart of oil about every 1500 miles. I’ve never been a Diesel fan, and my short hops around town driving that I do today would be really hard on a Diesel engine. I did have a job a mile away from home for 4 years, just driving to work this short distance daily knocked it down to 15 MPG when I tested a tank full only driving back and forth to work this short distance.
Not bad for a car built in September, 1985. But having twice the HP and a little better MPG in a somewhat heavier car is great, technology marches on.
Of course the diesel of that era got a solid 45+ mpg under those conditions. My sister and brother in law had an 86 Golf diesel. It didn’t get quite the mileage of their previous (81-ish) diesel Rabbit but then it was a lot more powerful. It was a stick, but did not have a/c, as I think about it.
I have a 2008 Volvo XC70 wagon with the 2.4 litre 5 cylinder turbo diesel. Around town it averages 9.5 lt/100kms which is about 25 US mpg. On trips it drops to around 8.0 lt/100kms or 29mpg. The Volvo is quite a heavy car at 1890 kgs or 4167 ibs. In Western Australia diesel is about $1.40 a litre at the moment, with gas dropping down to $1.10 at the low point of the price cycle, which is Monday in my state.
It is interesting to see how guys describe fuel economy. I always seem to be the worst at making my car produce good fuel consumption figures.
Or I am not lying about it.
SportWagen update:
The Golf now has 34,000 km on it and by 15,000 km, fuel consumption has improved a lot. I took a three day Rocky Mountain Romp in June and averaged 5.5 l/100 km and that was not sparing the ponies. The best I have seen for a full tank is 4.7 l/100 km and the best for a short trip, 60 km, was, get this, 4.1 l/100 km.
Using deathanol free fuel really helps and as a turbo, it loves high octane. The difference between 87 and 94 is very noticeable, especially when pulling from low RPM. On 87, getting past 1200 RPM takes forever. On 94, it just sweeps past.