siren001

Hello Everyone,

I just had my first service done 2 days ago but don't have another appointment for a week but was wondering if anyone had any ideas.


Just hit 5k miles and had first service done at the dealer. . Now my MPG is greatly lower. Watching the instant MPG reader on screen i use to get 14-21 MPG in the city and now in the city i get anywhere from 5-12mpg.

ex-quattro PETE

You really cannot rely on the instant reading to give you accurate indication of fuel economy.

The only accurate way of doing it is to run a few tanks of gas, calculate MPG by hand, and then average it out. Or use an online tool like Fuelly to help you track it and do calculations for you.

siren001

Sure I'll check that out,

I did reset my overall mpg gauge did a 200 mile trip and was only getting 17 highway at about 60mph. But I'll check out Fuelly

ex-quattro PETE

I see. Yeah, 17 mpg after 200 miles of only hwy driving at 60 mph does sound pretty bad, even for the 3.0T.

Did you fill up with some crappy gas by any chance?

They really only change oil and filter at the first service, so I don't see how that could have any impact on your fuel economy.

siren001

I've always filled up with 91 at major gas stations, (Shell, 76, Chevron) so I'm gonna give it a few more tanks with the Fuelly app than take it in if still bad. No idea why it changed so drastically.

ex-quattro PETE

Too bad you don't have anything credible to compare it to since you did not track it this way before. I guess you can compare your results to the results of other Q5 3.0T owners on Fuelly.

Ours gets around 16 mpg around town, but we don't live in a congested area like SF. We don't have that many traffic lights, stop signs, or even traffic. If we did, our MPG would have probably been in the 10-12 mpg range.

awryexperiment

I would bet there was a software flash and the computer is just reporting different numbers. As stated previously, the instantaneous readings on any make of car are not accurate at all. You need to perform manual calculations.

q5 dave

5-12 mpg on a 3.0T? is it bad fuel?


Bad MPG for me is 15, regularly around 18, and with highway driving its about 23(give or take 1 mpg)

AUDIIOS

My 2013 Q5 2.0T just threw a couple of codes a week ago -- P2187 and P1009. What it amounted to was a bad PCV. Apparently life is shortened with repeated short trips (my commute is only about 7 miles each way). Immediately left for a weekend road trip and easily had my two best MPG tanks ever, and I've been on Fuelly since day 1 of ownership. Wish I (or the dealer) had thought to check this sooner, as I've noticed about a 1 mpg decrease in average MPG over time without much of a change in driving habits or seasonality (use the AC a lot here in the summer). Not sure if this is what's causing your scenario but worth eliminating as a possibility perhaps.

idale

It was instantaneous MPG. 5mpg is from my experience the minimum value it'll tell you, and is what you'll likely see when accelerating quickly. If you're accelerating more slowly then you'd be in the 9-12mpg range, probably. Cruising would surely be 25+ even in a 3.0T. My TDI will similarly have very low instantaneous results for acceleration, it's just that the drop in consumption when not needing as much acceleration brings the average consumption up.

My 2002 Passat displayed ~9mpg when accelerating at all, and 5mpg if quickly accelerating, so my typical behavior was to get up to traveling speed as quickly as feasible so I could get "cruising" MPG more quickly and start offsetting the acceleration fuel consumption.