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Looking at the computer won't tell you your actual consumption, though, as many times they're off (though my Passat was fairly accurate from what I recall). But at least with the Q5 it seems like it's a reasonably-constant difference (~7% for me) so you can still compare relative values (an indicated 35mpg may not be actually 35mpg, but you'll know you did decently better than your indicated 30mpg tank). With my Odyssey it was wildly off every tank (almost random what the computer would indicate and it would be large swings from way optimistic to way pessimistic, and that was with using the same station almost all the time), so to have any idea how I was doing I had to keep my own records.
I keep my own records, as well, and basically have historical data in a database so I can crunch numbers and generate charts and such. Fuelly's a quick way to get the same sort of thing going, though, for those less-inclined to keep records themselves (just use the mobile site or app and log the data when you fill up and it'll get you some basic charts without any additional effort on your part). Nice to be able to add notes in so you can keep an eye on trends (are you getting better/worse mileage lately?).
Beat me to it. Was going to say the same thing. I enhanced (more colorful) my graph showing how (in)accurate the Trip Computer was for my Q5 (10% optimistic) vs the other settings I've tried. For me, it looks like it will be 107 or 108 depending how a few more tanks at 107 turns out:
I keep my own records, as well, and basically have historical data in a database so I can crunch numbers and generate charts and such. Fuelly's a quick way to get the same sort of thing going, though, for those less-inclined to keep records themselves (just use the mobile site or app and log the data when you fill up and it'll get you some basic charts without any additional effort on your part). Nice to be able to add notes in so you can keep an eye on trends (are you getting better/worse mileage lately?).
Yea , I know what you mean about keeping records, I agree it's a good way to see how your fuel economy is changing over different driving conditions. I suppose when you have a system in place, it's easy to just update info as you go along.
Currently I have a VW Touran 2.0TDI Bluemotion that gives me on average 33 MPG (UK) in town , have got this to around 60 MPG (UK) on a 70 mile motorway trip though. My other car is an A3 2.0Tdi - I hardly drive that much and if I do , it's mostly for short trips where I tend to drive less for economy and more for fun, but I get similar mileage in that as I do the Touran, whcih is strange as the Touran is a much heavier and less aerodynamic car.
Will be swapping out the Touran for a Q5 3.0Tdi Quattro S-Line Plus in September, God only know what mileage I'll get on that especially when the temptation is there to put your foot down.
Yea , I know what you mean about keeping records, I agree it's a good way to see how your fuel economy is changing over different driving conditions. I suppose when you have a system in place, it's easy to just update info as you go along.
Fuelly's quick and easy if you have a smartphone on you as you can submit an update at the pump. I've been keeping a small notebook in my glove box since I started driving and just jot down some of the particulars (date, odometer, gallons, price, and possibly some very short notes like city if out of town or on the Q5 the computer MPG/MPH). Occasionally enter a batch of entries into my own web front-end (formerly just an Excel spreadsheet).
Starting's definitely the hardest part since updates are pretty painless.
Currently I have a VW Touran 2.0TDI Bluemotion that gives me on average 33 MPG (UK) in town , have got this to around 60 MPG (UK) on a 70 mile motorway trip though. My other car is an A3 2.0Tdi - I hardly drive that much and if I do , it's mostly for short trips where I tend to drive less for economy and more for fun, but I get similar mileage in that as I do the Touran, whcih is strange as the Touran is a much heavier and less aerodynamic car.
That is a little odd, unless you're driving the Touran a little easier than the A3, or with the longer trips have more "cruising" time (regardless of road type) and with the A3 are stopping and starting more often. The Touran shouldn't be too huge as it's still Golf-based, but it's still larger. Then again the Jetta SportWagen (Golf Wagon) gets the same EPA ratings as the Golf and it's a decently-large Golf-derived vehicle.
Will be swapping out the Touran for a Q5 3.0Tdi Quattro S-Line Plus in September, God only know what mileage I'll get on that especially when the temptation is there to put your foot down.
On the plus side for consumption, the 3.0 TDI has power to spare so as long as you're not always using that power it should have an easy time getting you up and about. I'd suggest avoiding S mode if you can help it, since with the higher revs I was losing 2-3 MPG over the couple of tanks I was testing S with. D seems to work well enough, and I can always toss it into S if I need to pull out especially quickly (and then go back to D for getting cruising gears), and with the shift paddles I can override D's selected gear for occasions it would be helpful (such as turning).
US EPA ratings are probably a reasonable comparison tool since at least in my experience they reasonably reflect reality as opposed to the European cycles: A3/Golf/Jetta 2.0 TDI (FWD, 6-speed DSG) are rated 30/42 US MPG (36/50 UK), and the Q5 3.0 TDI (AWD, 8-speed Tip) is rated 24/31 (29/37 UK). We don't have the Touran in the US (we get the larger Routan instead, which is just a rebadged Chrysler Town & Country), but if you assumed that your A3 was getting the mileage your Touran is, then you'd be looking at 33/60 UK vs. 36/50 UK. Approximating by taking percentages of the EPA estimates, the Q5 would be approximately 27/44 UK. 27 feels a little low to me, though, unless you really do have a lot of stopping that you have to do as opposed to simply having low speed limits. Hard to compare consumption in the US vs. Europe since our cities are typically laid out rather differently and so our driving patterns will be different.
Trying to "guess" like that isn't necessarily going to get you what you will see, but at least for me it's worked fairly well as a rough ballpark estimate -- something to at least help narrow down expectations. I was able to do something similar to guess the Q5 TDI's EPA estimates pretty much a year prior to release (and almost hit it right on the nose: 24/32 vs. the actual 24/31). Thanks to the magic of TDI, I'm getting better than the EPA city estimate for my commutes (vs. right at the city estimate for my 1.8T B5.5 Passat Wagon, or under for my Odyssey), but of course you'd be going from one TDI to another, so we can't really give the Q5 any sort of bonus there.
In any case, it's no Golf/Jetta TDI but considering how much power it has and how big the Q5 is comparatively, it's really not that bad. Hopefully you'll be pleased with the consumption you end up seeing when you get it in. It'll of course be higher than the Touran, but hopefully it's worth it to you.
US EPA ratings are probably a reasonable comparison tool since at least in my experience they reasonably reflect reality as opposed to the European cycles: A3/Golf/Jetta 2.0 TDI (FWD, 6-speed DSG) are rated 30/42 US MPG (36/50 UK), and the Q5 3.0 TDI (AWD, 8-speed Tip) is rated 24/31 (29/37 UK). We don't have the Touran in the US (we get the larger Routan instead, which is just a rebadged Chrysler Town & Country), but if you assumed that your A3 was getting the mileage your Touran is, then you'd be looking at 33/60 UK vs. 36/50 UK. Approximating by taking percentages of the EPA estimates, the Q5 would be approximately 27/44 UK. 27 feels a little low to me, though, unless you really do have a lot of stopping that you have to do as opposed to simply having low speed limits. Hard to compare consumption in the US vs. Europe since our cities are typically laid out rather differently and so our driving patterns will be different.
Just to be clear, these rating differences are based on the UK Imperial Gallon (4.5 liters) vs the US Gallon (3.8 liters) primarily, right? I was waiting for you to say that and it never came, so I want to make sure others aren't confused that these big of differences are due to speed limits, roads, and driving patterns.
Just to be clear, these rating differences are based on the UK Imperial Gallon (4.5 liters) vs the US Gallon (3.8 liters) primarily, right? I was waiting for you to say that and it never came, so I want to make sure others aren't confused that these big of differences are due to speed limits, roads, and driving patterns.
Noted ratings with US vs. UK are based on the difference in gallons, yes. I took the EPA estimates (in US MPG, of course) and converted to UK MPG (miles per imperial gallon). I thought I was being clear enough designating everything with "US" and "UK", but apparently not. Thanks for trying to make sure it was clear.
The 27/44 UK MPG rough estimate that I was giving roughly translates to 22/37 US MPG, for the benefit of our mostly-US members (he was getting less than city rating in urban travel, and higher than highway on the motorway trip, so I used those percentages to offset the Q5 ratings). 60 UK MPG for his Touran motorway jaunt is 50 US MPG, a little better than I'm used to for highway trips in US 2.0 TDIs, but at the same time over here people are usually hitting 75+ mph when possible and a few mph at those speeds can really make a difference in fuel consumption, so especially if he was a little more constrained on top speed then that could help raise the mileage.
My comment with respect to driving patterns is more a larger disclaimer on trying to intuit "likely" mileage based on environments being different between the US and UK (22mpg seems low for urban travel in a Q5 TDI, but our cities aren't typically like their cities in many ways, and so it's possible that a lower figure like that could be reasonably accurate). I make no guarantees about my personal guesstimation method, regardless of how much success I've personally had with it.
Idale,
I guess I really need to keep a proper record of the fill ups. What I would previously do is note down the mileage of the car on the fuel receipt. Then all I would need to do is to add that to a spreadsheet as the receipt would have the litres and total cost. Need to start doing that I guess.
Will have to dig out my old spreedsheet from like 10 years ago. If I find it, will post up here
Noted ratings with US vs. UK are based on the difference in gallons, yes. I took the EPA estimates (in US MPG, of course) and converted to UK MPG (miles per imperial gallon). I thought I was being clear enough designating everything with "US" and "UK", but apparently not. Thanks for trying to make sure it was clear.
The 27/44 UK MPG rough estimate that I was giving roughly translates to 22/37 US MPG, for the benefit of our mostly-US members (he was getting less than city rating in urban travel, and higher than highway on the motorway trip, so I used those percentages to offset the Q5 ratings). 60 UK MPG for his Touran motorway jaunt is 50 US MPG, a little better than I'm used to for highway trips in US 2.0 TDIs, but at the same time over here people are usually hitting 75+ mph when possible and a few mph at those speeds can really make a difference in fuel consumption, so especially if he was a little more constrained on top speed then that could help raise the mileage.
My comment with respect to driving patterns is more a larger disclaimer on trying to intuit "likely" mileage based on environments being different between the US and UK (22mpg seems low for urban travel in a Q5 TDI, but our cities aren't typically like their cities in many ways, and so it's possible that a lower figure like that could be reasonably accurate). I make no guarantees about my personal guesstimation method, regardless of how much success I've personally had with it.
Idale,
I guess I really need to keep a proper record of the fill ups. What I would previously do is note down the mileage of the car on the fuel receipt. Then all I would need to do is to add that to a spreadsheet as the receipt would have the litres and total cost. Need to start doing that I guess.
Will have to dig out my old spreedsheet from like 10 years ago. If I find it, will post up here
Yeah, that works too. I haven't actually had too much "need" of having kept records for the past 17 years (it hasn't called my attention to anything specific), but you never really know when you'll notice something interesting or useful, and having that data means that if you decide you want to crunch numbers a particular way then you can.
Though one of the interesting things is looking at the gas price chart I have, looking back at $0.799/gal prices. Also how petrol vs. diesel prices have varied (diesel tends to vary less, whereas petrol bounces around all the time, with larger price swings).
Yeah, that works too. I haven't actually had too much "need" of having kept records for the past 17 years (it hasn't called my attention to anything specific), but you never really know when you'll notice something interesting or useful, and having that data means that if you decide you want to crunch numbers a particular way then you can.
Though one of the interesting things is looking at the gas price chart I have, looking back at $0.799/gal prices. Also how petrol vs. diesel prices have varied (diesel tends to vary less, whereas petrol bounces around all the time, with larger price swings).
Agreed, there are some enjoyable stuff in the historics like that:
Gas vs Diesel, specifically:
I also like my driving amounts - you can see at the beginning of 2008 I moved and drive less, note the change in rate of the pink line. Then also note the increase in the pink line last Sept when I got my Q5 - I now drive the family more in my car, so it's reflected here:
Similar correspondence evaluated in a monthly (or annual) basis:
I like your miles driven charts, I may have to put together some reporting for that myself. I'm also considering (since I've been tracking the computer's average speed each tank) tracking correlation between average speed and calculated consumption, to see if there's any interesting visualization there or not.
07-07-2014, 09:56 AM
I enhanced (more colorful) my graph showing how (in)accurate the Trip Computer was for my Q5 (10% optimistic) vs the other settings I've tried. For me, it looks like it will be 107 or 108 depending how a few more tanks at 107 turns out:
Also how petrol vs. diesel prices have varied (diesel tends to vary less, whereas petrol bounces around all the time, with larger price swings).
