Hi Forum,

I'm new so please forgive me if this has already been asked:

I have a 2012 Audi A6 2.0 with 10k miles on it. I've loved the car since I first drove it off the lot and just have two complaints -- the steering at low speeds as just too light ( there's nothing I can do about it and I am coming from a BMW ) and the second is I've been underwhelmed with the supposed efficiency.

I read before I bought the car that I should expect 28mpg in combined driving. But sadly, I usually return a tank of roughly 395 miles and I'm-sorry-to-say I do drive like a grandmother. I have a two mile commute to my office through a suburb in LA and I had a speeding ticket once in my life and that was when Reagan had just left office -- I had just gotten my license back then.

So The-Fast-And-The-Furious I am not ( I bought the 2.0 after all ).

In the end, I want my MPG. That was one of the biggest selling points of my purchase. But at 395 miles, that means I coughing up a miserly 19.8 miles per gallon on a car rated at 28 mpg combined. So my question is what happened? Should I adjust anything? Am I doing something wrong? Is this normal or are the MPG estimates very "optimistic" - although with a 50% discrepancy that some pretty hopeful calculating.

Thanks, forum.

 

First off, the only way to get accurate mpg figures is to note the mileage at fill up and note the mileage and gallons purchased at the next fill. Divide the gallons into the miles driven. I would also point out not to rely on the computer's mpg - it's rarely accurate. Finally, the EPA rating is for average mpg. Unless you do about 50/50 city/highway, you won't see it.

With a 2 mile suburban commute, the engine hasn't had a chance to get fully warmed up. If you're going from stoplight to stoplight or in traffic, that only makes the mpg worse.

After the next fill up, take a 100+ mile day trip on the interstate with the cruise control set to 65 mph, fill up when you return and calculate the mpg to see how it does. It should be much better.

 

These short trips will kill your mileage. On a cold start, the engine needs to run rich and burn extra gasoline until it is up to operating temperature. Probably you may just see the water temp gauge reach 4 bars when you get to your office, and then you shut it off and it will cool down again.
You may not be calculating your mileage correctly. You should do 395 miles divided by the number of gallons you actually pumped in to fill up the tank again. You do not use the total tank capacity of 19.8 gallons. This accounts for the gas left in the tank that you don't actually use. So say you pump in around 16 gal, 395/16 = 24.7 mpg, which is about right.

I also have a 2.0T CVT and I have found it gets excellent mileage, pretty much spot on the official 25 city/33 highway. My average shown in my fuelly.com log is 31.7 mpg over the past 12,000 miles!

 

Hey guys, thanks for the quick response.

I'll keep in mind what you say about letting the car warm-up and that my short commute is probably a killer. But I do use the car for weekend travel and it does hit the highway often. I also rule out excessive AC use because it's been unseasonably mild this summer, even for SoCal, and it's rare that it's on.

In regards to refueling, the last two times I filled the tank I filled it with 18.9 gallons and 19.6 gallons -- I'm notorious for riding "E"; it drives my wife crazy.

So even if I averaged those two numbers out, I still hit 20.1MPG of combined driving.

I guess I could check the tires but that's about it. Otherwise, I was hoping to consistently return tanks in the low 400's.

Is that unreasonable?

 

I have a 2013 A6 2.0T Quattro Premium Plus, which of courses has the 8-speed Tiptronic transmission. At this time I have about 5,300 miles on the car.
I keep detailed records on an Excel spreadsheet of all fuel put in the car since day one.
Overall for the 5023 miles on my spreadsheet I have put in 214.166 gallons for an overall average of 23.45 mpg. This reflects 24 individual fill-ups who’s calculated mpg since the previous fill-up run from 17.57 mpg to 32.27 mpg. On each fill-up I tried to cut off the fuel flow at the same level, but who knows. Point being, this wide variation in mpg's for each of the fill-up legs is not because at any one time I decided not to fill the tank.
My driving is probably 20% NYC, 40% suburban and the remainding 40% highway trips.
On a trip in July from Westchester County NY (where I live) to the Finger Lakes, then to Montreal, Quebec, then to Northwestern CT and finally home again I travelled 1,141 miles and averaged 27.32 for that trip.
I never use the car’s built-in mpg calculator, relying instead on the Excel spreadsheet and never missing getting a receipt with mileage written in for every fuel purchase.
My driving style is mostly pokey with an occasional burst of get up and go; I have never even seen 80 mph in this car. I am retired, so I do not commute. To repeat – overall 23.45 mpg.

 

My A6 2.0T has 4500 miles on it. I have not reset the long term mileage and my overall mileage is 26.8 mpg. I usually get between 490 - 530 miles per tank. My driving is about 85% highway at 55-70 mph, 60 mile RT commute. I have gotten as much as 33 mpg on a road trip at 65 mph, level road using cruise control. I do occasionally speed up to 80 mph getting on I70 heading home but usually drive at the speed limit.

 

My 3.0 mix is about 40% suburban, 10% city, 50% highway) and over 12K miles I'm at 21.72 actual calculated mpg. Seems about right for the 3.0 which should be about 3-4 mpg less than the 2.0T for the same type of driving. My car does see 80 mph once in awhile but not often. My a/c has been set to auto since delivery although, it wouldn't make more than about 1 mph difference.

 

Assuming that your calculated mpg numbers agree, more or less, with the car computer's then you might want to consider keeping an eye on the mpg bargraph display.
It should give you insight on what parts of your drive are bringing you down.

Also, you could reset the long term to zero at the beginning of the week (when you are doing all the 2 mile cold commuting)
And then reset it again on Saturday morning (when you are doing all your distance driving).

Between the two, you may well gain insight on what to expect from our car.

Personally, I find my 3.0 can average anywhere from 13mpg (darn that forced induction!) to as high as 30 (when I deliberately focused on mpg one trip).

 

Not very sure about the fuel pump technology now, driving till E is bad for the fuel pump. The fuel pump sits inside the fuel tank, and it uses the fuel as a coolant. So its better to fill up just before warning light shows up. Hope the technology of fuel pump has changed.

 

UPDATE - Sadly, I just did a refill on my tank. I got 343 miles on 17.7 gallons ( that's what I refilled ) or 19.37 miles per gallon. It would appear my car is becoming LESS efficient.