Wow. 2015 VW Golf TDI gets 50 MPG at 75 MPH!

Suffering matches the emotion of many pre-2015 VW owners, hope this new Golf delivers as promised. It should be about time.
Unfortunately the article focus on highway only, so we cannot see how more-near-EPA townMPG is...

 

Hard to put much value in the article since they used the car's computer for the mpg readings. Not that I don't think it is getting great mileage, but we all know the computers are rarely accurate.

I've owned a few diesels over the years, in full sized trucks. Still own one actually, in our Diesel Pusher RV. I would not buy another one for a daily driver, and my wife sure as heck would not drive a diesel car. She HATES the exhaust smell. Other drawbacks are that the fuel can be hard to find in some areas, the pumps are usually oily and messy, the fuel is more expensive, you have to take precautions in the winter if you live up north. Plus the reliability ratings of the VW's in Consumer Reports is not on a par with the Toyota Prius.

Good to see these small diesels showing good numbers. But they're not for us.

 

Overall, diesels are good. My wife and I have had two, 1999 & 2006, NewBeetle TDIs for the past 15 years. We sold the 2006 three weeks ago. Goodbye, no tears. My ONLY issue with a diesel is the cost of fuel. Forty to fifty cents on average over the cost of regular unleaded. It gets old, quick. The new VW Passant advertises 750 miles between fill ups. But you must consider it has a 18.5 gallon tank. Highway mileage is much better than city. No shortage of stations selling passenger vehicle diesel fuel. For me, I now prefer a high fuel mileage vehicle using regular unleaded fuel.

 

For real world result he really needs to calculate the MPG and forget about the computer. In winter I get 10% optimistic results.

 

Couple of quick comments...

Tier 2 Bin 5-compliant diesels have no detectable exhaust odor, so that is no longer an issue with new diesel cars.

It should be kept in mind that gasoline will be required to be "ultra-low sulfur" beginning in 2017. Diesel fuel has been "ultra-low sulfur" since 2006. What impact that will have on the incremental price of gasoline relative to diesel fuel is anyone's guess at this point.

 

I like a good diesel too (1999-2003 TDI), but we "both" know why you sold the 2006 TDI Beetle because I still have mine. Let's see...the BEW camshaft and lifters, the DMF (if it had the DSG), window regulators, center brake light, brake light switch, headliner, the rubberized smooth dash and trim panels, center console, glove box door, door panels, the 3.5 jack, lower control arm bushings, fuel door, EGR failure, timing belts, alternator clutch...yea I know all to well.

 

We had the 2006 for eight years, but sold it with less than 55,000 miles. We had zero problems during the time we owned it, other than two minor recalls for seats and seat belts if I remember correctly. Now the 1999, seven years of ownership with just over 100, 000 miles, had more than it's share of problems. Check engine light, mass flow air sensor, starting problems, etc. over the second half of ownership. Both were five speed manual. The Beetles were my wife's daily drivers. After fifteen years, driving the same car model, she was way overdue for different, newer with better options and look.

 

The display is showing an average speed of 44 mph, not 75 mph. We don't now how much of that distance was at the higher speed.

 

Executive Summary

Thanks, but we're not selling either Prius for the following reasons. Still, the new Golf sounds less bad.

Golf Air Conditioner Operation

I didn't see this comment in the article but living in North Alabama in the summer:

• Golf engine driven compressor - means even at a traffic light, stop sign, or traffic backup, the Golf engine is still running.
• Prius electronic driven compressor - means the Prius cycles the engine ON and OFF while keeping the car cool. Engine driven, compressor cars can not cool the car when the engine is stopped.

Golf Engine

Source: 2015 VW Golf TDI Crushes Fuel Economy Ratings | TFLCar.com: Automotive News, Views and ReviewsThe Fast Lane Car: Auto News, Views, and Reviews

It sounds like the engine internals have been improved, a good thing. But claiming "torque output is unchanged" and "10 more horses that come in 500 rpm lower" is a neat trick since horsepower is a product of rpm and the 'unchanged torque.' But this article is for lay people who may not know how horsepower is measured and calculated.

Golf "tester" MPG

First off, I welcome folks to do their own mileage testing when there is something that resembles a real engineering test. But there were so many faults in this article:

My understanding is ~95% of all cars in the USA are sold with automatic transmissions. However, modern automatic transmissions are much improved over the clunkers seen in the past.

• 6,000 ft Colorado Springs Altitude - high altitudes significantly reduces aerodynamic drag. This will lead to better MPG.
• 90 F temperature - hotter air is also less dense, significantly reducing aerodynamic drag. Hot pavements also reduce tire friction losses.
• 30 City, 42 Highway - 2014 VW Golf, 2.0 L, automatic and manual, but there is reason to believe VW screwed up their EPA testing. In particular, the 'adjusted' dynamometer power curve is significantly worse than the raw, roll-down curve. This is backed up for the Golf in comparing the Fuelly reported user metrics. The "31" v. "30" for City could be a rounding error or the only indication of reduced engine overhead.

Conclusion

Although the article suffers a number of technical flaws, I welcome the report suggesting lower internal engine friction. However, the technical flaws, high altitude and heat, in this MPG 'benchmark' do nothing to inspire confidence. Ford has shown that over promise is worse than VW's failure to accurately provide good dynamometer coefficients to the EPA. This means some customers look at the Golf numbers and walk to . . . a Prius. Then there is the diesel fuel premium and so many of us live and drive in urban areas at lower altitudes and temperate climates.

Bob Wilson

 

It may get 50 MPG, on the days it works! I have been told by many VW owners, stay away. Always something breaks.

 

OOps, forgot about the airbag lights (seatbelts). You did good getting rid of it at 55K. 85K-100K miles is where things started going fast. As already stated, when they're working life is good...but then it gets real expensive...trust me. Nuff said.

 

Yawn! Driving my PiP to Chicago last month, going at highway speeds of 70 MPH, I got 51.5 MPG with no hypermileing efforts. This was by calculation not by the computer. BTW this does not include the last leg avoiding the interstate mostly at 60 MPH that came in at 62.75 MPG.

 

TDI's are some of the BEST relatively high efficiency cars you can get.....


.....for the first 75,000 miles.
After that?
Not so much.

The cars are more expensive.
The Fuel is more expensive.
The maintenance is more expensive.
The repairs are a LOT more expensive.

I used to be dubious of the Prius' ability to overcome the hybrid premium, and over 4 years and 70,000 miles, my work car is slowly winning me over.
No.
It's not a clear cut case.
If you're a 4 years-and-out new car buyer I'd probably recommend another car, but there is NO WAY that you can convince me that you can average 75MPH in a GTI and still get 50-MPG---and even if you could?

Diesel (and DEF) are still 20-30-percent more expensive than gasoline.
Das VolksWagens are probably correspondingly more expensive than Priuses.


Advantage: Toyota.

I'll continue to "suffer"....thanks very much!

 

Written in my poor excuse for English, I shared this with the original author:

 

For my gasoline powered cars, hybrid and otherwise, Colorado and Wyoming altitudes have been worth at least a 10% mpg boost compared to sea level.

The lesser elevations of Idaho, Utah, and Montana have also boosted my cars' mpgs, but by smaller ratios.

 

I think its the extra cogs in the gearbox, these car manufacturers seem to be adding more & more gears I suspect a lot of new cars are coming with 2 overdrive highway gears: one for optimum fe@65mph and another for optimum fe@75mph. Check the top speed specs for each gear of a new car, say a 7 speed porsche, you can probably get near the top speed in 5th so 6th and 7th are probably highway gears

 

Here is a better description:

Over the years, I've found a few 'gems' and a lot of waste-paper in auto magazines. But Autoline Weekly is well worth the subscription because their articles include facts and data without spin.

Bob Wilson

ps. I can admire a technology and feel no interest in replacing our two Prius . . . but a 150 mile Leaf . . . <hummmmm>

 

I'm guessing the author meant peak torque.

 

Good catch. You have a lot of time below 75 MPH to get a 44 MPH average.