130 tdi test drive with strange figures

[Returningowner?]

Hi everyone, hopefully on my way back into the Seat fraternity.

I test drove a 130 tdi yesterday and only saw around 12 mpg

It had been sitting for a while and I drove it from cold. I asked the dealer who said it gets better after it heats up. Even so 12 mpg on a ten mile test drive with a mix of booting and and trying to see what the instant figures would sit at seems really really bad. My auto Volvo 850 T5R gets better than that and the Leon Cupra I used to have would probably have beat that too.

Is this a normal figure to get at the start of a journey or is there something clearly wrong with this car? Seemed to pull really well and the engine ran smoothly. They did say it will get serviced before I take it.

Any general comments on the 130 would also be appreciated.

 

[redkite]

Ive owned a 130 tdi for 4 years and I average upper 40s mpg. There are 2 settings on the dash readout, 1 is the current trip and the other the rolling average, and it does re-set itself after a thousand or so miles. Nice car but ride a bit on the hard side due to sport suspension..

 

[Hobbiniho]

12 mpg jesus i would expect that from a cupra r not a diesel, i would say that there is something seriously wrong with it might only be asensor or somethng, how was the power dellivery?? i have never seen my average mpg drop below low 40's and that is with a lot of spirrited driving

 

[tequilan]

my pd130's mpg is very low too when cold, i have to drive extremely carefully in order for it to be above 20mpg - but not for 10 miles!!!! only for about half a mile tho then its up in 50s. mine does take quite a while to properly heat up but once warmed up i can easily see over 60mpg (via trip computer) with a light right foot on an a road, when ragging it tho it will drop to around 38-40.
sounds a bit unusual the figures uve quoted....maybe something was wrong under the bonnet???

 

[Returningowner?]

Thanks for the replies.

It was definitely the overall total I was looking at. The instant readout seemed to be giving better looking figures towards the end of the drive but the overall still hadn't got into the 13s.

I got the feeling it's been in a while since they'd MOT'd it in March so maybe it was just taking a while to heat up and ease up.

Really not sure now if I should go and have another look, it was nice condition, mileage and price and ask to try it once serviced so I can get proof this was a one off.

Ride didn't feel overly hard, was softer than the Cupra I had and a few of my other cars so wasn't worried about that one!

Cheers

 

[AwesomeAl]

I'm getting around 49mpg overall average in mine, regularly getting 56mpg on the 25mile drive into work which is 50% Motorway, 25% B-Roads, 25% A-Roads with a fair share of hills!

 

[Viking]

Thanks for the replies.

It was definitely the overall total I was looking at. The instant readout seemed to be giving better looking figures towards the end of the drive but the overall still hadn't got into the 13s.

I got the feeling it's been in a while since they'd MOT'd it in March so maybe it was just taking a while to heat up and ease up.

Really not sure now if I should go and have another look, it was nice condition, mileage and price and ask to try it once serviced so I can get proof this was a one off.

Ride didn't feel overly hard, was softer than the Cupra I had and a few of my other cars so wasn't worried about that one!

Cheers

There are 2 "overall totals" though. One resets itself to zero after 2 hours with the ignition off, and calculates the figures for basically every journey. The other one is cumulative and continues calculating until user reset, 2000 miles, or a certain number of hours. If you're reading the cumulative one then you could be factoring in the time the car has been left ticking over in the service bay, being moved around the parking lot every day, and being ragged to the chipshop by the mechanic every dinner time.

 

[Returningowner?]

Ah, suddenly the answer is obvious. I'd presumed had reset when I got in the car but it was sitting for a while ticking over right enough.

Not sure if my brain had just told me it wouldn't record that or it just hadn't got round to logical thoughts.

Thanks for explaining why the readings were so poor. Think this one is right back into consideration.

 

[Andrewcupra TDI]

take it back out , reset it before u leave , hold the button on the stalk i believe

 

[the_fbi]

Reset is the button under the stalk, the same one you use to change between trip 1 and 2. (shown on the MFD). Just hold it down for a few secs.

You can view the trip 2 (longer term total) hours, miles and av. mpg too, so you can see what that 12mpg was based over too.

My average over the last 2800 miles is 58.8mpg, which is made up of a 105 mile commute, 95% dual c./motorway. But it can be a bit stop/start too, probably 8 minutes spent queueing under 40mph.

My general cruise speed is between 65-70 but I probably average a couple of "spirited" sections of road too, per day. Generally around a nice bypass with some roundabouts.

It'll take me 10 minutes before I'm above 46mpg for the first part of my trip but I usually get to work at about 60.1mpg.

Was this an Ibiza or a Leon?

ps. got 74.x mpg trip average a couple of weeks ago over a 124mile trip, M6 and M1

 

[Andrewcupra TDI]

what about scanning with vag com, would error codes appear with out the engine management light on ??

 

[the_fbi]

what about scanning with vag com, would error codes appear with out the engine management light on ??

Definately worth a scan with VAG-COM, so many things can be wrong without the EML coming on (check the EML comes on with the ignition too, not unknown for the bulbs to be removed so errors aren't visible).

 

[Chris Bartram]

The low MPG is probably an average- the car has probably been idled a lot on the forecourt.

I had a Fabia vRS with the PD130- so practically the same car- it should return 40-50 mpg in typical use, but on one memorable journey in snow and ice and bad traffic, so lots of idling, it dropped to 20-something.