pwa wrote:When VW diesels came in 1.9l guise they could give astonishing mpg. The best I had with a 1.9TDI Skoda Octavia was about 80mpg on the M4 from Cardiff to Reading under freak conditions of strong tailwind and a succession of large HGVs to drive behind. But even in more typical mixed use 50mpg was easy to get. That's all in the past. Today's VW diesels look great on paper but on real roads the mpg is mediocre. My 1.6l Golf is doing well if it gets 40mpg in mixed use.
Not quite - we have a VW diesel (2014 vintage, disguised as a Skoda 1.6tdi) and despite the strangling effects of the DPF I can make 70 or 80 real mpg out of it under the conditions iandriver describes - much less CO2. Typical mixed use is 50-55mpg, topping 65 on a longer motorway journey.
I wouldn't have bought it without the DPF - I commuted 25k pa for years and could have saved a fortune but the diesels at the time pumped out the particulates so I wouldn't have one. Bought this one, more expensive to buy but less CO2 output, and 2 weeks later the excrement hit the fan over NOx, you just can't win sometimes.
If the NOx could be (properly) sorted then use of "dirty diesels" should, all other things being equal, help cut down greenhouse gasses. Along perhaps with the banning of the sale of bigger fuel-guzzlers before the sharp cutoff in 2032. (I read a report somewhere recently that since diesels became a no-no the amout of carbon being chucked out has risen by 2.5% with the switch to petrol-engined cars)
Brompton, Condor Heritage, creaky joints and thinning white (formerly grey) hair
""You know you're getting old when it's easier to ride a bike than to get on and off it" - quote from observant jogger !