Fuel Consumption

I'm not really sure what sort of fuel consumption figures I expected to get out of the Scirocco - Most cars I've owned have averaged around the 26mpg mark and the Jaguar I had before this only 22mpg. I checked Suzi's 7 year old 206cc 1.6 that we've had from new, and that claims an average of 33.6mpg.

So I was plesantly surprised to see that the Scirocco has managed 32.1mpg after the first 1600 miles, and that seems to be improving a little, I suspect largely because my driving is calming down after the first flush of getting the GT.



VW claim a combined 38mpg for my model - I'm pretty sure mine will never go quite that high - but I'm pleased so far that so much performance is available for that sort of economy.

But all this leads to another issue. How should modern cars report fuel range? The first car I had with a computer was a Vauxhall Vectra. Nice simple system that reported how many miles you could travel on the remaining fuel based on the average mpg of your last 12 miles. Once (in over 100,000 miles of driving it) I let it drop to zero, and guess what? It run out of petrol about a mile later. To my mind that was the perfect system.

The Corrado was awful - Not only no range on the computer but no fuel warning light or buzzer or anything. You literally had to look at the fuel gauge.

Suzi's 206 reports miles remaining until you get to 24, then it goes blank, but you can see that the gauge is still in the middle of the red, so you can keep going for a while.

So how does the Scirocco handle it? Not very well in my opinion.
Once the range has come down to about 35, the fuel warning light comes on, a message 'Please refuel' flashes up on the MFD and you'll notice that the needle is right on top of the red on the gauge. Fine so far.

But, after the 35 miles or so, with the range reading zero and the needle now firmly at the bottom of the red there is still a reserve of 5 liters, which is effecively unusable. I don't want to run out of fuel - I really don't - but this system is reducing my actual range from 385 to 350 miles.

First problem found, and now fixed.

I've never had any type of car kit for a mobile phone before, other than a cheap phone holder with a speaker years ago. in the days when I was a field service engineer doing serious miles it wasn't illegal to use a phone in the car, not that I did very often. But I did specify the bluetooth on this car to make sure I could alway legally and safely make or take a call whilst driving.

But, the only thing less than perfect I've found so far with the Scirocco was that the Phone menu disappeared completely.

It was there when I collected the car, as I made a half-hearted attempt to pair it with my iPhone - but later that day I tried again with confidence having read the relevent manual to find... well, to find nothing actually. The menu was gone. none of the phone related buttons worked.

I tried a forum post, but I guess I haven't successfully wormed my way into the right clique as my carefully worded question got only one single response from a Moderator, suggesting I take the car back to the dealer.

Well thanks, I hadn't thought of that...

So, last Saturday I found the will to pop back to Guildford and get my dealer to take a look. He pressed a few random button and then declared he hadn't seen anything like it (I forgive him though, he's a salesman, not a technician) and after 5 minutes in the workshop it came out working.

What was the fix?

Predictably, the fix was to unplug the bluetooth unit under the drivers seat and plug it back in. The 21st century car mechanic's equivalent of the three finger salute.

So now it works, what's it like?

Simple and brilliant. The pairing process takes a minute or two, but is perfectly logical as long as you read the infomation screen and the phone messages properly, and once paired the system has found my phone by the time the engine is running. The Phone info screen on the MFD screen displays useful stuff like the name of the phone connected, the signal strength and battery life, and the main touchscreen can be used for dialling numbers, or looking stuff up on the contacts list.



I should confess that I have yet to actually make or take a call through it yet, so look out for a new post called "Bluetooth looks great but...".

Edit 27/04/11:
I've used the phone through the system a couple of times and I'm happy to report it works exactly as you'd expect it to.