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.
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