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VW Polo owners complain of poor fuel efficiency, but I get 14-25 km/l

19th May 2022, 18:03 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

I'm not sure why others are complaining but I'm pretty satisfied with my car's fuel economy.

BHPian Sierra__foxtrot recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I'm quite surprised that the entire GT / Polo community is reporting dismal fuel efficiency figures. Mine is giving me absolutely good figures.

Chennai traffic gets me at the least 14 km/l, the usual being 17 to 18 km/l. And the highway runs are giving close to 24 -25 km/l.

Can someone please tell me what's happening here?

I'll let the pics do the talking.

The sub 20 figures are all Chennai city runs and the plus 20 is the highway run.

Here's what BHPian jijivishu had to say about the matter:

Exactly my thoughts as well.
I recently took mine for a trip to Allahabad which is around 160 kms from where I'm located. The roads aren't butter-smooth and say half of the journey involves four-lane highways (with occasional road construction tantrums) and half regional roads (wide but without dividers). There are three railway crossings as well and as per my luck, all had bumper to bumper traffic so say around 10kms of b2b traffic.
So basically for the round(ed) trip:
Distance covered : 340km
Highways : 160km
Regional Roads : 140km
City : 40km
Average Speed : 42km/hr
Trip FE(MID) : 23.7km/l
Maximum FE indicated : 26.3km/l
TankFull FE : 22.7 km/l
(It cost me INR 1668 with XP95 costing around 111/litre)
I cover that route routinely so know 90% of the potholes and diversions.
Before you ask, mine's a fully stock 1.0 TSI.
The key is to not let the turbo kick in which comes in somewhere around 1750rpm. Driving just below 80 in 6th gear extracts the highest mileage as far as I've experienced (30+).
I'm pretty sure VW didn't intend it but the first-speed warning comes in at 80, if you drive right below 80 in topmost gear, you get the perfect mileage.
Overtakes are a breeze as downshifting to 4th around 70 will easily bring you in the turbo range.
Also for better FE I believe slowing a car smoothly is as important as accelerating. I'm no expert but I've seen better results when slowing a car using downshift+revmatch instead of slamming brakes at the last moment.
Even when I don't drive like an absolute nerd, I get close to 18kmpl.
The max I got today - overall 22.4 for the 340km trip:

Here's what BHPian prajnya had to say about the matter:

I'm getting a fuel efficiency of around 8-10 in Bangalore. I stopped checking it a long time back. It's almost impossible to get anything more than that in cities like Kerala and Bangalore.
The highest that I have seen is on the Bangalore-Hubli stretch where it went up to 16 kmpl.
BTW mine is a 1.2 TSI.

Here's what BHPian vedirah had to say about the matter: