Mpg a7

[shabazmo]

I have just filled up with diesel for the first time and have, on a brim to brim calculation achieved 44.1 mpg. A little disppointing given that the computer was telling that 47mpg was being achieved. The 600 miles covered about 350 motorway miles and 250 country commuter miles.

I am probably driving this car faster that my old 2.5tdi A6 which gave about the same mpg, so not musch of an improvement yet. Lets see if after a few 000 miles things might change. After all its 139CO2 is much better than the old 186CO2 emissions.

[shabazmo]

I have just filled my tank for the second time and completed 611 miles using 60.8 litres. That makes it 45.7mpg and that is when the computer indicated 48.0mpg.

[shabazmo]

Third fill up, but this time very litttle motorway driving, and some very fast high speed testing. 575 miles on 61 ltrs, so 42.8mpg and the computer reads 43.9mpg. The computer seems to be getting more accurate???

[Architex_mA8tey]

that would be the case I think that as it learns your driving style and has more data to work with the accuracy should pick up. I think im gonna be happy if I get 44 out of mine when I get it!!
we must catch up one day soon! I still want to see what the HUD looks like dashboard wise - does it ruin the look of the dash or is it not too bad?

[shabazmo]

Not sure I agree with your reason ref the fuel reading but I am determined to find out how the fuel consumption is calculated.
Regarding HUD, I was going to cancel it when I first looked at a showroom car because I thought it spoiled the dsah lines, but was too late to do so. Honestly, I am glad I kept it because, the facility is great. You are still welcome to take a test drive of my car. Just let me know when it suits.
Regards

[aurora7]

Hi shabazmo,

How is your fuel consumption doing, is it continuing to improve?

I've been really impressed with my A7's mpg on local journeys (20ish miles, combination of A roads and traffic jams) where I've been achieving about 41mpg almost from day 1 (a welcome improvement on my previous Audi). However, I'm puzzled by the fact that it doesn't seem to increase much on longer motorway journeys, where I've rarely even managed to achieve 44mpg average so far.... anyone got any ideas why this might be? I'm just approaching 2000 miles on the clock, and have the 4wd diesel, so I'm not expecting the mpg to be as good as on the 2wd, but I don't understand why it isn't at least noticeably better than on shorter town journeys.... does the engine need some significant settling in before it reaches optimum efficiency on longer journeys??

[shabazmo]

I think your car is doing just fine. My best is 46.5mpg doing mostly motorway miles and keeping it below 80ish. My worst which included fast motorway and some town was 41mpg. I have completed 5000 miles and feel that the consumption is geting better. Taking it easy the computer can read 53mpg on motorways keeping to 60-70mph, so 50mpg should be achievable.
Given that you have a quatro and some more power, I would expect hat you should be 10% worse than me.
The difference between town and motorway will narrow due to a number of factors:-
1. stop start system
2. elecric power steering that will save more fuel at higher speeds than lower speeds
3. The Audi has a quick warm up system, so less fuel is wasted during warm up. This I beleives operates by not allowing one of the two water pumps to operate during warm up, so less cooling in the first 5 minutes.
4. The alternator also has some efficiency advantage but I cab't remember what it is. I read it in the Audi study guide bust will post it later.
I still love the Audi and wish I had orderred some other extras. Currently in Florida driving a chevvy and miss the audi. I have not seen an A7 yet, but quite a few Jag XFs and BMW X6s. Good to see the Europeans exporting their kit over here.

[aurora7]

Hi shabazmo,

Thanks for that. Really interesting to see in detail what Audi have done re efficiency on this car. Looking forward to continued improvements as I put more miles on it...

What other extras would you have ordered on the A7 if you had your time again?

I'm wondering if it would be useful to prospective users if we started up some topics for each of the extras, so that people who had gone for it could post their thoughts on what they believed was good (or not so useful) about the extra for the benefit of those still working out what to order?

I know that when I was choosing my options I really missed seeing some more detail on how it worked in reality, and some of my last minute choices (e.g. HUD) have turned out to be things that I've been most impressed with.

[shabazmo]

That sounds good but it will probably mean a post for each extra. This will make it easier for readers to follow and for others to add their views.

I will start with te first one

Can I suggest that you add your model and extras to your signature, so that readers can see what car you have

[DJM_A7]

I average 39mpg according to the computer in town, and recently managed to get 50mpg on a recent drive back from the airport. i didn't expect to get the published milage; i mean really, whoever does? However, it is a long way off the published 50mpg in town and 58mpg on the run!

i never thought about checking to see how accurate the computer is, so i'll do that next time out.

[soofsayer]

Hi,

I'm driving a 245PS diesel and getting 40mpg on nearly all journeys long and short so far. Anything remotely higher than that has been elusive. I've only done about 600 miles so far and have filled up twice. First fill showed a range of 420, second fill (today) has shown a range of 480.

Audi engineer at the dealership said the engines need a few thousand miles to loosen up and the mpg improves. However I'm sure I read in Top gear mag that the lifer A7 was doing 38mpg after 8000 miles, so that doesnt figure.

[aurora7]

I've now done 6000 miles, and there has been a fractional improvement in mpg, but nothing earth shattering. Managed 47mpg on one long journey but was driving quite slowly (65mph) for most of that one due to traffic. Otherwise it's averaging about 42mpg on both long and short journeys, even in heavy traffic, so it's still a lot better than my previous car (A8) so I'm still happy.

[DJM_A7]

Hi All,
i obviously have a different kind of A7 to you lot. I did a "full to full" milage check. 35mpg, with the computer showing 36mpg. i do predominantly in town driving so i didn't expect 45 or 50, but 35? On the few motorway trips i do, the best is normally 41-42mpg or so. i'd love to know what you guys do to get into the high forties for combined cycle. oh, and No, i am not a boy racer wannabe! :-)

[Architex_mA8tey]

Mine is averaging 38-42 at 3000 miles (245ps 3.0 Tdi) and the most I have had is 44 on a long constant speed run. I cant say im trying to drive efficently though, more "enthusiastically"! ;)

[Audi_Mike]

Hi,

I have now had my A7 3.0 TDI 245 for about 3 weeks and have now filled it with diesel for the second time. The first couple of weeks, all I did were mostly local trips where the engine did not really fully warm up, plus a couple of 20 mile runs on the motorway. Over 330 miles, I averaged about 30mpg which is not particularly great, but it was mostly short runs. The car does seem to take quite a while to get any reading on the temperature gauge. My drive to work is only about 2 miles (approx 4 mins) and there is no reading on the temperature gauge when I arrive, whereas my old BMW was fairly well warmed up by then. I guess that this is a much larger and heavier diesel engine and so takes longer. I would be interested in comments from other A7 owners about how long their cars take to warm up.

Yesterday, I took the car (and wife) out for the day to the coast. I filled the tank before leaving and again on return and did a total of about 220 miles, almost entirely on the motorway with the cruise engaged at a steady 75. The computer said that I was getting 39mpg on the way down (50mph head wind all the way) and 44 on the way back. The actual figure worked out from the actual amount of fuel used from full tank to full tank was 38.5 mpg overall for the trip.

This is a lot less than I was expecting from the book figures. Has anyone tried to check fuel figures using the other driving modes such as Eco?? Does it make any difference??

Regards,
Mike

[shabazmo]

Mike,

My A7 reaches full temperature after about 4 miles, sometimes 5 miles and that is travelling at about 40mph to the next village. In this cold temperature I am getting about 42-44mpg and this is about 2mpg better in summer. I have a 15 miles journey to work driving country, suburban roads. Bear in mind that i have a 2wd version, so must be 5-10% more economical than your quatro. I guess your mpg to be about right.
Driving 2 miles to work, probably not good to clear our your diesel particulate filter, so make sure you do some long runs at the weekend.

Shabaz

[soofsayer]

Hi Mike,

I have a 245PS 3.0 TDi S-line which has just completed 5000 miles. My mpg experience is :

The mpg has improved only slightly from new towards an overall average of 39-40 mpg on most longer journeys, but I do drive quickly so have experienced 43mpg average when in slow / steady motorway traffic. The book says 47.9, I think the car will probably do it with no luggage, no passengers, no breakfast (:)), perfect tyre pressures and perfect driving at 56 mph. I noticed your car has a big spec which may take a little of the official figures as I believe that the figures from manufacturer are on the vehicle without extras (you will have additional weight and electrical consumption). If I slowed down a bit I would averaging low to mid 40s, so I dont think Audi is a million miles away. I got my wife a Golf Bluemotion recently, the claimed average is 67, reality is around 56-58, so IMHO they are all playing the game.

Your question about the economy car setting: I leave mine in this setting when I am popping around locally and not in any rush, it keeps the gear changes on lower revs and the pickup on the throttle is slower, plus the start-stop seems keener to work in economy. In terms of mpg I haven't noticed much of a difference to be honest, even when I've tried it on long journeys. Maybe I might get 41 instead of 39 or 40, so nothing special. I have found that on a route I do up to Northumberland that in Comfort the car feels better and the mpg seems the same. On balance my preference is to use Auto or Comfort on the longer journeys as the car feels more responsive, which translates into smoother driving, and improved economy, in any case.

One thing I would say about the mpg, putting the car into Dynamic or Manual and throwing it down country roads, it still averages well over 30, which is incredible compared to other cars I have owned when planting the right foot in the carpet. I took the car out a few weeks ago and had an hour of safe fast B road fun with the car mainly in manual (or dynamic) at high revs and the trip showed 32.9 average, that is very good.

Hope this helps.

[m3-fast]

I am getting similar fuel figures to Audi_Mike, my journeys are also short to work (a couple of miles) and I do a 50 mile round journey on Friday evening which involved motorway/dual carriageway driving. Weekend journeys are of various lengths.

I don't drive the car hard but am not a slow driver either, my long term computer reading is 30mpg (averaged over the 3 weeks I have had the car). Short term is usually little more.

I expected a bit better mpg than this....my car is the 245 ps Quattro, and now spends most of the time in economy mode. I also let he start/stop do its bit.

Any thoughts?

Paul

[kennyh]

.... and now spends most of the time in economy mode.
Paul

I don't think my car has an Economy mode. Do you mean "Comfort" mode as set on the "Car" menu?

I'm getting around 45mpg when driven gently.

[shabazmo]

I don't have economy mode either, just comfort, auto and dynamic. Maybe it is because its a 2wd

[kennyh]

I don't have economy mode either, just comfort, auto and dynamic. Maybe it is because its a 2wd

Mine is a 4wd; still doesn't have an 'Eco' mode (that I've found yet).

[Audi_Mike]

Hi Guys,

Fron the comments above, I think that the Eco mode may only be on the quattro version. This mode does give slightly improved fuel figures, but, annoyingly turns off some of the nice convenience features such as the "turn lights" which I actually find very useful. There is an "Individual" mode which allows you to make up your own car mode with your own choice of settings and I am going to play around with this to see if I can set up a mode that has the eco settings for the engine and gearbox, but keep some of the other features that the Eco mode turns off. Still, I am generally extremely pleased with the car.

[Architex_mA8tey]

I think Eco mode is just an addition that has been made more recently to the menu on newer cars, but not sure where the change over was or whether you can update the MMI to introduce it, perhaps our resident A8 Tech may be able to comment?

[soofsayer]

Hi Guys,

The Eco mode was not on the original A7 's brought into the UK. I only know this because I have had a loan A7 from my dealer and it was fully loaded (£70k ish) but with no Economy drive mode. When I asked about why it was missing, that was the reason given. Apparently Audi introduced it during the first tech revision (maybe also at the time of the 4/5 seat option?).

[kennyh]

So is that a software upgrade to get it then? Will it make any difference?

[shabazmo]

I managed to get my best mpg so far this week. After getting a winter of 40-44 mpg, I travelled 701 miles and filled up with 66.05 litres of diesel to give 48.3mpg. The dash showed 51.1mpg, so error of 5.5%. I did a fair bit of motorway miles with cruise control on 75mph. What was interesting was that I drove 26 miles after the dash said zero miles left, and yes I did have 10 litres of diesel in a spare tank in the boot just in case.

[soofsayer]

So is that a software upgrade to get it then? Will it make any difference?


I don't believe a software upgrade is going to be the fix, it is more involved than that.

I had the old A7 for 2 weeks recently and it was noticeable that the average mpg was around 38-39. On my newer A7 in Eco I get over 40. Both cars had very similar mileage of around 8000.

[kennyh]

Well I get 45mpg on my commute (50 mls) if I drive sensibly, and 40mpg if I boot it. All without Eco mode.

So not too bad I think!

[Dallas63]

Hi just joined this forum looking for info on tyres but just thought I’d add my experience of MPG for my A7 3.0 TDI Quattro, after about 10K miles my B trip is around 39mpg best I get is around 47mpg. I have found it’s better on fuel economy if in auto rather than ECO weirdly. I had a Bosch remap for economy but upped power from standard 272 to 306 bhp. Whilst not great considering it’s performance it’s Quattro and auto aren’t bad.

[Audi_Mike]

Hi Dallas63 and welcome to the forum. I have had my A7 3.0 TDI Quattro since Jan 2012 and have been extremely pleased with it. I get on average around 35-36 mpg on a mix of town and short motorway driving and about 40-41 mpg on a long motorway run. I do check my mpg against litres used and miles driven and have always found that the mpg readout in the car is a little higher than the calculated value (same for every car i have ever owned with an mpg readout), so do bear this in mind.

[sshooie]

I've done 50k in my 272 quattro and the max figure I have had (driving like Miss Daisy) is 61.8mpg over 268 miles:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/rWttA3swH8olPcGr-wSCUx_Pf21qwWv7B0yGPVL2jW58UnXQOTb1KM8IncwlqqunxhC m1lSm4AILzYpLlFTG0WlP-03bWvytx8BN_YR40tbPVZydWMaH51nhx2fF0RlS_DWduizItSX bnpZ0Xo0Lgpyo2DbUAfxJY6tSxHx9azsT1s6wC_hcmfcdvjoiY KRTtqHOZunXF4kKXIh9H6daGlicWn3xuVEjHW4ZGC_i22kFNJw SPxt7Maq7GPWmJp5pStBHyF1nFs9UowTXHVic-wiJ_LA2FnrX49892oadkumAZ_VmYeTIiVbg7WwqnelDzVNvCRk X_W5ZcT3-SSzBsMwxXgNIKJhzlME704gXsBdhTBV-nGKIzvQoL9lzxO3oyeQtlTft24eOnZnAut2SX3A4RtbZioFgdE SUiALKvWid8Ai5HUE_mk66AANggNUKBn4M3iE1lfBoqlY3ipbj PTjUyI1vt3M1B9eXg88YZXNnupH3CGtd7-pKr6w7q9ZEYp2-4fNTVbZXz05wEEuQJxS0u7QrtVvnbwCfzrLy3bnDMSQthPbUXY s1VSokqOX_YCAD9FCpaJIXakJixJ1BnUsyPx1q7ibtoC2sHcOz btemMUAykOufcl4_QAQMAYkbktTvexF7MKWqZfWpN-c-ulkr-j3ktkVsTofkt5Idw7mzRKalG9BjOjyBkPecSQ=w1667-h898-no?authuser=0

Long term (4800 miles):
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/r6p9RcXtOirx6YRUeAt66-IYWNo6AE7m0rrNoau7fe5O32S6anbBm5UbzJMeFRX7bc3_xmEz 99KGvaSnHN2JolYfPEQCA1hLFn79L4vRs6R3JxAH-ISnE89L14O4ynD2xqu2pdY0nEb-rm4nn_LTRL8ZaFRelUe6HWhYWh_LVSe689OJrDmeyZcylGBX4g QbbbJqg4MMkVA5b7r8TCSoY8Q-GaAM2T61jSTVBNBx7tqQfk4lhaBcdDlLWsMdNAy4KKX3wQbFeJ 8zj0Fj32k_6IsH1uv6cFA3zJBBRNNWMIinymaThj52k6WAO4NH LPLX-PtBFIPk2cZFgADnImeJDPDtpPMpF16qDKfl9ttMu-t3J3reDVUtUpgA0Lcq18Z_VrOp4hvzd5Do5q0l-yOTkAd-_MmJhQkqftUEY-2lre7rkGLaujjWxptthH_fI21h-He-LGCTUCkpsBvy0STfcs0kn6W1lUCdB0RheBNR6HLHXOGEcMPeN7 NLsbvhCqelEYGGAzKWYMzgAPE03gFKsDlDkbAo51sKPMbqdtmR XKBZupuyES90KmVNXaE_9eZfdNYO_Xxz14bLvVQGIVTQdn_4KT sG7xD2a42KML5Rf42BgzA6su9loHj1V9K7GEvDq2bS_Bp174C-d56BCUroo2dGM3uDQQkCb6XIR-vXMBDvCDGPddlkkuglbyIQLQ=w1198-h898-no?authuser=0

On average I get 34-35 daily though...