ex-quattro PETE

Ours is new, so maybe it'll improve slightly over time, but I'm not exactly counting on it.

Just took a first 200-mile hwy trip, and being very gentle with the gas pedal, averaged 24-25 mpg. The vehicle is EPA rated at 26, and because these new EPA figures are more conservative, it is typically fairly easy to beat them. Not in this case, I guess.

My speed was around 70-75 mph. Possibly the Q5 isn't very aerodynamic and this higher speed does impact mpg greatly. I guess I'd have to be at 55 mph in order to meet/beat EPA rating?

What mpg are you guys getting in your 3.0Ts?


The main reason for the question is that my wife's old '08 C300 4matic was EPA rated at 17/25, but would get 27-28 mpg on the hwy easily. The Q5 3.0T is EPA rated at 18/26, so I was hoping it would be no worse than the C300 based on these EPA ratings, but it doesn't look like this is going to be the case. On one hand, I was expecting this newer engine to be more efficient, but on the other hand, the added weight and high stance of the Q5 certainly impact fuel economy.

Anyway, it is what it is. I was just curious what others are getting.

idale

The Q5's definitely not aerodynamic compared to the C-class, and the faster you go the more extra resistance you'll encounter. It can also depend on how you're driving the Q5 vs. the C, as if you're driving with more "fun" (which I would imagine would be easier) then you wouldn't necessarily be "cruising" quite as much which would also affect fuel economy. Raw speed does factor in for air resistance, but any time spent having to accelerate will have your consumption really high (even if you're accelerating slowly -- always get up to speed fairly quickly and then cruise).

Not having a 3.0T I can't give any anecdotal evidence, but generally VAG estimates are pretty good so you should be able to reasonably achieve the stated figures.

ex-quattro PETE

Well, I was trying to be very gentle with the throttle, but I also did not use cruise much as I've read somewhere it's not good to stay at one rpm level for too long on a brand new engine. Alas, the Audi owner's manual does not say that, so maybe it's not important.

And you're right, instant MPG takes a massive dive whenever you press the accelerator pedal, even if you do it gently.

idale

Cruise control can sometimes be bad for fuel economy, too, of course, since it can't see ahead and even out throttle requests between hills and traffic and stuff, but of course the ideal case is that you're keeping revs reasonably constant. Easy enough much of the time if you're cruising with the 8-speed (in D), though. I almost never use cruise myself, if for no other reason than I want to be in full control and be able to plan ahead for coming up on a hill or traffic or whatever.

But yeah, the consumption even for light acceleration is pretty low. With my 2002 1.8T Passat, heavy acceleration was floored at 5mpg and light acceleration was around 9mpg. It's a little better in the TDI from what little I've looked at the instantaneous, but not much (12mpg for light acceleration, maybe?). So the sooner you're up to speed and just giving little tweaks to throttle to maintain speed the better. It can be sad when my average mileage for the trip drops by several mpg just because I turned out onto a road, but it takes a bit of energy to accelerate.

For highway, that just comes into play if you have to pass or have to deal with traffic (slowing and speeding up), or even if you just keep the revs higher by being in S or M. (At least for me for the one or two tanks I tried in S for comparison, I seemed to get around 2-3mpg less in my TDI compared to what I'd get in D.)

jbbarrette

We get approx 16 mpg inner city driving and 24+ mpg on long fwy trips.

'14 3.0 Q5 premium plus sport model

ex-quattro PETE

Hehe yup, I told wife to get the sport pkg so that I could play around with manual mode via steering wheel shift paddles, but now seeing how much damage it can do to the pocket, I don't think I'll be using it as much as I initially thought.

ELEVENS

Seriously, you don't trust the government?

SQive

I've seen no more than 24 highway with the SQ, but only about 5 on the track.

idale

I override a lot of the time, especially if I'm turning, so that I can have revs not around idle when I know I'll need to speed up. S I never felt like I had to override, but I don't want the revs staying around 2K most of the time, only if I'm going for a quick turn and want to be back up to speed ASAP.

Might pop into S temporarily if I'm at a light onto a high-speed road to ensure I have as little delay in getting power to the wheels as possible (since D hesitates a little but S throws power down right away).

Audi provides the estimates, the EPA just defines the procedure. (Or maybe that's what they want us to think.......)

VAG estimates do at least tend to be fairly realistic unlike most manufacturers' vastly-inflated figures. I don't know if the EPA's defined test cycles just happen to fit better with how VAG vehicles work or if they under-report the results of the testing or what.

Unlike my Odyssey that would've only hit the estimated 25mpg highway if the highway went straight down.

hilld

When I had my Golf TDI, I would never achieve the estimated MPG unless I did only 55MPH, which to me is not very realistic, considering speed limits are 65 or 70 around here. There was at least a 2-3 MPG drop once you hit 65+.