Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

You could see if you can trigger a DPF cycle to clean it out, but also do consider that it's a van, it's not exactly aerodynamic so it's going to be pretty uneconomical on the motorway.

Perhaps @spotter could provide some experience of mpg as he has a similar van I think.

My van (huge, relatively blunt frontal area) gets great economy at 55, then starts to really suck as the speed goes up from there (as aerodynamic drag is the square of speed IIRC).

Yeah - think that's it. 55 is just slow....

Thing is aerodynamically, the two vans are identical. It's one of these - so basically a big box.

I'd always thought the economy of the old one was pretty good, considering it had a ton of miles, and the engine not a spring chicken. So was a bit sad to find new van with much smoother engine and an extra gear didn't provide the same economy on longer runs - which is what its mainly for. Old van was a 2.2 turbo - new one is just a "2.0 bluehdi" - so maybe it's that smaller engine that just can't hack motorway miles in the same way. The newest ones (post 2019) are back to 2.2

@NurseHolliday - yep - will see if I can get a dpf health check next time it's in the garage. I don't think it's told me its done a regen for a while - but as I've done a fair bit of motorway recently, I think it does this automatically without telling you.

Dpf is definitely a possibility. I don't know if tyres could cause such a difference, but are they different new vs old van? Maybe the pressures or the brand are causing the drop in efficiency. Probably the gearing in the 6 speed is set for efficiency in the urban setting, or slower speeds rather than having a nice long 5th gear that sits at 1800rpm at 60mph.

^^Have you looked at the gearing and final drive? New one might just be lower geared overall.

How would I find this out? Is that kind of spec listed anywhere?

Just had a painful MOT that I really didn't need. That is all.

Thanks for the responses all!

It's running exactly the same tyres as I had after market alloys and moved them over.

Maybe the gearing is just not great - which would be a shame as what's the point of a 6 speed if not to have a good cruising gear!

Did they not apply grease before checking your emissions?

That can hurt.

Probably the gearing in the 6 speed is set for efficiency in the urban setting, or slower speeds rather than having a nice long 5th gear that sits at 1800rpm at 60mph.

This sounds very plausible @Scrabble

I do wonder if some of the Euro 6 emissions improvements have hindered performance on modern diesels. Sounds a bit gammony to suggest that, I have no evidence, just a thought. Wouldn't be surprised with some of the OEM behaviour.

If you ask on any car forum the stock answer when you have an issue is "DPF delete". Same with other issues like AdBlue.

In terms of a remap, it's worth asking a reputable garage. Supposedly remaps for fuel economy are more common outside of the UK. It makes sense that a car manufacturer would tune the ECU to work across multiple countries with various emission laws, so there is probably a little improvement hiding in there. I think there is a stigma with a re map, probably not helped by the marketing (stage 1, stage 2 etc).

Probably a conspiracy theory but with diesel gate Audi supposedly did an AdBlue recall which negatively effected performance. Although I think car forums are full of nutters haha

I feel you. I'm running an older golf as I haven't got around to selling it and every MOT is ~£500

DPF delete is removing the dpf (do they leave the shell - but just take the filter out?) and then reconfiguring the ECU? This is illegal right? Is it not picked up at MOT - or do you need a compliant tester? No chance I'm doing it - just curious - honest!

As I've got the lowest tune, and the smallest van in the model line it feels like there should be more in there! Might try asking around.

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They didn't even tell me it might be a bit sore.

£1200 on a 5yo Fabia.
I'm going to try to do a couple of things myself to bring the costs down but it's still £800ish.
Yikes.

£1200 on a 5yo Fabia.

ey yo wtf

How? Unless it's mostly tyres?

Send the fail list and I can offer to help as much as I can with free labour.

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Toilet paper in the fridge for the foreseeable.

Rotiform CVT

Please god no

Yes definitely most likely illegal, they gut everything out and weld it back up. Most people do it out of warranty as a clogged DPF can cause very expensive repairs on certain engines. I'm not 100% on if its an instant fail of MOT as it depends on your cars emissions I guess. Not advocating but its fairly widespread!

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I'm sure you can get a fake empty DPF that looks like it is still there, much like a sports cat. TBH if you sell the DPF as well it pretty much pays for the work involved with changing it in quite a few cases. I think mine may be going soon.

Mine is mapped and my MPG hasn't dropped. It's probably gone up on a run. Never heard anyone say a remap has adversely affected their MPG.

That will do it!