First long trip in 130 tdi

[toto]

Currently in Qld after taking our first long trip in the 130tdi. What can I say other than very very happy with it. 1100kms out of fuel tank so far and still got just under a 1/4 left in tank showing. MFD avg consumption showing 5.1l. Will see when I refill how that works out in to real world figures.

No rattles, squeaks etc. Cruised effortlessly with car loaded for family holiday. Always seemed to choose right gear on the hills, up or down. The wife had her first real good drive and loves the adaptive cruise control. Seats are excellent, makes me wonder how the sports seats would improve comfort as I am very happy with current seats.

Actually looking forward to the drive home as it was such a nice drive up.

Considering purchasing sunblinds for future trips to help with my toddler son sleeping as 35% tint just doesn't cut it in full sun.

Will report on return trip if anything pops up, but so far so good.

[dopey]

Yup, they're absolutely awesome cars for the family road trip. I did a Sydney - Melbourne trip at Christmas with a full car (people + luggage) and had similar fuel usage figures.

I tinted my rear windows quite dark (around 15%) and it makes a hell of a difference. Keeps the car much cooler, but most importantly my 6 month old son is kept shaded at all times without the need for one of those mesh shade things. Darkest legal on the front windows though, so I don't compromise the side mirror visibility.

[toto]

Sadly no one I have spoken to is willing to tint my rear windows darker, so sunblinds it is. Got a quote here on Gold Coast from a VW dealer for them and they are $320 for rear doors only. He couldn't be certain they would get them intime before we left so I will buy them when we get home. Our son is only 13 months old and it still gets to hot through the glass. We have the window socks on our craptiva and they make a huge difference.

Ended up filling up today, 62lts and I managed 1150kms, avg on fuelly works out at 5.8l so pretty happy with that as the last 100kms were done in heavy Gold Coast traffic, which rivals Sydney traffic atm with all the road works up here.

[wind]

Sadly no one I have spoken to is willing to tint my rear windows darker, so sunblinds it is.

Hunt around, there are places willing to do darker tints on cars . . . just not able to give you a receipt for it (had a few offers of this when I was looking around to tint my wagon).

My front windows are legal tint BUT I still have to wind down the windows when backing up in the dark as the reverse lights are piss poor (yeah, even with bright LEDs!).

Needless to say my driveway is steep (down to street level), quite dark (street lighting is not in the best position for me) and has a kink in it (can't do a straight reverse, need to work a little), so at night it is either a good guess (pray) or use RVC with windows down! Am giving serious thought to sticking some bright lights to shine on my driveway with sensor/timer . . .


Agree with dopey - they are a great whether for a 5 min drive to the shops or non-stop interstate (have done return Syd - Melb, Syd-Adel, Syd-Bris drives) and if anything it gets better over time!

[toto]

Back from our trip and have to say I totally agree Wind, it gets better with each trip.

Fuel avg was 5.8l up and 5.6l on return, those are actual figures and not MFD figures which were about .2 - .3l lower.

Can honestly say there is very little, if anything I dislike on this car. Possibly some minor changes, but unlike my previous cars nothing that bothers me greatly.

Though I did notice towards the end of our trip the adaptive cruise seemed to struggle to stay as consistent as it had been on the trip. By this I mean if set to 118kmh/r it would hold it regardless up or downhill and very rarely if ever deviate off 118kmh/r, but in the final 50km home on a relatively flat freeway it was fluctuating between 116-120kmh/r and seemed unable to hold the set speed.

[wind]

Though I did notice towards the end of our trip the adaptive cruise seemed to struggle to stay as consistent as it had been on the trip. By this I mean if set to 118kmh/r it would hold it regardless up or downhill and very rarely if ever deviate off 118kmh/r, but in the final 50km home on a relatively flat freeway it was fluctuating between 116-120kmh/r and seemed unable to hold the set speed.

How was the weather? If it is heavy rain/wind etc sometimes it does wander a little from the set speed. I do know (personal experience) that it does not work when snow piles up on the VW emblem (radio transmitter is behind it - got caught mid-Oct last year in the blue mountains):






What I do is turn it off (push to the bottom to disable and then turn it back on) - sometimes it has a 'spazz-attack' and turning it off/on does not fix the problem. In that case (2 times since I got the car), I stop the car and turn off the engine (pull key out) then turn on again for a clean re-start. Don't forget that much of the car function/features is software driven and if it acts funny the best thing is to pull the plug and restart the whole show from scratch (just like a PC).

[toto]

SO you were lucky enough to get caught it that blizzard Awesome pics there.

Weather was perfect and I have noticed it is still jittery so to speak. May try disabling it next drive and see how that goes. I am used to cruise on most cars being a little up down like that but for the first 5 weeks or so it was stuck like glue to set speed and now it seems to struggle.

Thanks for your advice Wind, much appreciated.

[wind]

Re cruise control - try the 'turn cruise off-on' way and see if it makes a difference.

Otherwise, I suggest that if it acts up again (like what you observed) that you may want to take it to the dealer and have them look at it (have reached the bottom of my barrel of wisdom/experience on this topic). Apart from 2 times, mine has been very good at keeping the set speed (normally to within 1 km or so)

SO you were lucky enough to get caught it that blizzard Awesome pics there.

Yeah, was slip-sliding all the way up the steep climb from Lithgow to Mt Victoria - definitely was 'fun' with front wheel drive and wide sports tyres (got to the other end with clean underwear, but there were a few moments here and there . . . !), just kept it steady and maintained momentum (has a few sections where I had to stop on steep grades, was 'interesting' getting restarted with almost zero traction). Had to stop when I finally ran up against banked up traffic and could not get through (though a few 4WDs did manage to sneak through).

That day took it took me 7.5 hrs to get home, compared to less than 2 normally.

A few more pics from that day:

[PHA]

Just had the first road trip in our new B7 TDi. Thoroughly enjoyed the trip from the south coast of NSW to Qld and back and just love the car. The car was near faultless and returned and average of 5.5 l/100 km according to the MFD. I particularly like the adaptive cruise control (although on 2 occasions when I changed lanes to overtake a truck it didn't unlock from the tuck with interesting results) and lane control.

1 minor gripe. I know that speedos are deliberately optimistic and so to be doing 100 I travel at an indicated 105 (checked this with another GPS as the RNS 510 doesn't show actual speed). In my previous B6 I could just tap the cruise control up or down in 10kph increments. In the B7 it jumps to the nearest multiple of 10 (i.e. from 105 it will go up to 110 or down to 90), resulting in fine tuning the speed with each speed limit change.

Does anyone know if there's a way to re-programme this to get it the same way as the B6?

I noticed a couple of times that there is condensation inside the RH headlight lens. Today I discovered 2 cracks in the lens on the RH edge. I thought these polycarbonate lenses are virtually unbreakable. There's no sign of any impact and so I suspect the lens may have been cracked from new (car has only done 4,000 km and doesn't even have a stone chip yet, touch wood). Has anyone else experienced this? I suspect if I end up having to fork out for a new bi-xenon light assembly it won't be cheap. Car is booked in with the dealer for them to take a look next week.

[Hillbilly]

Just had the first road trip in our new B7 TDi. Thoroughly enjoyed the trip from the south coast of NSW to Qld and back and just love the car. The car was near faultless and returned and average of 5.5 l/100 km according to the MFD. I particularly like the adaptive cruise control (although on 2 occasions when I changed lanes to overtake a truck it didn't unlock from the tuck with interesting results) and lane control.

1 minor gripe. I know that speedos are deliberately optimistic and so to be doing 100 I travel at an indicated 105 (checked this with another GPS as the RNS 510 doesn't show actual speed). In my previous B6 I could just tap the cruise control up or down in 10kph increments. In the B7 it jumps to the nearest multiple of 10 (i.e. from 105 it will go up to 110 or down to 90), resulting in fine tuning the speed with each speed limit change.



I noticed a couple of times that there is condensation inside the RH headlight lens. Today I discovered 2 cracks in the lens on the RH edge. I thought these polycarbonate lenses are virtually unbreakable. There's no sign of any impact and so I suspect the lens may have been cracked from new (car has only done 4,000 km and doesn't even have a stone chip yet, touch wood). Has anyone else experienced this? I suspect if I end up having to fork out for a new bi-xenon light assembly it won't be cheap. Car is booked in with the dealer for them to take a look next week.

Does anyone know if there's a way to re-programme this to get it the same way as the B6?


You can flick the cruise up 1kph at a time Cant remember which way I think its up or towards you Mine goes either up or down in 10k incrememnts ok
The Passat speedo is 6kph fast at 100k so I normally sit on 106 or 107 if feeling game.

It also sits dead on the speed its set for and doesnt rush up hills to keep it there like my Toyota used to rather it just increases power gradually. also if someone cuts in front of you on adaptive cruise it just gradually eases back to the correct distance but I have often wondered if it puts the brakelights on when it does this