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Not a drop wasted with Carsales coasters
The Germans have an expression: 'Schadenfreude', which is joy and sadness mixed up in one, as in watching one's mother-in-law drive one's new car over a cliff.
We'd like to add an expression to the Aussie lexicon; let's call it 'BewdyBuggerBemusement'.
It represents the unsavoury mix of triumphalism, shame and amazement with which we report the Carsales Network and the RAA of South Australia have teamed up to win a fuel economy run organised by Audi. Audi invited the national motoring media to take part in the run, introducing the company's A3 Sportback 1.9 TDI e to the Australian market.
We felt 'triumphalism' for the greater glory of driving slower and smoother than our fellow scribes, 'shame' for driving slower and smoother than our fellow scribes and 'amazement' at squeezing 100km range out of just 3.5 litres of diesel fuel.
There was also amazement founded in two blokes -- whose respective power-to-weight ratios err more than they should on the side of weight -- mustering the sort of abstemious, masochistic self-discipline to win this event, averaging something like 64km/h over South Australian country roads.
We must give credit where it's due for our performance, a flat-white coffee IS the breakfast of champions. Credit should also go to the Audi of course, with an engine that would literally hold the car at a set speed on hills in higher gears -- and the tachometer showing just 1000rpm. That was amazing too.
The fuel consumption figure of 3.5L/100km was a substantial improvement on the 4.6L/100km figure incurred by a car being driven at normal pace and without especially economical driving.
The winning team did resort on occasion to coasting down hills in neutral, but preferred to leave the car in gear, since the engine closed down fuel induction altogether on the overrun.
Subscribing to Mythbusters as we do, we turned off the climate control and left the windows raised, but would crack them briefly on downhill runs or below speeds of 80km/h to stop the car fogging up inside.
Whilst it's not the same as blitzing Ari Vatanen's time up Pikes Peak, setting a new V8 Supercar record at Bathurst or overtaking Sebastien Loeb on the Col de Turini, we'll take it...
Race is on for seven-speed DSG
Following our report that Skoda would be the first to market with a seven-speed DSG box in the Superb 1.8 TFSI, we received a response from one of our readers, an Audi salesman. He advised that Audi would actually beat Skoda to market with the magic box by a matter of months, introducing it in a new A4 variant.
We checked with Audi and were told that the A4 with the seven-speed DSG would be launched around March of next year. Skoda has said that the Superb will go on sale during the first quarter of next year (that's January, February, March). It only takes a delay in ADR compliance or a wharfies strike for one of the Volkswagen Group companies to beat the other to market with the new transmission.
Audi's technical expert, John Roberts, also told us that at present, the seven-speed DSG is only suitable for longitudinal engine mounting applications, but the plan is for the transmission to be adapted to transverse engine applications also. Audi's first such application will be the A3, but it's still a long way off, according to Roberts.
Brickbats lack weight in payload debate
As usual, we've copped a hiding from supporters of the Blue Oval and high-performance arm FPV for our remarks -- among other things -- rating the Maloo's multi-link IRS system ahead of the 'Hotchkiss' live axle and leaf-spring set-up in the F6, Pursuit and Super Pursuit Utes.
At least one reader felt that our siding with the HSV system showed bias towards the Maloo, when many buyers of sports utes like these still wanted to carry a decent payload. The problem with that argument is that on paper at least, the Maloo still offers a payload advantage over the Ford Performance Vehicles -- all of the Utes.
It came as a shock to us as well, but FPV cites a payload of 486kg for the F6 Ute, versus 500kg dead for the Maloo. At 472kg for the Pursuit and 427kg for the Super Pursuit, the payload figures for the V8 variants don't even compare with the turbo six, let alone the HSV model. Sorry guys.
Pumpe Dusse has had its day?
As we reported, Skoda will progressively migrate to common-rail diesel injection with upcoming new models (commencing with the introduction of the diesel Superb variant due here early next year).
Skoda had attributed this decision to 'economies of scale', but Audi's John Roberts advises it's a little more complex than that. Roberts says that the Pumpe Dusse ('pump jet') diesel induction system has been more efficient and sophisticated than the earlier generation of common-rail diesel engines, but common-rail technology has caught up and leap-frogged the 'Pump Jet' system, by offering eight-hole piezo injectors and higher injection pressures.
The net result is an engine that is markedly quieter and significantly more economical. One example given by Roberts compared typical 2.0-litre turbodiesel engines, one with 'Pump Jet' injection and the other with latest generation common-rail injection. The former, according to Roberts, might return a fuel consumption figure in combined cycle testing of 6.5L/100km, but the latest gen common-rail engine can better that by half a litre (6.0L/100km).
Pump jet systems use a cam lobe to control injection pressure and timing. This system traditionally permits higher injection pressures, but common-rail injection now approaches the same ideal and does so with far finer adjustment of the fuel charge possible, allowing small spurts of fuel for pre-warming cylinders to improve combustion and reduce diesel rattle.
Stability control confusion
FPV has developed its DSC system jointly with Bosch and -- unlike the Falcon Ute donor cars -- the F6, Pursuit and Super Pursuit utilities are fitted with the stability control system as standard.
We thought initially that the DSC system was not available in the FPV utilities, but no, the company's sport utes enjoy the benefits of the active safety system too.
Which leads us to wonder why, when the system had been developed for the FPV utes, it could not have been on-sold back to Ford for the donor cars as well. Granted the braking system in the FPV models is a high-performance system and perhaps the relatively cheaper, lower performance system fitted to the Falcon, R6 and XR models requires more calibration to work effectively with the software, but really, much of the work has already been done with the Falcon sedans anyway.
The only difference between the Falcon Utes and the sedans is the rear suspension and weight distribution -- and FPV and Bosch appear to have overcome that issue already.
Common-rail 300C not so common
Word from Chrysler is that the 300C CRD (diesel) is not selling as well as it should, given the fact that it develops very nearly as much torque as the V8 model and is about $2000 cheaper. OK, it's not like $2000 is going to bear a major influence on a purchasing decision when the price of the vehicle starts above $50,000 -- irrespective of what engine is fitted.
But one would think that with the increasingly popularity of diesel engines in small cars and SUVs, that would flow on into larger cars as well. Not so, according to Chrysler's Jerry Stamoulis. Stamoulis suspects that any efficiency gain in running a diesel-powered car is increasingly eroded by the sheer cost of the fuel, relative even to premium unleaded. That leaves the question begging, how will diesel-engined Commodores and Falcons fare?
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