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New Member Introduction - fuel economy way down

1358 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  macaulayeod, 
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I've been driving diesels for many years. Used to do all my own work on them, but have been using a local mechanic that is trustworthy. However, I've come up with a problem on my 2006 VW TDI that he can't answer. So I'm back to looking for myself again. It's actually a problem with wife's 2006, not mine. We both have the same year TDI. Her's has been full of minor glitches, mine (knock on wood) has not...

Anyway, she recently went from getting about 48 mpg to about 38 mpg. Way to big a drop!

So I'm looking for ideas of why this may have happened. I was looking through the timing belt change FAQ looking for possibly a timing issue and the Bentley manual is very short in info.

If anyone can either point me to some places to look or possibly reasons why the poor fuel economy, I'd welcome the input.

Thanks,

dj
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Were the brakes or tires recently changed? Maybe a brake is dragging and combined with different tires, the economy went down. Winter fuel gives less mpg too so if the supplier has switched over that makes a difference, but you should see a similar drop in your mpg if you fuel up at the same place.

Maybe her camshaft has holed the lifters. There's a FAQ with some pretty nasty pictures of bad cams.

Does switching drivers make any difference ;) j/k.
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Superbass said:
Were the brakes or tires recently changed? Maybe a brake is dragging and combined with different tires, the economy went down. Winter fuel gives less mpg too so if the supplier has switched over that makes a difference, but you should see a similar drop in your mpg if you fuel up at the same place.

Maybe her camshaft has holed the lifters. There's a FAQ with some pretty nasty pictures of bad cams.

Does switching drivers make any difference ;) j/k.
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No brakes, tires etc. changed recently. But I also can't say if this has been sudden or that my wife has just noticed. Since we have two cars that are essentially identical, we shouldn't be too far apart in milage...

What other symptoms come with the camshaft wear? Shouldn't there be other engine performance degradations? Harder to start? Something else?

I looked at the FAQ on the cam wear. There doesn't seem to be the type of noise that the videos show, but I will check to be sure. I can put both cars side by side to listen.

Any other ideas?

dj
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I need to finish putting together the car!

So I posted, introduced and am waiting to get the instructions to put the car back together..... How long do I have to wait after joining to be able to get these instructions!?
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