UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Hey everyone,

Never really filled the tank on the Polo due to never driving that far. However, was planning to drive to Wales and had the thought of brimming the tank to see what the car thought it would make of it. I was disappointed when it only showed a max of 195 miles. That would be plenty for Wales however, I stumbled upon a spec site (https://www.ultimatespecs.com/car-specs ... vance.html) which states it should make well over 400 miles to a tank. (See below)



Is this something anyone else has come across or is there a misread by the fuel gauge? Or is the report from the article just plain incorrect and 195 miles is the very max?

Is there a way to maybe reset or fix this reading if it is indeed showing lower range than expected?

Drop your experiences below, it would be interesting to see how they came up with such high range claims if it is the case.

the car uses the mpg to calculate the range. (you can manipulate it with vcds to give you loads of range)

i would say that once you get on the motorway and start cruising you will probably see the range climb.

i managed 350 miles in my 350bhp gti so 400 should be fairly easy to attain

Dink wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 5:54 pm the car uses the mpg to calculate the range. (you can manipulate it with vcds to give you loads of range)

i would say that once you get on the motorway and start cruising you will probably see the range climb.

i managed 350 miles in my 350bhp gti so 400 should be fairly easy to attain

Thanks for letting me know it uses the mpg, never knew that! Is this something of "recent" that they started to do that? Had a Passat B6 and that would always display the maximum range when filled even with city driving. (meaning a lower averaged mpg).

Still find it a bit weird to be "accumulating" more range as you drive, the concept seems bizarre. But I guess it is more accurate that way?

At least I can use the fuel gauge to determine I still have a potential 200 miles remaining when I get to Wales for the return

Thanks again

I've owned new VWs since May 2000 and all of them have had the same method of computing fuel range, the car will keep on computing the new fuel range as you drive, meaning that if you had filled the tank and driven only in town traffic, if you then only drove out of town, as you used the fuel up, up to a point, the range would increase to a maximum due to the improved MPG, then drop back as you used the remaining fuel up at that or a lower MPG driving period.

Driving a car with a nearly empty tank, having been fully warmed up and driving economically for the last maybe 20 miles into a filling station to refuel, will always result in the newly filled tank range being high, driving a car with a nearly empty tank, not fully warmed up and having previously maybe for the past 20 miles driven in dense town traffic, will never result in the displayed range with that tank now full, being very high - but if your driving "type" changes to being economic, then as I said at the beginning, the remaining range will increase up to a point as you start to use up the fuel.

Over 1000 KM trip --
Best range displayed 750 KM
Best consumption displayed 17.1 KMPL