Project Commuter

Well I think you’ve done that before haven’t you!! Don’t tell me that’s from a rattle can??
No not the first time doing something like this, I have done a door before, but yes all done with spray cans, I figured that the arch looked so bad I didn't have much to loose. I think that the Ebony Black Pearl colour is quite forgiving as it doesn't seem to fade much even after 18 years. The picture is also after wet sanding with 2000 grit and polishing.
 
The car lost its roof today, thankfully it was booked in for the services of @Kleynie and now it has a fully opening open sky roof, even if it did put up a bit of a fight!

Clear roads the whole way shows how frugal the 1.4 TDI can be on a long trip!
 

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With lockdown continuing and boredom setting in and rather than spending my evenings sitting at the same desk at home that I had spent all day at doing work at but playing computer games instead it was time for more garage project work on the A2 this time focussing on fuel economy. For this I added the underbody spoiler from the 3l as well as the winglets and fabricated replacement heat shields to go around the fuel filter. I also created a blanking plate for the front grille and swapped out the thermostat as I think the one in the car was a bit unhappy.

Where did you source the 3L parts and have you noticed a difference? :)
 
Where did you source the 3L parts and have you noticed a difference? :)
I got the 3L aero parts from Crewe Audi as new parts. I'm not sure if they have made a difference because I have had very limited experience of the economy before. I know that I can get very good economy out of it now though without a remap or any modifications to the gearbox.
 
Today my TDI let me down, there's something wrong with the fuel level sender and it is making up nonsense readings. I was sat at a set of traffic lights and it suddenly went to zero when there was about 11 litres in the tank. I filled the car up again and the gauge was just moving around all over the place
 
Not seen the fuel tank strangeness again. Will have to see if it is comes back...
Nice little trip over to WOM today to get the timing belt and water pump, as well as the blowing Flexi section of the exhaust and a broken freewheeling pulley from the alternator all replaced. I am lucky to live only an hour from WOM.
 
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Looking good. Hopefully you had a nice walk on the Pembrokeshire Coastal path after your visit?
Nice to meet you and nice car you have there.
 
Looking good. Hopefully you had a nice walk on the Pembrokeshire Coastal path after your visit?
Nice to meet you and nice car you have there.
Sorry, yes it was a good walk and am happy to report that the seats are much comfier than the ones they replaced now that they have had a few thousand miles of being sat in
 
With the weather getting colder and at the moment it's taking a long time for the car to get to temperature (because my commute is mostly on the flat and average speed of about 45 mph) I have fitted a DEFA electric preheater kit.

Was fairly simple to install and managed to fit it without dumping all my coolant. I considered putting the socket behind the service flap because it would look loads cleaner but I don't trust humans not to do bad things to my oil if that was left flapped down so mounted it near the fog light cover. Now to see if it makes much difference.
 

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So just over 5 weeks in with the DEFA heater and I have done plenty of driving in cold, snow and heavy rain and I think the heater is making a difference. Over the 2,000 miles I have done in this time I have used the heater for approximately half of the starts (i.e. each morning leaving for work) I have averaged 75 mpg (odometer distance between fill ups and fuel used, not the DIS value). Within this there was one week of driving where I had to use the webasto and this gave me a tank average of 68mpg vs the 75-80mpg the other weeks.

I think that I would call this a success as I am now routinely driving over 450 miles on a single tank of diesel in the winter (this is as far as I brave going with the fuel light on and the needle at zero). I'm just sad that my car has the small tank (34l) as I feel quite short changed by the reserve being set to leave something like 7 litres in the tank. Even though I am running the car down to 0 on the fuel gauge I am still only ever really getting a max of 28 litres into the tank.
 
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So just over 5 weeks in with the DEFA heater and I have done plenty of driving in cold, snow and heavy rain and I think the heater is making a difference. Over the 2,000 miles I have done in this time I have used the heater for approximately half of the starts (i.e. each morning leaving for work) I have averaged 75 mpg (odometer distance between fill ups and fuel used, not the DIS value). Within this there was one week of driving where I had to use the webasto and this gave me a tank average of 68mpg vs the 75-80mpg the other weeks.

That's fantastic - I've been thinking that I'm doing well still getting 68/69mpg at this time of year. Using my Defa heater in the mornings, mine gets up to temperature about 5 miles sooner than if I don't.
 
That's fantastic - I've been thinking that I'm doing well still getting 68/69mpg at this time of year. Using my Defa heater in the mornings, mine gets up to temperature about 5 miles sooner than if I don't.
Yes otherwise on my journey it was taking close on 20 miles to get up to operating temperature without the climate on. My journey is particularly economical though as it is practically flat and very constant 45 to 50 mph. People at my work don't believe how little I spend on diesel per week.
 
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Ooh a PTW. Good choice.

I would be interested to learn what it drives like with the very high intermediate gears without the benefits of the variable vane turbo the 90 model comes equipped with.
 
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Ooh a PTW. Good choice.

I would be interested to learn what it drives like with the very high intermediate gears without the benefits of the variable vane turbo the 90 model comes equipped with.
Yeah I am slightly apprehensive about that part but I figured that it is not super different to what the lower gears would be like if I had gone for a JDD/MZN which was the other option I was weighing up. The main decider for the PTW was the considerably lower purchase cost (compared with MYP, I think MYP are expensive because these are a favoured gearbox swap for VW Caddy’s) and it being available locally

Currently I do a lot of lower speed driving in the tallest possible gear so am fairly confident in the performance of the AMF at around 1400 rpm.

I also saw this post by robin cox where it’s been done before and that gave me some confidence that this is a viable option for the AMF.

 
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Yeah I am slightly apprehensive about that part but I figured that it is not super different to what the lower gears would be like if I had gone for a JDD/MZN which was the other option I was weighing up. The main decider for the PTW was the considerably lower purchase cost (compared with MYP, I think MYP are expensive because these are a favoured gearbox swap for VW Caddy’s) and it being available locally

Currently I do a lot of lower speed driving in the tallest possible gear so am fairly confident in the performance of the AMF at around 1400 rpm.

I also saw this post by robin cox where it’s been done before and that gave me some confidence that this is a viable option for the AMF.

As a fellow Tdi75 (albeit BHC) owner with a PTW and a Defa heater installed, I will also be interested to see the numbers. I finally was able to undertake the planned long distance runs with the PTW 6th from Scotland to Plymouth on two return trips this last summer, and superficially I didn't see any notable difference in economy despite running a significant proportion of the motorway miles in the markedly higher 6th around 800rpm less than I was doing on the previous runs.

However : it is worth noting that the journey at 2150rpm was a lot more pleasant than 2900-3000rpm for the long constant speed sections (~350 miles from roughly Lockerbie to Taunton). I was going through my fuel stop receipts and recorded mileages a few months back and realised that I might have been discounting a tyre diameter component using my 195/55/16 Rainsport 3s to the tune of about 55 miles (using odometer) over what I know to be 545mi door to door (genuine 545 mile distance confirmed by multiple accurate resources) in my Fuelly calculations with the new gearbox. This would suggest about a 10% improvement in mpg over what I had calculated based on the numbers I had to hand on the journeys down and back with the new box, so perhaps my initial impressions from an expenditure perspective were impaired due to gearing and tyre diameter issues not being accounted for. In this instance then the PTW may actually have given me a 10% improvement that I hadn't noticed previously owing to not noticing the smaller recorded mileages instead of using the map distances for these in Fuelly.

Yet to use the Defa, conditions where this will be useful are approaching.
 
As a fellow Tdi75 (albeit BHC) owner with a PTW and a Defa heater installed, I will also be interested to see the numbers. I finally was able to undertake the planned long distance runs with the PTW 6th from Scotland to Plymouth on two return trips this last summer, and superficially I didn't see any notable difference in economy despite running a significant proportion of the motorway miles in the markedly higher 6th around 800rpm less than I was doing on the previous runs.

However : it is worth noting that the journey at 2150rpm was a lot more pleasant than 2900-3000rpm for the long constant speed sections (~350 miles from roughly Lockerbie to Taunton). I was going through my fuel stop receipts and recorded mileages a few months back and realised that I might have been discounting a tyre diameter component using my 195/55/16 Rainsport 3s to the tune of about 55 miles (using odometer) over what I know to be 545mi door to door (genuine 545 mile distance confirmed by multiple accurate resources) in my Fuelly calculations with the new gearbox. This would suggest about a 10% improvement in mpg over what I had calculated based on the numbers I had to hand on the journeys down and back with the new box, so perhaps my initial impressions from an expenditure perspective were impaired due to gearing and tyre diameter issues not being accounted for. In this instance then the PTW may actually have given me a 10% improvement that I hadn't noticed previously owing to not noticing the smaller recorded mileages instead of using the map distances for these in Fuelly.

Yet to use the Defa, conditions where this will be useful are approaching.
Thanks Robin for this comprehensive overview and it’s giving me additional confidence in my choice. That does in fact sound very worthwhile. I’m running 185/60 R15 tyres which means that my mileage counter is essentially accurate. For sure I will keep this thread updated once everything is all installed.

I think like most people here my main reason for making this change is to quiet things down at motorway speed and also my original gearbox is basically toast now.
 
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