Of course... not for the reasons you might think:
Sweaty lessons we learned during the 2014 Volkswagen Eco Fun Run | TopGear.com.ph
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The rules prohibit shaking the car during the fuel-up. Shaking before the fuel-up? Completely legal, apparently.
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So I lost overall, but claimed the best economy on the return leg, where the shaking trick wouldn't work. I got 27.5 km/l in 50:50 city/highway driving, with a Jetta 2.0 TDI, best of the leg. Well... best economy in class. Two teams driving the VW Tiguan got 47 and 49 km/l respectively.
Comes down to the tricky push-button starter. We had to park the cars at the gas station and push them up to the pumps when it was time to refill. The problem is, once you turn off a push-button car, it goes all the way dead, not into accessory mode. So you have to turn it on again without getting the engine to start. This means pushing the button without stepping on the brakes. The ladies driving didn't know this, so they fiddled a long time with the cars, and I surmise the fuel temperature sensor in the rail, at one, or two, or three points, decided to purge the rail of hot fuel. Hence, over a 90 kilometer run, they only "Used" one and a half liters of fuel, because the tank was miraculously three liters fuller than it was at the start!
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Still, had fun. Did a lot of EOC on the return leg... but I could have gotten higher numbers if I'd driven slower. My pulses were up to 100 km/h because I was pissed... and because I couldn't legally go under 60 km/h on the highway... (TIP: EOC'ing uphill? Pain in the arse) and I could have done better without a passenger... as I had to turn on the AC from time to time to keep them from melting into their seat. Mine was drenched in sweat at the end of the day... it was so HOT.
The other Jettas did 24.4 (AC on, driving to target speed... but those guys had a media unit with twice the mileage on the odometer, and tires worn down from hard driving... we drove exactly the same in the morning and they got 3 km/l better than me) and 25 (AC off, 70 km/h target, I expect).
Moral of the story: Next time, I'm lobbying for the media unit, and if other teams do the Harlem Shake...
