First trip, first tank, first impressions
I reserved a 2006 HCH on July 7 and it arrived on Friday. Opted for magnetic pearl with the nav system. Picked it up on Saturday, just in time for a trip I had been planning. I ran a few short trips around town on Saturday and Sunday, then Monday was the big 440 mile highway run from Baltimore down to North Carolina. I was anxious to see how the car would perform. I took it on a fairly thorough test-drive before signing the papers, but I still had limited experience in real-world conditions.
I have to say I am extremely impressed with essentially all aspects of the car. My two biggest concerns were laid to rest. Acceleration is strong, even passing at highway speeds (going from 65 to 75 for example), and the car has ample power to run the AC while the engine is under load. A few other observations:
Interior design is overall very good. There is room to spare in the front seat and I am 6'0. The controls are easy to reach and the gauges are excellent. The seats are comfortable but I have some issues with the way the headrest sticks forward. By the end of the trip I had a sore neck. Maybe I need to play with the seats some more to find the sweet spot. Visibility was also a problem in some cases. The pillars that frame the front door are thicker than I am used to, so it is more difficult to check blind spots. But I figure they are designed this way for collision protection. The headrests also obscure the view out the back somewhat, so I might remove them from the rear seats.
The navigation system is great, and voice commands are working reliably now that I have learned some of them. There are a few annoyances, for example you have to hit the icon button first to switch guidance to split screen, or hit setup before changing other settings. And for some reason it occasionally feels the need to tell me to stay on the road I am already on. But overall it's a great addition to the car.
Odometer calibration is pretty accurate. This issue was raised in another thread recently, so I did some testing. I got very consistent results that the odometer (and therefore speedometer and mpg meter) are over-reporting by about 0.9% or 1 mile for every 110. That's pretty good, and it should improve as the tire tread wears down, maybe eventually reversing.
Mileage. Amazing. Keep in mind the car is not broken in, and I was running the AC for most of the trip, with outside temps in the 90s. I set the tire pressure to 40 psi before leaving. I also did my best to stay near the speed limit, which is slower than I am used to driving but it really pays off. I got 49.2 mpg over the entire trip, and 510 miles out of the first tank. Topped it back up with 10.4 gallons, which gives 49.0 mpg. Correcting for the odometer gives 48.6. I was in shock when I saw the FCD ticking up, at one point averaging 52.5 at about 100 miles. It gradually came back down as the interstate speed limits and outside temperature increased. I can only imagine what kind of fuel efficiency I will get once the engine is broken in and I have more experience driving the car. Cooler weather will also help a lot.
Overall it's a great car and I am looking for excuses to drive it whenever I can.
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Re: First trip, first tank, first impressions
Two more weeks should pay off though and I'm looking forward to the daily drives with the new car (and the Nav will be killer on finding businesses and residences in my area of Pittsburgh, PA).
