After twenty days, John and Helen Taylor have completed their tour of the 48 contiguous states in a 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, setting a new Guinness World Record for lowest fuel consumption in their cross-country trek. The Taylors scored a remarkable 58.82 miles per gallon (MPG), despite facing adverse weather conditions. The world record marks an impressive debut for Volkswagen’s new clean diesel technology here in America.
While it’s well acknowledged that diesel engines need to be sufficiently broken in to achieve their best mileage and performance, the Guinness Book of World’s Records specifies that vehicles must not be specially prepared. With the engine loosened up, the Taylor’s 2009 Jetta TDI averaged over 60 MPG on its final tanks of fuel.
The counter-clockwise voyage covered 9,419 miles, with an average of 853 miles per tank, at a cost of $653.06, working out to just 6.9 cents per mile. The effort was sponsored by Volkswagen, Shell, and Navman. The Taylors can be found on the web at fuelacademy.com.
Wow…. wonderful news and gives me much more reassurance of my purchase.. no.. investment! =)
I have a 06 Jetta TDI auto trans with over 75k on it and I average 48 mpg. I have yet to get less than 44 mpg on a tank. That is with the ac wide open, passing when I need to, and getting over 600 miles on each tank.
This has been broken! Wayne Gerdes and crew smashed this record in a honda civic hybrid at an average of 68.539 mpg.
http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18302&highlight=world+record\
@Jon – Thanks for submitting the link … that’s quite an accomplishment. Wayne and his driving partners are wizards at extracting the maximum number of miles out of a gallon of gas.
jon, did u say hybrid…the jetta tdi is a non-hybrid car, its a different class of car. imagine if someone was to design a hybrid version of the tdi. ur civic would be left in the dust…
The Taylors’ drive cross-country further assured me about cars cause I need a fuel-efficient car.
hybrids do not count their mpgs are all bs because they run on electric at low speeds so that is not mpg that is electric they need to redo their tests and see what the actual motor gets i bet it will be really disappointing when you see your mpg off the motor its self nothing better than any other 4 banger
It should be noted the cleanmpg crew modified their car to get better mpg. Noticeably by blocking the lower front grille. In my book they cheated.
The difference between the Jetta and the Civic hybrid is that the Jetta got all of its “miles per gallon” running on diesel, while the hybrid used both battery power (which is not measured in miles per gallon since there is no liquid fuel here) and on gasoline (which is measured in miles per gallon). So, in my book, the Jetta won.