We would not be entirely ourselves if we did not take the test „Veedub” to a dyno for a power and torque test. The producer promises 102 PS and 148 Nm on petrol and 98 PS/144 Nm on LPG, but we got slightly different results. In petrol mode, the Caddy's four-pot generated 105 PS and just below 146 Nm, while on autogas we noted 101 PS and 141 Nm. As usual with VW Group engines, you get a power bonus, which in this case means you practically get on LPG what Volkswagen promises on petrol, so you will notice no performance drop when you choose the half-priced fuel. Which still does not help the fact there is a lack in performance, for a car this big needs torque more than power and is far from dynamic with the above parameters at its disposal. The 1,6 MPI may be enough (but just enough) in a Golf or a Skoda (Octavia or Roomster), but fails to motivate the Caddy the way it should. Of course, nobody expects a stable van to smell the rubber, but if you expect performance exceeding that of a horse-drawn carriage, you need to press the pedal to the metal and maintain high RPM, which obviously translates into fuel consumption. The 104 PS 1,2-litre TSI pumps 175 Nm of torque, so definitely it does not need to be pushed so hard and, as a consequence, it needs as much as 2,6 l/100 km less petrol on average, according to manufacturer's data.
But what about LPG consumption in the test car? According to our measurements, the 44 l of autogas in the tank will suffice for 430-460 km of driving, depending on conditions. Please note we mainly drove out of town and if you use the car in the city rather than not, get ready for consumption figures of around 14 l/100 km (chiefly due to the fact you need to keep high RPM to get the car going). Steady driving out of town, at 90-100 km/h, means lowering consumption to approx. 9,5 l/100 km. However, in order to make a comparison between the BiFuel and its TDI counterpart, we need to use factory data, since we do not have our own diesel Caddy consumption figures. And given factory figures are generally lower than real-life ones, we will also use official data for the Caddy BiFuel. So: the diesel is supposed to need 6,6 l/100 km in the city and 5,2 l/100 km out of it, which means driving for 100 km costs (based on average fuel prices on October 31, 2012: 0,66 euro/l LPG, 1,39 euro/l diesel) 9,17 euro and 7,23 euros, respectively. The Caddy BiFuel consumes 13,6 l/100 km in town and 8,5 l/100 km on the highway, so you are bound to spend 8,98 and 5,61 euros, respectively. It does save your money then (as we had expected it would), but just barely when it comes to city driving, which only goes to show Volkswagen's irrational pricing policy (the LPG model is more expensive than the diesel, so it takes a while before the BiFuel breaks even).
The autogas-powered variant will start saving much faster when you compare it to the TSI petrol version, even though the 1,6 MPI plus an autogas system has a price by 1800 euros higher than the 1,2 TSI. The 104 PS, 1,2 petrol engine needs 8 l/100 km in the city and 5,9 l/100 km on the highway (which is by 2,6 and 0,8 l/100 km, respectively, less than the BiFuel driving on petrol needs), which translates to the following costs: 11,12 euros/100 km in the city and 8,2 euros/100 km on the highway (price of petrol: 1,39 euros/l). Savings range from 2,14 euros/100 km in the city to 2,59 euros/100 km out of town, so the hefty conversion cost will pay back after at least 69500-84100 km of mileage. Since the Wolfsburg company goes to such lengths to ensure integration of the LPG system into the car and has a CNG-powered TSI engine at hand (to be found on EcoFuel versions of the Passat and the Touran), we hope Volkswagen will soon introduce an LPG variant based on the direct-injection petrol sipper. The 1,6 MPI BiFuel is neither dynamic nor economical and with the kind of pricing we see in Poland it is bound to be very moderately popular. Too bad, because an ex-factory autogas system is a unique feature in this class of vehicles and should work to the Caddy's advantage, not be a ball and chain. Let us hope changes for the better are under way – looking at the German market and copying some solutions would do just fine.
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