[ALFAOFFROAD]

Um...I realize they are both 2.0.turbo engines...

VW makes about 180hp, Alfa almost 300. They are not even similar outside of size and turbo use.

Your gas miledge sounds about right to me. The only way you get the window sticker mileage is if you drive like you own a Toyota not an Alfa.

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

The Tiguan does weigh anywhere from 300 to 500 lb less, in addition to running around 10psi of pressure stock vs 22psi. At the most aggressive factory tune available in most markets.

It doesn't matter how you want to cut it, the VW turbo is not tuned as aggressively as the Alfa 2.0 even in its most aggressively tuned form from the factory. (With one exception below)

The Alfa engine is efficient. Drive it like it's a VW with 180hp and it might get better MPG or the same in a larger, heavier vehicle. Drive it like it has 290+ hp and it won't though. Plenty of people in here report getting the rated fuel efficiency, they just don't drive aggressively.

In 2009 I owned A VW with a DSG....literally broke half the gears by driving too aggressively, the lemon lawsuit and resulting buyback triggered a TSB to update the transmission software when paired with the VR6 engines in VWs to make the shifting slower and slightly nerf the engines. Not kidding or exaggerating. They also stopped putting the VR6/DSG combo in the Eos after. The tranny couldn't take the torque/vehicle weight when driven hard. Eff the DSG as used in VWs, it's weak and the engines used with it might have good HP ratings doesn't mean anything. Porsche's DSG is solid, VW cheaped out when moving it down market. I wanted to own that car forever..hardtop convertible with a sunroof??!! Literally my dream car since I was 8y/o, people told me it could never exist ....then I had to lemon it because a trash tranny. Eff the DSG and VW. (Porsche is cool, Audi is hit or miss)

The VW 2.0 with a DSG isn't half as aggressively tuned or strong as an Alfa 2.0 with the ZF. The VW does get better gas mileage...mostly because it won't let you do what an Alfa does.

The one exception to this for the Tiguan is the real R. That has the 7 speed DSG and the 320hp GTI motor with a 4.6 0-60. It also gets miledge more like a QV then a base Stelvio from all reports - while also being slower than a QV and a 4cyl not a V6. Though the US doesn't get that motor, in most markets outside Germany it's vaporware..doesn't exist.

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

The highest output VW 2.0 ever made, which is in the Arteon, makes 300hp/295lb ft of torque...boost peak is 29.5, which it touches for a second and backs off to hold around 17psi for most of the rev band.

The Alfa 2.0 is 280hp and 306lbft of torque. Boost peak is 25psi tapers to 22 for most of rev band and drops to 20 at the high end.


They are not same same tuning, the Alfa engine is more aggressive, you can say VW has a wider band for fuel efficiency, ok. That's because it runs less boost pressure.

Not to mention.....I highly doubt the VW engine you are actually comparing it to, the one you have 16 years experience with is that engine.

My first turbo VW was a 2000 Passat 1.8t, owned multiple VW 2.0s in the 24 years between now and then, worked on even more.

These engines aren't the same. If you want gas miledge get a VW. I don't want a VW and am glad Alfa doesn't make VWs.

Drive a VW like an Alfa it breaks. My experience with multiple VW over multiple decades...except for the B5. That was a great car platform ...like the Giorgio.

Once beyond 75...only time I see 75 is on my way to 80. Back in 2000 also and lemme tell ya, same driver with the same driving style...my Passat never saw better then 19mpg. 5 years, 150,000 miles on it ..never got better then 19. Probably would have if I drove slower, rather have a car that is efficient enough to get good gas miledge without me wanting to stop the car and kick my own butt.


The Passat was a manual which should tilt things even further...nope. bigger, heavier, more powerful Stelvio wins. It depends how you drive which is better. I drive in such a way that never in my life has gas miledge been a concern or else I would be depressed...mine is always bad. Except for my Porsche and my Stelvio...they are efficient in my opinion.

If you drive the Stelvio slow people say it gets over 30, I don't drive slow and get 22. Literally the best gas miledge of my life.

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

To try and explain your experience with those specific engines and this one

...engines detuned to be most efficient for MPG even at full throttle are that way. (Unless you flog them like a dying horse, which I do. Killed many a gutless engine as a kid)

Engines tuned to be most efficient at making power, especially at full throttle, maybe glad throttle is almost full throttle - MPG not a priority - are that way.

Few engines are really this extreme, it's a scale. On that scale Alfa's 300ps (rounding) 2.0 4 cyl is closer to power efficiency then MPG efficiency than a 200ps or 150ps VW 2.0 So, by the way, is the VW 2.0 engine that makes 300hp, however if Alfa is an 8 VW is a 7 on that scale. Regardless neither will get the gas miledge the lower powered motors will for most drivers. However for some drivers, the higher power cars actually do better for mpg. (People like me who, when they drive a car with an 8 sec 0-60, they make that car do 0-60 in 8 seconds everytime they accelerate. No engine gets good gas mileage constantly floored. Except the FIAT 500, I averaged 20mpg in that which I was happy with)


As far as if the Stelvio had a DSG...I'de break it. 6 months, did last time. It wasn't a defect. It did feel great till it broke.

What doesn't work as well for you...works better for me is my point.

Also that constantly expecting one car to be like another car is what leads to lack of variety because the people who run the companies actually do listen to that. (Because it's cheaper to make everything the same then engineer real variation)

Tiguan's a great car, Stelvio's a great car. Best part about both is they are nothing like each other.

Wanna know something I find hilarious? The 2018 and 2019 with them being "unrefined" compared to the facelifted models, the transmission in my 2018 reminds me of everything I enjoyed most about the DSG, before it broke. It feels tactile and direct when shifting especially at full throttle, even around town easy...you know it's shifts positive and firm. Snappy even.

But...people complained they could really feel the shifts, it wasn't smooth like such and such whatever........now it isn't like that.


The next Stelvio will be nothing like this one and much of the difference will be to make it more like every other car on the road. Sorry if I get overly defensive, but we should be enjoying the variety we have while we have it because I don't think what is coming will be anything like it's promised to be. Other then fast in a straight line, in an arguably dangerous way. Which isn't going to last as far as availability.



....VW themselves has become watered down generic "car".....once one of the most unique of all mainstream manufacturers, now generic. We have to stop expecting apples to be like oranges, because we like apples best. What we are ending up with are apnges and orples, and both are lame since they are basically the same thing and neither is what they are supposed to be.

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

Sadly the only thing italian about the next Stelvio will be the factory it's built in, maybe.


But hey, thats fair because the same can be said of Dodge and Jeep now. Only thing American is where they are built. Stellantis has pretty much fired all the car engineers and designers in the US and much of Europe with the exception of the department heads and are now using engineers and designers from places like India, Brazil, and Morocco because those people get paid 1/3rd of what American and European employees do. They also have 1/8th the experience and skill, but that doesn't matter because really the AI is supossed to do most of the work and the engineers are just there to check it.

Enjoy what you have, it will be along time before anything like this comes around again.

 

[ALFAOFFROAD]

That would explain it.

Not VW.

You are trying to conserve gas by driving right in the fatest part of the turbo boost.

Doesn't work that way. Get above 2000rpm. Below 3000

There's your sweet spot. Doesn't matter how gentle you are, turbo is making peak boost. It's an Alfa, it isn't tuned for gentle.


Seriously have fun, stop stressing. Bet your fuel economy goes up some, maybe you begin to see what I am talking about.


VW turbo's boosts there too, yes. However they are tuned different. Very different, unless you give half pedal they are tuned more like A mode then N, IE: the engine doesn't make full power, the turbo does not boost as hard. Alfa doesn't do this.