Hi Guys,

I've just bought a 2005 Fiat Idea 1.3 Multijet Diesel with Dualogic Semi Automatic Gearbox, something of a rarity.

I was interested in this as I wanted an automatic and also a diesel, it's meant to return 47mpg+ Urban when in ECO mode (this is a fuel efficient Automatic Mode) but even after a service and with very frugal driving I'm getting nothing like that.

I'm not sure if my one's ECO mode is not working or just not very efficient but I was hoping to improve it (in terms of fuel efficiency).

At the moment in regular auto mode the car shifts up at about 3000rpm. In Eco mode it shifts up at about 2500rpm but this still seems too late for me, the engine sounds like it's over revving.

Looking at other Duologic gearboxes in ECO mode it seems to shift up at about 2,000rpm and that's with petrol, I'd say you could do it even earlier in the diesel:

What I'd like is to make ECO mode as fuel efficient as possible, with the option to also have the regular mode.

This would mean starting the car in 2nd gear where possible and switching up through the gears at about 1,800 rpm or as soon as possible. I'm driving it like this in semi auto mode and it feels a lot better/smoother than the over revving ECO mode or normal.

Do you think it would be possible to have the ECO mode adjusted to work like this? From what I can see on Dualogic Pandas etc this is how it's meant to work.

My local Fiat garage did not seem too knowledgeable about the Dualogic set up so I was hoping I could find more expert advice here

Thanks in advance,
Robert

Hi Robert, I am Mark and I have the same car as you? Mine is the 90bhp what's yours? until my recent problems I used to get about 49 around town and best on the motorway has been 75! ( I have pictures to prove) Mine changes around the 3000rpm too. I find the pick up from 1st to 2nd is very slow and at roundabouts when changing to 2nd it dies very scary lol

Since my trouble I'm only getting 37 in the town and 49 on the motorway.

you can email me if you have other questions Robert. [email protected]

Mark

Hi Robert since found out more info as a reason our cars change at 3000rpm the clutch is slipping! and or the turbo not working properly

So what MPG do you get when you drive in manual mode? I have a petrol Dualogic and drive it in full auto with Eco mode on. I still find it slow to change from 1st to 2nd so I tend to manually push it up for this gear change only and then let the gearbox just change away. If the engine is cold then the computer seems to like higher revs before changing up - maybe to warm things up quicker who knows?