Motor Trend's Top 10 MPG Outperformers

[murdoc]

I'm hovering around 16mpg...but I recently got a job with a company vehicle so if i get in the 86 i'm heading straight to the twisties.


That and E85...

Back when I was commuting with it using 93 I got around 29mpg and with e85 I got around 20mpg.

[Borchert97]

My avg mpg reads in the car between 24-25, which is surprising, I'm very lead footed at times, have a healthy mix of freeway and city driving, a healthy mix of normal and spirited driving, I think if I didn't play with the car at all I could be in the 27-28 range easy.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by extrashaky

I have decided that I hate this article.

There's nothing wrong with this article. It's very clear on it's objective, and actually I found it interesting. If people aren't capable of comprehending what they are reading when it is this straight forward, I don't believe that's the fault of the publisher.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Get out of traffic get on a flat smooth road and set cruise control to 65 mph for a day and enjoy >30 mpg. Any conditions where you have to slow down and accelerate will ruin your fuel economy in a combustion engine.

This is my commute which accounts for 90% of the miles driving in my FR-S.

1. It is 40.1 miles from my garage to my parking spot at work.
2. My average commute time is right around 1 hour (it can vary by 15 minutes either side of that), so I average somewhere around 40MPH.
3. The speed limit varies from 25MPH to 55MPH.
4. There are 22 stoplights, 3 stop signs, 2 four-way stops and one railroad crossing.
5. I average getting caught for 5 to 15 minutes at the railroad crossing twice a week.
6. 70% of this drive is on rural 2 lane roads, 10% "in town" and 20% is divided highway, non-interstate with about half the stoplights.
7. I'm the first off the line at every stoplight, and probably get caught at about 40% of them each trip.
8. One of the four way stops always takes 5 to 15 minutes to get through in the afternoon.
9. I never run more than 9MPH over the speed limit because Georgia local cops everywhere.

.

With all that said, I have averaged over 108,000 miles around 33MPG. So, you don't have to cruise at 65 to get that type of mileage. I do get better than that on the open highway. Most of my highway road trips average north of 33MPG with average speeds of 55 to 75 MPH.

[bkharmony]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Spend a lot of time at idle?

No, but most of my dirving is in residential neighborhoods going from stop sign to stop sign. I'm lucky enough to work where I can take back streets rather than congested freeways. But the constant stop-start is a drag in itself (which I why I went AT sadly).

[SuperTom]

In my '17 manual which is supposed to have worse MPG was getting 28 avg stock. After weight reduction, UEL headers/oft tune getting 32 MPG. That's on a 80 mile daily commute no highway but some long straights between lights mixed with local traffic. My C5 gets 25MPG avg

[TylerLieberman]

Best I got in my '13 was like 36 or 37mpg driving from Lawton, OK to Waco, TX.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by TylerLieberman

Best I got in my '13 was like 36 or 37mpg driving from Lawton, OK to Waco, TX.

Good gas helps there too (compared to California), heard that the old family pickup truck got an extra 2-3 mpg blasting through Texas at 80+ mph.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Good gas helps there too (compared to California), heard that the old family pickup truck got an extra 2-3 mpg blasting through Texas at 80+ mph.

The almost perfectly flat terrain may contribute as well.

[TylerLieberman]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Good gas helps there too (compared to California), heard that the old family pickup truck got an extra 2-3 mpg blasting through Texas at 80+ mph.

Originally Posted by Tcoat

The almost perfectly flat terrain may contribute as well.

It was from Lawton, Oklahoma to Waco, Texas. Before I moved back out here to CA. The road was pretty flat though most of the way there.

And CA gasoline sucks ass lol. Basically piss water. That's why tuners make a 91ACN (Arizona, Cali, Nevada). Because our 91 is hardly even 91 lol.

By comparison, I drove 6 hours from Orange County up to Monterey, CA to drive Laguna Seca last month in my STI. I averaged 23mpg during that trip, sticking to 65-70mph the whole way and there was quite a few hills to deal with too.

Best I ever got in the STI was 25mpg, sticking to ~70mph and having mostly flat roads.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by TylerLieberman

By comparison, I drove 6 hours from Orange County up to Monterey, CA to drive Laguna Seca last month in my STI. I averaged 23mpg during that trip, sticking to 65-70mph the whole way and there was quite a few hills to deal with too.

Best I ever got in the STI was 25mpg, sticking to ~70mph and having mostly flat roads.

I get >30 mpg doing that drive in my FR-S, iirc 31 mpg but I did most of it at 75-80 mph up/down 5.

The pain of old tarbo's

[-Willis-86touge]

So, after all the comments; the twins have a big difference in mpg. The author didn't do a good job of checking real world performance vs. mpg. From what I can see, if you get between 24-28 mpg, then your probably driving the car the way it was suppose to be driven. And the car is in good working order. If you are get 28+mpg then you either baby your car to much and probably drive on the highway all the time.. if you get under 20mpg you either have something wrong with your car or you stay on the track all the time. If you under 20mpg I'd bet to say you probably have something wrong with your car; maybe a seal, bad tune, etc..... you either drove it so hard you broke somthing or have a bad tune. If you get 28+ I'd say you need to live a little, lol, jk,jk. I'm not a writer but truly every car should be put threw its paces and when a article about mpg is written maybe there should be a little better insight on to what is really happening.

[PetrolioBenzina]

Originally Posted by -Willis-86touge

So, after all the comments; the twins have a big difference in mpg. The author didn't do a good job of checking real world performance vs. mpg. From what I can see, if you get between 24-28 mpg, then your probably driving the car the way it was suppose to be driven. And the car is in good working order. If you are get 28+mpg then you either baby your car to much and probably drive on the highway all the time.. if you get under 20mpg you either have something wrong with your car or you stay on the track all the time. If you under 20mpg I'd bet to say you probably have something wrong with your car; maybe a seal, bad tune, etc..... you either drove it so hard you broke somthing or have a bad tune. If you get 28+ I'd say you need to live a little, lol, jk,jk. I'm not a writer but truly every car should be put threw its paces and when a article about mpg is written maybe there should be a little better insight on to what is really happening.

I suspect that some of the mileage figures posted here and other places are taken from the average mileage display from the car, and those numbers are mostly useless. Actual math at the pump is the only way to get real average MPG.

The other way to approach it is not worry about it. I fully understand there are circumstances when it is an issue, but why even worry about it unless you have to?

Drive the car, and switch to the Miles Per Grin standard.

[Adam_L]

to get better mpg, should we leave traction control on or off ? Or does it not matter?