Average fuel economy

krell · Sun Dec 08, 2013 11:59 pm

My average fuel economy been stuck at 23.1 mpg for some time now, i did a 6 hrs round trip to South New Jersey yesterday it still remain at 23.1 mpg how can i change this?

murcod · Mon Dec 09, 2013 1:38 am

Reset the trip computer and it will start working out the average again from scratch.

Speed_Racer · Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:57 pm

I use a site like Fuelly, I find it more informative (and more exact) than the in-dash calculator

http://www.fuelly.com/driver/recardeeps/kizashi

Mon Dec 09, 2013 10:01 pm

If you want the most accurate fuel economy calculations, do it the old way: math.

Fill up your tank completely and reset the trip display to 0. Drive the car until the gas is near empty.

Fill up the tank completely again and record from the gas pump how many gallons it took to refill the tank back to full.

Then simply divide the miles traveled on that previous tank (this figure is called "Range") by the gallons it took to completely refill the tank.

For example, 341.2 miles divided by 13.44 gallons. Your fuel economy is 25.4 MPG.

I do this calculation almost every time I get gas and find the car's MPG calculator off optimistically by 2 MPG EVERYTIME.
It will report approximately 27.4 MPG when the real MPG was 25.4 or so.

WESHOOT2 · Mon Dec 09, 2013 11:19 pm

I've noticed my recent mileage is below 24 MPG; I think it's because I'm pushing the gas pedal too hard too often.......

LPSISRL · Tue Dec 10, 2013 2:23 pm

WESHOOT2 wrote:I've noticed my recent mileage is below 24 MPG; I think it's because I'm pushing the gas pedal too hard too often.......

Naa... Can't be that!

You should get better mileage since you get there faster and then engine is not running as long.

WESHOOT2 · Wed Dec 11, 2013 12:55 pm

Yesterday's fill = 25.1 MPG. Mobil premium (filled with Sunoco 93).

Gotta get the VCS back on.......

SamirD · Wed Dec 11, 2013 7:52 pm

KuroNekko wrote:If you want the most accurate fuel economy calculations, do it the old way: math.

I do this calculation almost every time I get gas and find the car's MPG calculator off optimistically by 2 MPG EVERYTIME.
It will report approximately 27.4 MPG when the real MPG was 25.4 or so.

I wonder what measurement the EPA was using.

SamirD · Sat Dec 21, 2013 2:06 am

So I just realized that we filled up the car 2 times we've only gotten 111 miles out of it. The car has only been driven in the city back and forth about 6 miles or so, what should the fuel economy be this bad?

Sat Dec 21, 2013 2:11 am

SamirD wrote:So I just realized that we filled up the car 2 times we've only gotten 111 miles out of it. The car has only been driven in the city back and forth about 6 miles or so, what should the fuel economy be this bad?

Make sure the numbers are not off. I've heard that heavy snow can really decrease fuel economy, but 111 miles out of two tanks (roughly 13 gallons per fill up) equates to 4.2 MPG. That's very very unlikely. Make sure your numbers are right.