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Sedans Toyota Corolla Toyota Corolla Real World MPG
304 messages, Last post on Oct 18, 2009 at 11:58 AM
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Recently returned from a round trip road trip from Palm Springs, CA to Santa Cruz, CA approxiatmaly 1200 miles and average according to the display reading on the instrument panel, 41.8 mpg. Old school method I averaged 39.9. This is mostly highway miles, crusing 70-75 however...lots of stop and go through Santa Barbara and L.A. with the A/C on the whole time. In the end, I'm very pleased with the MPG and the money I saved on not purchasing the Prius, my primary goal inictionally.
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Replying to: hoopitup2000 (Aug 10, 2008 6:59 pm) The Hyundai was a crap shoot, although who knows these days. I bought the Carolla just before the first real gas price spike Who knows what the cost of ownership is on either these days. I figure that trade ins on the Rolla MUST be better in 5 yrs or so. The Sante Fe was like a smaller tank w/ 18" wheels!!! BTW: changing out a timing belt must run $5-$600 on the smaller interference type engines these days.Smaller Hyundai all have belts). (The 3.3 LITER Santa Fe had dual timing chains). MORE $$ TO FUEL THE CAROLLA...BESIDES, I AM BEGINNING TO LIKE THE LITTLE BUGGER, especially at the pumps!  The 1st month was almost $1k additional depreciation as the public REALLY GOT NERVOUS as we breezed through $4!!!!I LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN AND SEE IT EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE (put a scratch in the rear the 1st month I owned it!) My first economy car...EVER! It has VSC/.Trac and we will see how I do this winter. This is not a whim either. I sold off the Santa Fe plus my purely fun car....a 2004 Mini Cooper "S", and went for the Carolla!!!!!!!!! One less check to the Chevron company and one less check for the Insurance Company for me! I will not be going back to an SUV type of auto again. At my age, ya get to change your thought process less often! With gas TEMPORLARILY imho, down about $.50 off it's high (per gal)that also is of little consequense. Events such as what is happenning in Russia at present, could send prices moving once again. This time a movement of $5 per gal of crude in a single day will not have the "impact" that it had 1st time around!!!! |
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Replying to: bimmer4me (Aug 10, 2008 8:12 pm) Is your Corolla Manual or Automatic transmission? Kip
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Replying to: kipk (Aug 11, 2008 2:16 am) |
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Replying to: kipk (Aug 02, 2008 12:59 am) |
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Replying to: rvsslc (Aug 01, 2008 7:29 am) First of all, I think it does make a meaningful difference to drive a manual transmission. Just a little bit of coasting in city traffic has improved my MPG. Tucson is cursed with no useable interstates, so most of my tanks are pure city driving. And I always buy the least expensive Costco gas I can. My first few tanks (again pure city, no highway) I was getting between 32.2 and 32.7 MPG without too much effort - just going to neutral when you can see the light turning red up ahead. Looking through the web threads for any meaningful path to improvement (beyond the obvious stuff - correct tire inflation, good tuning) I decided to try a couple. Tried the Lucas Oil Upper Cylinder Lubricant fuel additive which purports to clean your injectors and improve MPG. After a few tanks, I recorded an average improvement of about 0.5MPG. This was probably just more careful driving and more coasting as it has dropped back to where it was after I lost focus on this. The car did seem to run a bit smoother on those tanks with the additive and it may well make a more meaningful difference in a larger engine. But with such a small engine in already good condition, it is not too surprising it didn't help much (trying it now in my Suburban, but that car is sort of permanently parked right now so slow to get data) Next I tried replacing the stock air filter with a K&N Filter - Nothing fancy here just the one that drops into the same spot as the paper one. Doing this seemed to pick up another 0.5MPG so I was getting about 33.4MPG in pure city driving after doing both (and I did not add the Lucas product to each tank, just two tanks actually). Again, this might also be just more focused driving to see if it made a difference. Have sort of dropped back to my more normal driving style over the last few months and see about 32MPG on average - still real good. Again, the K&N product probably doesn't hurt and might certainly have more impact in a larger engine. Now for the interesting part. In pure hwy driving in Arizona, I was getting about 36MPG - frankly dissappointing looking at the EPA estimates. However, I recently took a 2200 mile roundtrip to Estes Park CO with a lot of mountain driving. Seemed the higher altitude I got, the better my MPG. Going from Durango to Estes I got 44MPG going up and down mountain roads. Does anyone know if this is an altitude issue, temperature issue, different gas in CO or what?? Coming back down from Santa Fe to Las Cruces, I got 42MPG - pretty respectable and consistent with the comments above. Anyway, like the other people posting, I am very pleased with the Toyota Corolla MPG. I don't know of any other car this size that comfortably breaks 30MPG city and (sometimes) 40MPG highway. Strangely, you don't see it mentioned too often in the high MPG car summaries. Maybe too boring or not a new enough model, but the 5speed Toyota is the best bang for the buck I can find. If there is a better (or comparable) one out there (in a four door sedan) I would sure like to know about it since my teenage son is now looking and wants the same MPG but not the same car as his old man got.
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Replying to: tucson_mike (Aug 26, 2008 4:45 pm) You use less gas at altitude for the same reason you have less power - there is less oxygen in each "gulp" of air the engine grabs. The computer leans out the mix accordingly, and voila! You are saving gas! I have read of some fantastic mileages people have managed on road trips in their Corolla 5-speeds - yours seem to be about what I would expect based on those other accounts - and what you say is true: it makes a significant difference going with the 5-speed vs the 4A. |
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Replying to: tucson_mike (Aug 26, 2008 4:45 pm)
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Replying to: terceltom (Aug 27, 2008 5:14 am) Also, that 42MPG I got from Santa Fe to Las Cruces was pure I-10 driving with no stops and the cruise set at 78MPH. I did earlier try a reduced speed in Arizona on I-10 (78 down to 69 - any slower is a hazard on that road) and saw no real difference in highway MPG). All of this is with the AC running as needed.
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Replying to: hoopitup2000 (Aug 10, 2008 6:59 pm) As far as the Prius goes, I could never justify the difference in cost in my own situation
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