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Automotive News & Views What is "wrong" with these new subcompacts?
8674 messages, Last post on Dec 01, 2009 at 11:23 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: andre1969 (Jun 04, 2008 9:02 am) For example, I sold my '04 Civic Hybrid because the best "Average" mpg was 32.5 for the entire two years I owned it. I bought an '06 Civic Normal. Same gas mileage, lower initial coast.  However, in the Hybrid, I could get gas at the Cumberland Farms at the top of my neighborhood hill and coast home, park it, and have a reading of 47 mpg. That would fool (increase) the "Average" reading for the next 8 or 10 miles. Then it would fade back down to 38...36...33...30...as I drove around. BTW, hybrids get their best mileage around town. You actually get -worse- mileage on trips. My dealership told me they wished Honda never put the MPG Computer in the hybrids, because it showed how way off the EPA numbers were (in 2004), along with exposing the hyped hybrid sales pitches to what they actually were. Back briefly to the GM on-board MPG computer. Coasting (flat or downhill) will kick you into V4 mode and you'll get -instant economy- readings of "99 mpg." If you do this long and far enough, you'll fool (increase) the Average reading for the next dozen or so miles. Just like the Civic Hybrid. To answer an earlier post, yes, it was just me, no cargo, no trailer, going to Youngstown on I-80. The big SUVs can really keep their rolling momentum going along flat Interstates. Now, compared to pencil-&-paper... I never did the math with the Civic Hybrid...naively thinking it was 100% accurate.  However, I always do the math with the Civic Hydrocarbon and the Suburban...and GM's computer has only been about 4 mpg higher than paper-&-pencil, on the saved "Average" readings, at the most. But it varies with driving conditions. What -is- interesting is the "Range" readings when you first fill up. If I get gas in the middle of a long trip, the Range can be anywhere from 510 miles (16 mpg) to 620 miles (20 mpg). However, if I've been driving around town and then fill up, the Range can read as low as 375 miles (12 mpg). The computer uses the "Average" mpg last recorded. Personally, plug-in electric is the only realistic possibility in a subcompact for excellent mileage. You'll not want to be a hydrogen or natural gas bomb on wheels...and you'll not want to get a piddling 40-50 miles-per-whatever-unit of fuel.
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Replying to: andre1969 (Jun 03, 2008 3:26 pm)  I don't want to sound like The Reverend Al Gore, but E85 on a long trip doesn't deserve the reputation it has acquired from its lousy mileage in stop-and-go driving. However, from an aesthetic point of view..."Live Green Go Yellow" is a crock of crap because of what's happened to food prices. Just my opinion.
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Replying to: andre1969 (Jun 04, 2008 6:39 am) Actually, that fellow was extrapolating 29 mpg for GAS, since I got 20.2 mpg on E85. Sad thing, however, because I patronized the E85 station, I'll be paying 25-cents a slice more for pizza because of the corn shortage for food.
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| on this forum yet but probably not. A client of mine last week on memorial day got a flat tire in New Jersey with his LR3. He drove from Jersey to CT at 55 mph because he has a compact spare and didn't want to push his luck. By going 55 mph he got 25 mpg actual mpg as he hand calculated it in a 300 hp, nearly 6,000 lbs, permanent 4WD SUV.Using the 2007 and under ratings that LR3 got 14/19. I know we had the lower speed does not necessarily translate to better mpg before but on his car it did. | |
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Replying to: british_rover (Jun 04, 2008 1:52 pm) That could NOT have been good for the AWD system! |
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Replying to: qbrozen (Jun 04, 2008 2:05 pm) Of course, most of the manufacturers say you shouldn't go over, what, ~50 miles? on them so the tire expense would eat up your savings. Isn't it the diameter of the tire that the 4WD/AWD systems care about? |
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Replying to: qbrozen (Jun 04, 2008 2:05 pm) So, no issues with the AWD...
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Replying to: british_rover (Jun 04, 2008 1:52 pm) Years of weekend commuting to the NJ Shore on the Atlantic City Expressway, where the speed limit was 70, proved that to be true. 80+mph at night...or 50+mph in heavy traffic noticeably reduced gas mileage in my Ford Galaxie 500.
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Replying to: thegreatoz (Jun 04, 2008 10:29 am) Now that IS a refreshing perspective coming from a Suburban driver! Personally I think 40 mpg is decent and 50 mpg is very good, FOR NOW. In five years 40 will be my new floor, and I will be looking to be making 50 mpg routinely, OR MORE. Preferably more. Automakers had better have something in the works. And sadly, with the HUGE run-up in diesel prices, a run-up that has been much faster and much greater than the one in gas, it appears that diesels will NOT be the quick fix to our problems that I had hoped. It is good to have them anyway because of the fuel they conserve, but with prices so much higher than gas, they don't save any money vs a reasonably efficient gasser. I really think it is time for all these small cars that exist globally to start offering at least one smaller-engine option like they have in other countries... |
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Replying to: kyfdx (Jun 04, 2008 6:12 pm) This is what triggered my mpg thoughts: hpmctorque, "Will Narrower Tires With Wider Sidewalls Return, To Improve Fuel Economy?" #1, 4 Jun 2008 12:07 am |
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