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Suzuki Aerio Wagon: MPG - Real World Numbers

33 messages,  Last post on Jun 13, 2012 at 8:23 PM

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What is this discussion about? Suzuki Aerio, Fuel Efficiency (MPG), Wagon

Messages Page 4 of 4

#30 of 33 Good MPG's but you gotta know how by 8str8rollin

Jul 27, 2008 (8:22 pm)

Ok first I will mention my car which is a 2006 Aerio SX 5-spd, Premium Package.
I bought the car brand new with only 5 miles on it and I was shocked at my first tank of gas which only yielded 19 MPG! But I also realised that some cars take a while to break in. After about 1000 miles the MPG when up to about 22mpg but I still wasnt happy with that so I went talked to the dealer and they sent out a Suzuki Technition to talk to me about it. He said the following: Change the oil immediately, but just use normal dino oil not synthetic. Then when ever you get on the freeway, go to the on-ramp shoulder, come to a complete stop, then when the road is clear take off down the on-ramp and red-line your RPM's every shift until you get to freeway speed. He said keep doing this until you reach about 5k miles. He said that because of the engine design, these cars take an unusually long time to break in the engines and get the rings seated properly. He also said he has seen people that have 30k to 40k on their Aerio's already that are having some problems because they drove the car WAY to easy for the first 5k and the rigns didn't get a chance to seat properly before carbon started to build up in the groove. And because of this, they started having all kinds of problems such as gas mileage which never did get better or even got worse, engine ticking/pinging, and sometimes CEL issues. He said the solution is to drive the Aerio normal for the fist 500 miles, then get an oil change, and then begin the above break-in process in which you redline it on a regular basis until you reach 5k miles.
Well I followed his advice, and sure enough...I could see the results happening progressively. Finally by the time I had 5k miles on the car, I was all the way up to 24 to 25 MPG in the City and around 32 MPG on the hwy.
I was happy with the results but I then did a few more things which may be the reason why my MPG's have continued to improve or it may also be a combination of the other things I did with the engine continuing to break-in. What I did was every other oil change I would add in 1/4 to 1/2 a bottle of duralube. You can buy that at Walmart or G.I. Joes (now just called Joe's). Joe's had the best price but Walmart is only a couple bucks more.
The other thing I did was increase the air pressure in my tires. I found that if I run between 35 to 40 psi, the car handles better and it seems to help with the MPG a little bit.
So bottom line what did I end up with? After all this, the city mpgs were dependable 25 to 26 mpg,
Hwy is dependable 35 mpg at 70 to 75 miles per hour. You gotta keep the RPM's below 3k!!!! For ever mile per hour that you exceed 75 you will see at least 1 mile per gallon decrease!
Best MPG I get in my car and more than just once is 39mpg. I can get this when I do road trips where I'm on smaller hwy's that snake thru Washington state like Hwy-2 and Hwy-97 where i drive between 50 to 65 miles per hour. Each time I get 39 MPG when doing that trip (from Everett WA to Okanogan WA)
The other common sense thing I do but I know a lot of people don't do this is when I'm doing city driving I aways shift at or BELOW 2K RPM. It's very easy to do once u get the hang of it.
 
Ok on to my roomates car. He has a 2004 Aerio SX AWD. Obviously that makes it an automatic.
He bought his car new also, and we kinda broke his car in the same way but not because we were told to at that point, we were just having fun driving it hard lol. But I guess that was a good thing because he gets good MPG's in his car too even though it's an automatic and it's AWD.
In the city he gets between 22 to 24 mpg depending on how he drives. Most of the time it's more towards the 24 side unless he gets stuck in traffic and has the A/C running the whole time.
On the hwy he gets between 30 to 32 MPG.
At one point, he did notices a drop in MPG's around 57k miles. I suggested he put in 1.5 ounces of acetone in his fuel at every fill up for a a good 5 tanks or so. That fixed the problem and MPG's improved again. He also noticed the engine was smoother at idle with the acetone.
Now he has 83k miles on the car and still getting good MPG's. No issues with the car other than A/C water drip on passenger side floor and noisy tension pulley after start up.

#31 of 33 re: gas mileage [lngtonge18] by 8str8rollin

Jul 27, 2008 (8:24 pm)

Replying to: lngtonge18 (Feb 17, 2005 9:57 pm)
Actually, the 2.3 engine gets slighty better MPG than the 2.0

#32 of 33 03 Suzuki Aerio SX - Horrible Gas Milage by Tasie

Jan 14, 2009 (8:41 pm)

I just purchased a 03 Aerio with 43,000 and i checked my mileage on my first tank of gas and only got around 17mpg. Yes it is AWD, yes 60% of that was in town, but still horribly disappointing. I know I need to check my tire pressure, but beyond that I really don't know. This car is very different than anything else I have ever owned and I don't even know how to begin to approach this terrible mileage. It of course was sold to me with no manual and I don't even know where to start. Fuel additive, oil change, air filter, fuel filter....what? I am just wondering if someone else has any insight on a particular issue that these may have so I have someplace to start.

#33 of 33 Increase tire diameter? by oxy

Jun 13, 2012 (8:23 pm)

Would getting a tire with a bigger diameter work? A 205/55R15 wheel rotates 16 times less per mile than the stock tire, so I assume the engine rpms would be reduced as well. Your speedo may be off by about 2% and indicate you're going slower than you actually are.

Messages Page 4 of 4

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