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Hatchbacks Chevrolet Malibu Maxx Chevrolet Malibu Maxx Real World MPG
29 messages, Last post on Feb 12, 2009 at 7:20 PM
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Got an 05 MAXX that I enjoy. I was getting a rock steady 27 MPG average driving in the D.C. area daily. I've accumulated 14,000 miles so far. Mileage has been a plus... up till now. A month ago, I lost my dashboard power, HVAC controls, and radio. It wasn't a fuse, but a bad 3controller unit. The controller had to get replaced... under warranty. At the same time, gas prices surged from $2.65/gal to $3.05/gal and I also understand that we are swtiching over to E-10 fuel (10% Ethanol). Well, since I got my car out of the shop, my MPG has dropped greatly from 27 MPG to 22 MPG. What happened? The repair, E-10 switchover, or both?
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Replying to: bimmerboy750 (May 16, 2006 4:23 am)  , from the American Coalition for Ethanol that averaged only a 1.5% drop in MPG with E-10. You can find it with simple Google search Are your MPG numbers based on your own calculations or from DIC?? If the module replaced in vehicle was one that does the MPG calculation then it is possible that you are just seeing the effect of some initial lower MPG driving and after a while your average might get back to where it was. There is another potential - in the past folks have posted that the DIC display for MPG was a bit optimistic. There might be a potential that the calibration was updated (but that wouldn't explain that big of a jump).
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Replying to: e2helper (May 16, 2006 1:30 pm) The MPGs quoted are from from DIC. I reset the MPG about every 60 days. It always converged on 27 MPG. I suspected module replacement and shop time (running engine at idle for extended times, short test drives) would have had an impact too. MPG from the DIC coming out of the shop was around 10 MPG. I drove it without resetting it for about a month and it converged on 22.3 MPG. I reset it yesterday. Looks like it's converging on 22 again. I have some 5 mile stretches of highway driving and it appears that the MPG is not getting above 27 MPG on those intervals! I drive 75 miles a day, 5 days a week (375/wk) (I don't keep track of the trip odo). What I need to do now is go through my gas receipts over several months (I keep 3 months of receipts) and see if I can recount the gallons consumed in the 2 months before repair and the one month afterward. I should've been putting in about 14 gal / wk. giving me about 26.8 MPG measured at the pump before the repair. Now I may be filling up no more than every 6 days or 16+ gal/wk. I'll report back on findings. If this is happening due to E-10, then people need to know.
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Replying to: bimmerboy750 (May 17, 2006 5:27 am) MY other vehicle gets 24+ MPG highway. That has been rock steady for years up until recently. This weekend, I reset its MPG display for a long highway trip. My best average has also fallen to 20 MPG! Two vehicles (one GM one Dodge) both experience about a 20% loss in fuel economy. What's going on here? I'm curious to hear from other Maryland drivers.
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Replying to: bimmerboy750 (May 22, 2006 4:49 am) just filled up on Monday with just over 300 miles on the trip odometer....DIC showed 27.4 MPG and average spd of 43 MPH, I reset it at every fill up....experienced shows me the DIC is 1.5-2.0 MPG off in the calculation.... and still had a 1/4 tank at fill up....
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Replying to: pao (May 23, 2006 9:44 am) |
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A gallon of ethanol has about 2/3 the energy content of a gallon of gasoline. So, if you are getting E-10 (10 percent ethanol), you are buying about 96.5 percent of the energy that you'd get with a gallon of straight gasoline. Given that, if you are getting 29 mpg on ethanol, you'd probably get about 30 mpg on straight gasoline. I have an '05 Maxx and try to run it on straight gasoline unless I'm somewhere that it's not available. I do notice a drop in MPG on ethanol-blended gas, but the specific amount is hard to say because so many different factors affect mileage. Overall I average a little over 30 mpg in my Maxx, and that's about 80 percent highway and 20 percent city. I try to drive at a reasonable speed on the highway. Fast interstate driving (75-80 mph) pulls the mileage down to about 28 mpg. Has anyone ever noticed how the DIC always displays certain mileage figures, like 28.7, 29.4, 30.2, 31.8, 32.7, etc.? (Except for right after you reset it, when numbers can be different from those.) I think it does that because it actually calculates mileage in metric terms (liters per 100 km), rounded to the even decimal place and then converts it back to the English system. |
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Anybody out there have some feedback on the '07's for mileage? The MPG this year was rated lower, but that may be due to changes in how MPG's now being calculated. As for my '04 maxx, it's pretty consistant with around 24-26 for mixed highway/city driving. |
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Replying to: kurtamaxxxguy (Sep 19, 2006 9:54 am) |
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