torque_is_good

My Jeep Grand Cherokee would say I was getting 45 mpg when going down hills.

Fill up at a gas station near an on ramp, reset your tripmeter, get on the highway and drive about 50 miles, then pull off and fill up again and do the math in your head. If you stay to 50 mph you might actually see above 30 mpg but I'm not sure. In our household, the Sentra gets about 33 mpg highway, the Accord (5 speed) gets around 36 mpg highway(bigger car but better mileage) the Escape with a 4 banger (2wd) gets around 25 mpg highway and the stang if babied, 25-28 max and that includes 200 mile runs with fill ups right near on ramps and driving below 70 mph, higher number is achieved at 65 mph. Oh, and that is on flat roads, no hills. If I decide that 75mph is in order, then that sucking sound you hear is the fuel and money and economy drops drastically. Let's not even discuss around town mileage. I'm thinking of getting a motorcycle for my daily commute.

Who knows, maybe you do get 10mpg more than me on the highway

Dorsil

This works both ways, on my commute home the average degree is at a downward trip. My commute into work is going the same way except up.

I get 18-20 mpg on the way to work, and 34-36 on the way home.


Both tests done on the same tank of fuel, for 1 week reseting the mpg after i started the car from my parking locations.

GidyupGo

O/P, you are indeed crazy. The best you can get at 60 MPH is 31 mpg which is what I get as calculated with pen and paper at the gas station.

exx1976

Just for the record, I haven't reset the average MPG on my car since I got the blower (~6500 miles ago), and it displays 17 MPG. I think that's a decent average for the power levels I produce.

And yes, that's not AS ACCURATE as a pencil and paper, but it's close enough for me. And it's an average over SEVERAL THOUSAND miles, so it's a good average.

S197steve

MPG calculation should be a realworld estimate of your fuel consumption over normal driving conditions over a sustained period of time. My old truck got 21.7mpg on one tank of gas driving out to FL on I-10 last year... I didn't tell people I got 21.7 mpgs though. It's not a realistic picture of what the fuel consumption really was.

So, while you MIGHT have gotten 35mpg over a 15 mile span on trip it's simply not a realistic picture.

Oh, and anyone thinking about getting a bike to commute and save money... do some research, it's not really that beneficial. I did it for a long time and it's extremely inconveniencing if you work in a white collar job. [:@]

Dragon Stang

The onboard computer can be every bit as precise, if not more, than manual paper calculation. The secret is as EXX mentioned in his post. You must let it do its work over thousands of miles.
It will not give you an accurate picture if you keep resetting the damn thing. Just leave it alone.
I haven't touched mine for over 8000 miles and during the wamer summer months I average a steady 23.2 gph and during the winter it drops to about 19 gph. That is better accuracy than can be done with pencil and paper as the computer has far more data aquisition abilities and can calculate forminor variables much better than a simple manual math calculation. BUT, you have to let it do its thing!

d_ames117

How can you say that? Also, you had to accelerate to 60, the OP did not. Did you really use a pen and paper?

There are still variables when hand calculating your mileage. Did you use the same pump at the same station? If not, the fuel cut-off may be different. At what temperature was the fuel? Was the car level? Also, there is a calibration range for the pumps - different pumps will actually dispense a little more/less than indicated. Did you fill up at an out-of-cal pump? Not that it matters, we're probably talking about 1 or 2 mpg anyway.

The OP said he got 34 mpg on a stretch of road at 60 mph, who's to say he didn't, and why does it matter if he did or didn't?

Nuke

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The computer does NOT use real numbers for ALL of it's calculations. One of the most important, # of gallons used, is a calculation in itself by the computer, NOT a real number like you use with pen and paper as you log ACTUAL gallons at the pump.And as far as variations between pumps, it all averages out. After you've done the pen and paper calculation, average it over a month's time. KNOW you're talking true average MPG...

SlideWRX

Nope, I've done ~29 mpg over a 10 mile stretch going ~65 mph. 'Course, once I got off the highway the average plummeted. My best tank everage was ~24 mpg on a roadtrip. I could probably hit 26-27 mpg fill up average if I had been 65 mph or so.

Dragon Stang

The computer does NOT use real numbers for ALL of it's calculations. One of the most important, # of gallons used, is a calculation in itself by the computer, NOT a real number like you use with pen and paper as you log ACTUAL gallons at the pump.And as far as variations between pumps, it all averages out. After you've done the pen and paper calculation, average it over a month's time. KNOW you're talking true average MPG...
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Ahhh! I get it... the computer just pulls numbers out of its azz. All that data logging means little eh? I wonder if I can use that logic on my mortgage lender . "Ahh, you're using a computer! Those arn't real numbers your using to calculate my mortgage you know. You should use a pen and paper or perhaps an abacus."
Now, thats funny!