GAS MILEAGE UPDATE

Hi All,

Have had my XR FWD for 6 months. Decided early on to log maintenance and gas usage on her.

Here's my log from day one on gas mileage. With a few hickups at the start 'cause I didn't know better about that DIC feature, here's my experience:

My overall mileage, from 1,070 on the odometer to 9,551.2 is 18.83 (burning 450.47 gallons of gas). So, I am very close to the advertised "combinedl" mileage per the window sticker.

My recent trip is outlined where I covered 3,445.5 miles, traveling to Indian Rocks Beach, FL...was a bust-just too **** cold for outside activities...and surrounding area. On this trip I recorded an overall average of 21.0 with a DIC almost mirroring of 21.1. The overall DIC average miles per hour for this trip was 53.3 mph. Oh, the overall average cost per gallon for this trip was $2.56. Lot's of stats here for the statistician.

Early on in ownership I did record a mpg average of 25.2, which also mirrored the DIC of 25.2 with an average mph of 45.0.

You'll notice the average mile per hour per the DIC for the first of half of the trip was below 65 mph. I enjoyed a high of 24.0 and a low of 20.2 mpg. Must be we wanted to get home into familiar territory and be cold LOL as the DIC average miles per hour was 65, 71, and 70 coming back. Gas mileage naturally dropped. Average calculated pumped gas mileage ranged from 18.6 to 21.6.

Soon as she rolls over 10,000 miles, I'll be changing the oil and having it analyzed. Currently, the DIC says the OLM reads 67%. I'm thinking the % will be above 50% at that time due to the predominately highway mode of driving for this oil change.

I'll be sure to post up the analysis results at that time.

One further comment on gas mileage. rbarrios, who drives a Traverse and posts here as well, posted up that he tries to always engage the cruise control, especially around the city. Decided to try driving more with this device on, controlling the speed by clicking her down or up as needed. I've noticed the DIC mpg climbing around stop and go driving doing this. What I see is as soon as she shifts into 4th gear, rpm's drop under 2,000. Clicking up on the cruise control to increase speed, the torque converter appears to lock up, maintaining the rpms in that gear (rather than downshifting to 3rd) while the speed increases to the set point. This is definitely increasing gas mileage.

I would not attempt to engage this feature in the rain...just too hazardous for the road conditions.

Enjoy the read.

Regards,

Jim
In God We Trust!