a friend of mine that has his xB for a good 4 months now gets around 32-36. He said being VERY gentle on the throttle and smooth acceleration has always proved the best of any new cars he has had. Very easy to floor it all the time and damage the engine from inproper break in's. He also changed the oil/filter at 1500k, 3000k, 4500k and has been extremely pleased.

 

I have had my auto xB (stock w/15' wheels) for only a week and the first fill-up I computed 33mpg (city/highway) mix so that is not bad at all.

 

When i took delivery of my xB, there were 2 miles on the odometer.

 

I;ve been tracking my mileage since day one. I have 7,000 miles on my xB. The best I get is 39 mpg traveling from North Jersey to South Jersey (mainly all gentle downgrade) The return trip averages 34-35 mpg. Overall from all my other routes, I'm getting 35 mpg highway. When stuck in commuting traffic I'm averaging 32 mpg. Thing to note: I tend to take it easy in this car since the motor is so small. I bought it for the funky fun, not the power. I sure like spending only 6 bucks a day on gas instead of the 12.50 a day in my last car!

 

i've been getting 35 mpg last time i checked which was probably a month ago.

but the mpg dips madly if you are flooring it everywhere you go. so that could have a negative effect. if you want decent gas mileage , im guessing go around 60-65 mph.

 

fisrt tank=26mpg (lots of full throttle redline runs... school of hard break-in!)
second tank= 27mpg (still doing lots of break-in runs)
third tank=32mpg (60/40 local/hwy normal driving)

In addition to the tips other folks gave, I have a few more:

1. alignment is important! front wheels should have 0 toe. Back wheels should ideally have slight toe-in. Toe-out is good for auto-x, BAD for mileage & wear.

2. cold starts= bad. Lots of cold starts and short trips= BAD gas mileage ( I have lots of short trips myself- I can't avoid it unfortunately )

3. tire pressure should be ~32->35 psi.

4. the best driving strategy is: accelerate quickly in lower gears, but shift at ~3000rpm. Get in to higher gears as soon and as much as possible. When in higher gears use very little gas, just enough to maintain cruising speed.

5. Conserve momentum and minimize the use of brakes. If you see a redlight coming up, lift off the gas and creep towards the redlight.

 

At 1k miles I'm getting an average of 32mpg with equal mix of city/hwy miles. Sure it will rise with more miles on the clock and after the switch to Moble1.

 

i never get full tanks nor do i ever ever drive nice..
but i decided to just to see..
i did about 70% freeway and 30% street
ALL with the a/c on(cuz its been so hot in cali)...

i got 32mpg.... im very pleased..
my engine is bone stock and i usually have passengers with me

 

does the mileage on the xB start to suck if your highway speeds are above 75mph? I do about... 50/50 city/highway. I do 50-60mph on the regular roads and 80mph on the highway and im only seeing 25mpg IF that... granted i only have 400 miles on my 05' xB and I have 18" Enkei RPOM's on it, but wouldnt the larger wheel diameter make the odo read incorrectly anyway? in my opinion people that are saying that your wheel size adversely affects mileage are retarded... it shouldnt change whatsoever so long as your driving habits remain the same.

 

First two fill-ups I got 31-32 mpg. The last fill-up was 36. I atrribute that to the novelty of driving like a bat out of hell wearing off. I'm extremely pleased with 36 and if I can keep it around there, I'll be more than satisfied. I have the AEM CAI and TRD exhaust on my box. Also, most likely coincidence, but I installed the Ground Fusion grounding kit right before my trip to get the last fill-up.

 

im absolutely positively baffled at how some people are getting a solid 10mpg higher than me. for instance. I just topped off my xB tonight, then had to do some highway driving. I have exactly 50 miles on the trip meter @ the first bar down, which would appear to be 3/4 tank left. if it kept up @ that rate I would only get 200miles to a tank which is unacceptable. and i do NOT drive like a bat out of hell, in fact taking off at lights i get people swerving around me and honking for me to get out of their way because im put along so slow... I rarely ever get above 3krpm except on the highway where i do about 3200rpm because i drive about 80mph...

my last tank was 25mpg, i got 240 miles for 9.5 gallons. has anybody done any experiments to see what if any affect the grade of gas you use has? Ive been using the bottom of the line grade @ the gas station because i didnt think it made any difference. any suggestions? or should i just call my dealership and start _____ing.

 

Just to add to all the info..

My XA (5000 miles on it) gets between 35-42mpg

The very first tank I got 46 mpg! ?

The last three tanks of gas I went from 87 to 89 octane but see no effect...in part becasue my A/c will not shut off.

I also work hard at trying to get good mileage. It seems best between 40-50 mph
At over 65 it drops (3500rpm) back to 35ish range.

My next set of experiments I will use Moblle 1

aside--On a recent trip driving on I95 a mini-van cut me off and I had to steer quickly to avoid a collision and the car handled terrific

aside2-parked next to a mini-cooper...when the two folks came out they stood looking at my silver Xa and said "cool...a mini mini van"

c

 

Hi all. I recently b!tched on a seperate thread about my mpg sucking as well. Since then, I've done some experimenting and found a way to improve my mpg.
What a pain in the butt!!!!
1) Coast, coast, coast. I got my foot off the pedal more and let the car coast a whole lot more. This was the biggest change and improvement.
2) Putt, putt, putt. The car is a cruiser, not a chaser. Its happiest puttering around at 25, 35, 45 and 55 mph. Anything above 65 got BAD milage. 70 was a stretch. 80 was a joke, you could see the gage fall every 10 miles.
3) Turtle vs. Hare. Slow and steady wins the race.

I really dont' like the fact that I have to baby this car so much. My old beater Escort would get 35 mpg even when I tore around in it, passed cars, drove 90 (CPH pretend you didn't hear that), etc. Too bad it blew the gasket.

Yeah, I guess I'm still having buyers remorse with this car. :?

 

It's probably more a matter of random chance than different mileage. My mileage has ranged from a low of 24 to a high of 39. It is impossible to get a consistantly full tank at a given fillup, due to the design of the tank and filler system. If the car is tilted slightly differently, the tank will take more or less fuel that it would tilted the other way. The only way to detemine a true mileage is to keep track of fuel consumption over several fillups. My overall mileage has been 28.6MPG over the first 10,000 miles.

The gauge is far from linear. Mine stays above "F" until I've gone 40-60 miles, then drops slowly until below 1/2 full. The last quarter of the guage goes away very fast!

George

 

I drive around 160 miles daily, and at 80+mph. Yes, I know I'm not supposed to speed, but the car is so comfortable at that speed. And I still get 30+mpg.

For a list of mods, check out this month's feature ride article.

 

The obsessive person that I am, I have kept track of my fillups for the last 16,000 miles. I average 31.40615 MPG (that's before the 4.5% speedo error :D ). Ranging from 27 mpg to 35 mpg. 90% of the time I use the same pump at the same gas station. I have no engine mods, just lowered on Goldlines.

 

Thought I'd throw my 2 cents in.

I've had my Xb for 1500 miles now and I've been keeping track of the mileage ever since I recieved the car in Excel. So far I'm averaging 27.4mpg with a high of 28.5 Even with the 4.7% odo error this still isn't equating to 30mpg. Actually, I have never gotten a mpg reading over 30. I'd say I drive 80% city 20% freeway and definately do not have a lead foot.

I will say that my MPG tracking does seem to indicate that the more miles on the car, the better your mpg will be. (My last three tanks have averaged just over 28mpg which is slightly better than my overall MPG)

I am hoping that buy the time my car hits the 3k mark, I'll be reliably hitting the 30mpg mark.

I will continue to track the mileage probably for as long as I Have the car.

 

I have an auto xB w/ 5,000 miles on it. I have done a couple of tests and found my odometer reads 5.1% too low. As a result, my average over this period is about 32-33mpg (w/out the factor applied it is reads 30-31mpg). Out of these miles, I would say 3/4th are highway miles traveling about 75mph.

 

this has kinda been discussed, but now there is an article from cnn.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/02/pf/autos/epa/index.htm

it confirms what some have stated and that we are not alone.

 

I am a solid 27MPG... 95% highway RS1 , 5-spd.

Someone was mentioning eariler that hondas get more realistic than toyotas... well I have not tested every honda or toyota, but my buddies 2004 4-door accord 4-cycl, auto... was LOADED down with at least 1100 lbs of people and luggage on the way to georgia a couple weeks ago and we averaged 30-32 highway .. epa is 34

To say the least I was very impressed.

Also I have said it once I will say it again the epa is an estimate, at the bottom is a range testers got in MPG.... I believe they take ether the mean or median number and that the bold number for each highway and city. The problem is even then its BULL____, my xb says the range for highway is 31 to 39 ... the bold number is 35. Driving 60 mph on flat terrian for a half a tank the best I got was 29.2 MPG and that was with the a/c off most of the time, or on low. At typical highway speeds (70-75) I again get about 27. I think someone's getting some cash under the table.

I DO NOT personally know anyone who gets over 30 MPG. so you 38MPG people PLEASE fill me in how its possible.

Oh and for the record I DO NOT hot rod the box at all.

AND I have 9K miles on my car with 2500-3000 mile oil changes. NO performance exhaust and intake either.