SentraSE-R

I drove my xB down to SoCal last weekend with my wife and daughter to visit my mom. I averaged 48.2 mpg down to King City, about half the tank being local driving here, and half highway driving there - 447 miles on 9.29 gal. I filled up down there so I could drive back without refueling, and only got 45.1 mpg - 240 miles on 5.32 gal. The poor mileage on that tank is probably a fill artifact. I've got 385 miles on the current tank, and am still above the 1/4 tank mark. It's not going to be a great tank, despite reaching 250 miles at the half-tank mark, because I was driving into a 30 mph headwind much of the return trip.

FWIW, I was able to maintain 42-45 mpg for about 10 miles at a time at sustained cruising speeds of 50-55 mph.

Jan, I've never seen .12 gph fuel consumption at idle. My xB drinks .22 gph when it's warmed up, and only drops to .15-.17 gph after running for a long time.

Zman, it's been >20 yrs since I lived in snow country. The last engine block heater I bought was probably from JC Whitney, but I may have bought it at a local auto parts store.

Sciond, good going.

MadMike, you'll never know your cars' potential. Even when I was a type A driver, I counted on getting ~30 mpg out of my main drivers, dating back 30 years. If they wouldn't do it, I usually got rid of them. When my SE-R wouldn't do it, that's when I changed my driving habits.

Sciond

202miles at 1/2 way in mixed driving conditions

SentraSE-R

ZMan,

Was that you I saw posting on Ecomodder? What mileage mods have you made to your box, and how much did they improve mileage?

As you know, my xB is completely stock, except I think the previous owner put Halo Projector Lights on it. RS 3.0 didn't come with projectors, did they? Anyway, I get my mileage from changing my driving habits. It would be great to impove even more with some mods like easily removable fender skirts and a grill block. I don't want to hurt my box's appearance when it's parked, but no one will notice when the car's moving.

RedneckwithanxB

No they did not come with different head lights...

And I dont think that I posted this.

Over my whole trip from Iowa to Florida... I averaged 37.2 MPG with a high of 41.1 MPG on one tank. Mind you, this is highway speeds (70+) wth about 600-700 extra lbs of crap in the car...

Zman

I like the projector headlights.

Yeah, I became addicted to that site when gas was around $4 a gallon last year.

You can get away with blocking the lower grill as long as you don't idle too long where the engine temp can hit 204. (you turn the car off at stops anyway)
At normal speeds, the engine is around 181 degrees and you get more air flowing around the car instead of into the grill. A piece of sign board (your choice of color) wont change the looks but will help aero.

I would also invest on some lightweight wheels. Under 12 lbs each would benefit your mileage (easier acceleration from a stop), and you can get rid of those lame-o hubcaps! ;)

I haven't attempted it yet but I want to make a partial undertray for the front of the car to help with air flow. I know it seems irrational considering the poor Cd of .35 to begin with.

It's hard to tell how much things help because of course you will unknowingly try harder to increase your mileage to make your modification seem justified and not a waste of time.

SentraSE-R

How did that 1/2 tank, 220 miles turn out, Sciond? And 37 mpg at highway speeds is outstanding, Don. I only got 32 mpg at 70 mph last Summer.

That's cool about the projector headlights. I've been toying with the idea of putting HIDs in them. Some say the different source alignment will cause too much scatter. Others say they'll work fine, and are the only way to do aftermarket HIDs. Comments?

Zman, have you experimented with blocking the upper grill, too? I've got some coroplast from the current election campaigns in my yard, and will be doing some experimenting soon.

Zman

Your engine will suffocate with both grilles blocked! You could try it, it may be hard on your water pump or fan if its too hot outside. I don't know much about engines so its up to you.

I bought black coroplast and it looked awesome IMO.

How is this block heater? http://www.jcwhitney.com/Magnet-moun...;0;2000836;0;0

I think HIDs would be sick too, I'm just not savvy enough to install them myself I believe.


Oh yeah, my new favorite SGII reading is GPH, I hit 0.18 GPH at idle once today. At speeds under 20mph I use twice as much gas in Drive as compared to Neutral when rolling. I like when I get 0GPH but I don't have steep enough hills on my commute for that to last.

SentraSE-R

I was thinking of blocking the upper grill, and leaving the bottom open, rather than v.v.

I've played with ScanGauge GPH, but it's not as useful to me as other gauges, since 1 GPH at 60 mph is such a huge difference from 1 GPH at 20 mph or 0 mph. I normally keep 3 gauges showing LOD, MPG, and current average fuel economy. I alternate the other one between IGN, VLT, TPS, GPH, and other functions. IGN and VLT are the ones I use the most. VLT because I don't want to drop the battery voltage below 11.6 when driving at night, and IGN when I'm experimenting with DWL.

That JC Whitney heater may work, but it's only 200 Watts, and I have my doubts about how effectively it will transmit heat to the antifreeze and/or oil you're trying to heat. IIRC, my aftermarket block heaters were 1500 Watts. At 200 Watts, you might as well just put a 100 Watt light bulb under your hood near the bottom of your radiator. When I lived in Alaska, I had a battery heater, a block coolant heater, and an oil dipstick heater that I plugged in when temps got below 0º F. If I had to do it all over again, I'd substitute a magnetic oil pan heater (looks/sounds a lot like the JC Whitney heater, doesn't it?), for the dipstick heater, and plug them all in every night before I drove the car. My 4X4 only got 5-6 mpg in the Winter, and 11-12 mpg in the Summer.

In any case, I think I'd go with the factory block heater, and follow the instructions here. In that thread, you could get the factory part for $42.50, about the same as the JC Whitney part. Unfortunately, the factory part looks like a bit of a PITA to install.

MadMike550

I filled up last night
26.3 MPG

wife drove it for the last tankful

Zman

It's fine with just the top grille blocked. I still have my coroplast piece for that too.

I use MPH, wT, MPG, and TPS usually. I'm not too familiar with what are good numbers for LOD and IGN.

I'm probably better off having a heated garage over the winter...one of these days.

SentraSE-R

I try to keep LOD between 78 and 83 while accelerating, but that's on a manual tranny. With most ATs, that much LOD just churns up the torque converter slippage, revving the engine and not moving the car much. From what I see and hear, trying to keep the engine rpms below 2000 gets the best mileage with most ATs, albeit with slug-slow acceleration.

If I keep IGN above 35 most of the time, I can beat cruise control mileage over the same drive. I'm still experimenting with throttle techniques to avoid P&G all the time. So far, P&G still works best. I think GPH might parallel IGN in many ways, aiming for lower numbers there, of course.

If you don't get snow and consistent sub-freezing temps in your part of WV, you're fortunate.

Zman

I would still rather jack rabbit start to get up to speed than accelerate really slowly. I get much better mileage at 40mph than staying 20 or 30mph.

It's not terribly cold in the winter but I hate starting my car up and not getting into 4th gear until 2 miles later when it is warmed up.

Darkcrush

I average 36 MPG and have for over 45,000 miles. I will never try any of the techniques and not because I want to give OPEC any extra money.
My xB is not a hybrid, and was not designed to be driven as such.
Turning off the engine and "coasting" down hill is not a NHSTA approved driving technique and is probably very dangerous regardless of whether you are on a country road or not.
I guess I wanted to purchase a vehicle that attained good mileage and was comfortable to drive. I accomplished that. If I was that worried about MPG I would have purchased a Geo Metro or any one of the small hybrids availabel out there.
To those that want to worry about hitting 45 to 50 plus MPG good luck. The rest of us will continue to enjoy our vehicle and the reliability it gives us without worrying about shutting it down at lights, coasting, drafting etc. I would like to think that people are more concerned with driving safely and concentrating on the road rather than worrying about their extra MPG.

jct

i just bought it cause parts are way easier to find then a a 1971 plymouth fury

SentraSE-R

Darkcrush must have a thing about accusing people of doing things they never said they did. Well, I don't beat my wife like you do, Darkcrush. Why don't you cruise over to one of the other xB forums and complain about performance mods and hot rodding and looking like a pimpmobile not being the things Toyota designed our cars for, and see how popular that makes you?

Zman

The thing is, yes some techniques are not as safe, but the way normal people drive is unsafe too: talking on the phone, not paying as much attention as they should be. If I'm going for a good tank, I pay much more attention to the road and driving conditions and other cars than I normally would, so it could be safer in some cases.

SentraSE-R

True. The left lane conga line of cars following each other with far less than a 2 second following distance between them is one of the commonest sights on the road, and one of the most dangerous. Often I see three cars tailgating each other within the distance between me and the vehicle in front of me. Those are the same idiots who think hypermilers are unsafe drafters, despite the fact that drafting isn't practiced by any of the hypermilers I know.

jct

i was doing 65 mph in a 70 zone and while every body was doing 80-90mph passing me even most of the truckers too last night but then again i didn't care cause i wasn't in a rush

Zman

At least you're the slow and steady driver paying attention.

SentraSE-R

I gave up the idea of buying another motorcycle when I walked around town counting the percentage of distracted (cell phone use, eating) drivers. It was about 5% of 400 drivers. That may not sound like much, but that's another 1 out of 20 drivers driving like drunks in addition to the drunks endangering me on the roads. Hypermilers are the least of my concerns on the road.

I've been in Alabama visiting my daughter's family. Their Dodge Grand Caravan with 3.3 L V-6 only got 20 mpg on a 32 mile roundtrip drive to the Montgomery airport. Now I can finish off my current tank on my Scion and see what mileage I got.