I think a lot of mileage issues are related to the terrain in your area. I know if I monitor the real time fuel mileage it drops BAD going up long hills! If I lived in an area that was pretty much flat I think my highway mileage would top 33 mpg. In addition, the fact that the xB only has a four speed auto has a lot to do with it, it needs a "taller" top gear!

 

The auto's 4th gear is already bigger than the 5 speed's 5th gear.

 

OMG, you are right!!!!! I just came back from vegas and try driving a little slower and I sure did see a big change in mpg. I live in La and on the way to Vegas I drive 68-72mph and when I filled up I got 30.2x mpg. That was a first, I never see mpg like that with my XB before.

Since I got pretty good mpg going to Vegas I thought I drive a little bit faster coming home. I got 29.7x mpg going 70-75mph but mostly around 70-72mph.

 

Would the XB get a little big better mpg if it had a 5th gear like the camry?

Why did they make the XB with 4 gears instead of 5 like the camry, they both have the same engine (well up until the 2011 model).

 

I really wish they had another gear. I was hauling ___ in to the city and still managed 26mpg. I thought that was pretty good.

 

I've got a camry 5 speed I'll be putting in the xb sometime. Supposedly it has larger gears than the xb 5spd, which I'm looking forward to.

 

Hot damn, I just calculated 28.2 MPG over 354mi -- guess adding that 28lb trailer hitch helped !

 

General rule: windows down on your car only when you're under 50mph, windows up when you're over 50mph; else, you'll increase drag.

Once you break 50mph, your car loses a great deal of potential fuel economy as it spends more energy breaking through the wind.

When I used to commute far, I always drove 66mph on the interstate and saw almost 34mpg when on the interstate, with my a/c on and stock tires and steelies.


Consider getting a Cold-Air Intake. Those have been proven to help with fuel economy.

 

Cold air intakes don't improve fuel economy at all. That's just a myth. Some people do see a little bit of a gain but some get worse gas mileage. It all depends on the car and if anything a short ram intake will improve fuel economy better than a cold air intake. My advice is that if your gonna buy an aftermarket intake for the gas mileage only then your gonna be dissapointed.

 

^ Ha ha I'm one of the people who have had better fuel economy after I installed my TRD Intake, but I also don't drive with a heavy foot unless I needed to.

But I also do all the tricks I can to preserve fuel: coasting to lights, coasting everywhere, cruise control, 66mph on interstates, running a/c only when at a stable speed and not so much when idling, etc.

 

You also gotta look at where you live. You live in Florida where its usually always hot. So yes you could possibly benefit from a CAI but are you sure your increase in mileage is from the CAI? If so what are your gains?

 

The only way an intake can improve your fuel economy is if the ecu meters less fuel to mix with the ingested air -- that isn't going to happen with our cars. If the MAF reports less air due to constriction (OE snorkel for instance), then the ECU will inject correspondingly less fuel to maintain the 14.7 AFR. Driving habits and conditions (including vehicle) are everything when it comes to MPG.

 

^^ Generally when I installed a new performance mod in my car, I always drove around filling several tanks in order to draw more conclusive results.

My first mod was heavy wheels. I moved from stock wheels (32-33 mpg with 80hwy/20city) to heavier 18s (29-30mpg with 80hwy/20city) first. After I installed my intake, and still observing the same driving habits (66mph on interstate), I pushed my mpg back to the original at 32-33. So that was nice in order to compensate for the heavier 18s.

But now that I don't drive highway due to my old job, I get about 28hwy/26 city. Sometimes I can punch those numbers higher if I coast more, but it also is severely impacted by my a/c when it's really hot.


So the Cold-Air Intake for me was very beneficial, but again, I had different size wheels, but the fact that I could report about the same fuel economy without mods and with lighter steelies is a testament to the gain from the Cold-Air Intake.


But unfortunately I sold those mods off. But I miss the performance, so I'm probably going to buy them again in the next month lol

 

The only mechanism I can think of by which economy could improve over the OE intake, would be if the engine is able to draw in air with sufficiently greater ease with the CAI/SRI to produce a significant reduction in energy loss (just as it takes energy to compress the mixture, it takes energy to draw it in). But a 2-3 mpg increase (10%) due to that change alone is really hard to imagine. So far, I've not been able to identify any improvement to mpg over the course of my various intake mods. Since one year ago, I've actually lost almost 2 mpg, and all I've done is to improve flow in both intake and exhaust (which is what CAI/SRI does for intake).

 

Would performance help if I lost 50 pounds on the castaway diet?

 

thats my more MPG plan. Although another 28.7 read out going to SF and back. Not bad.

 

FWIW, my 08 XB still gets ~25mpg on avg and 28-30mpg highway depending on conditions and speed (65-75mph). It seems to me that I've lost about 1mpg on avg with the extra 100whp from the turbo. Of course this is under normal driving conditions where I'm only in boost a small part of the time. The car is capable of getting much worse mpg if using the extra power more.

IIRC when I went to the drag strip and made 9 1/4 mile passes, my mpg for that tank should have been ~25mpg but was only 23mpg. I can live with that.

 

^ For being boosted, even if it isn't a particularly high boost, is still incredible.

Did I mention that I'm insanely jealous of your boost?

 

That's part of the beauty of turbocharging, no parasitic drag with only minimal weight gain and exhaust restriction. I think we're going to see a lot more turbo apps like the 42mpg hwy Chevy Cruze in the future.

I've got about $25k in my XB which is less than any comparable boosted factory car would have cost me. All it takes is a little bit of money and time.

 

Yeah boosting our cars whether xb, xd, or tc buts these cars in a whole different catagory. Running low boost can still make our cars a very reliable daily driver and could easily blow away any car in the 25k price range.