Road trip and gas mileage

[Vulcan Bob]

Hi there, made my first real road trip with my Chevrolet HHR, base 2.4 liter engine, automatic transmission and checked the fuel mileage for the first time. The info center average fuel mileage doo-dad is not very accurate so I did the old divide the mileage by gallons used. Drove 342 miles and used 8.2 gal of fuel, 41.7 mpg, I'll take that for an automatic. Most of the trip was interstate driving with about 25 miles in town driving. And for a bonus the price for regular out in that section of Ohio was 24 cents a gallon cheaper than here at home. Yeah I know, not a very exciting post but I was a bit pleased. Have a good week end all!

 

[Arik]

That's why I drive a Corolla. Doesn't take much gas to move my skinny butt from A to B

 

[rwsmith]

That's pretty good

That's pretty good mileage that I haven't seen. Both of my vehicles do about 18-20 in 'congested outskirts driving'. Not a whole lot better on the highway.

 

[Nevada Ed]

We just came back from a trip from Utah.
Filled up in Delta Utah and went all the way to Fallon Nevada.

The new Lexis computer said we could make it but 60 miles out it gave us a warning !!

Just out of town the needle was well below the empty line!!

Drove into the FIRST Gas station and filled it up again.......
We went over 503 miles and still had 1.3 gallons in the tank.
I think we were on fumes ? !

We voted to top it off in Ely on the next outing.......

 

[BaldEagle1313]

VB, that's not too unusual. One of my friends has an HHR LT1 and if he gets less than 38 on the highway it's because he's either going through the mountains or been in Eastern Washington doing 75+mph.

It's too small a car for me to fit in comfortably, but it's great for him and he likes it quite a lot.

 

[billwill]

so I did the old divide the mileage by gallons used. Drove 342 miles and used 8.2 gal of fuel,

So a car left Pittsburgh driving west at 45 mph and a car left Columbus driving east at 65mph, how long before they meet each other and what was their gas mileage??

That stuff gave me a headache 40 years ago and still does today! 40+ MPG is great!!

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Working in the oil industry, I have to say you guys know how to hurt a guy!


I love to get out in my 5.0 V8 Mustang and let my 420 HP run! To bad on the highway it does as my as 28 MPG with real gas.

Now get back out there and crank it up to 80 or 85 MPH and make us Oil workers proud!

 

[islamoradamark]

ya pay for preformance depends what ya gunna do with what ya got

 

[JJEH]

When I take our Durango out for a long jog on the hwy, it gets ~35mpg using cruise control at legal speed. If I let it gallop we are talking ~14mpg...

 

[NYlakesider]

Working in the oil industry, I have to say you guys know how to hurt a guy!


I love to get out in my 5.0 V8 Mustang and let my 420 HP run! To bad on the highway it does as my as 28 MPG with real gas.

Now get back out there and crank it up to 80 or 85 MPH and make us Oil workers proud!

I have done a bunch of road trips with my last 3 Vettes All 6spd manual trans cars. A 98 Convertible, a 05 Convertible and now my 07ZO6. The mileage you can get out of those powerful cars is amazing. Yes you can step on it a bit and still achieve fantastic mileage. (people that know me will tell you I'm not a slow driver!)

My 98 in Canada driving around the great lake on the Queen E highway hit 28. My 05 and 07 both will hit 26 and this is with cars that have HP of 440 and 505

As stated me and the MRS. have done a lot of highway driving, mostly going on car related vacations. (The national Corvette Museum in Kentucky is a nice ride from way upstate NY). Have gone to Hershey, Carlisle and Gettysburg Pennsylvania many times averaging about 75-80MPH on the interstates. The final drive ratio combined with 2 over drive gears and the slippery shape of those cars is what does it. The new Vette for 14 has a seven speed manual trans and I hear mileage is hitting 30 on the roads.

PS cars like this tend to drive the greenie weenies crazy!

 

[Old 44 Guy]

On a recent trip to the kids in California & Nevada I filled in Sparks. On the return trip I got over 23 MPG out of my '07' Ranger 4x4. I never get over 21 MPG with west coast gas. I just wonder if Nevada doesn't have the crappy gas we do. Just wondering.

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Yes you probably have "environmental" gas that is high in either ethanol or other additives to cut the pollution down or so they say. We have it here in Texas also which is quite irritating because I can go to Oklahoma and buy "pure gas" and get as much as 8 MPG more driving under the same conditions. Going from 21 to 29 MPG just by buying pure gas is really impressive in my 5.0L. It has resulted in a series of letters and emails to my federal representatives about why Oklahoma can sell Pure gas but we in Texas are forced to buy ethanol gas instead.

And as a comment to the OP, my old 81 Rabbit Diesel used to get right at 50 MPG consistently on the highway back in the 80's to the 90's until I sold it. Around town I could count on 45 MPG. They were great cars but a head crack doomed it at 256,000 miles.

Oh and just because I work for an oil company, it does not mean I am all bad. I have a hybrid also but the twin 5.0L Mustang's (mine and the wife's) make up for it.

 

[JcMack]

In '06 I bought a used Chevy Cobalt with 7,000 miles on it. I was fed up with the Dodge P.U. I had and it's really poor mileage. I'm pretty sure the Cobalt's had the same drivetrain as the HHR. The Cobalt got really good mileage like around 25 city and almost 40 highway. The car was really quick and surprisingly agile but a complete pile of junk. I bought it using the reliability history of the Cavalier it replaced in Chevy's line up. I was surprised at the high RPM's the thing regularly ran at. Operating temp at idle in the summer with the air on was 230. My neighbors '06 HHR threw a rod through the block at 56K miles and they took care of the car. It was out of warranty and Chevy refused to fix it for less than $4000. I currently drive a Chevy truck but I'd never buy one of their cars again..

 

[LVSteve]

On a recent trip to the kids in California & Nevada I filled in Sparks. On the return trip I got over 23 MPG out of my '07' Ranger 4x4. I never get over 21 MPG with west coast gas. I just wonder if Nevada doesn't have the crappy gas we do. Just wondering.

By and large, yes. You cannot find 93 around here, that's for sure. 91 as Premium? Pull the other leg, it's got bells on.

I dread to think the true octane of the fuel in Vegas by the time it has got here through 300+ miles of pipeline through the desert and likely got cooked in a storage tank somewhere before distribution. My SUV is supposed to run on 87, but I can feel it pulling timing running uphill on a hot day with the A/C on, and that's not right on a 30k mile vehicle. Runs fine on "89" or whatever it might be out of the pump.