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Here are a few more of the details:
* Trip odometer 346.7 miles
* Max miles driven + range = 382
* Range at time of fill-up 35 miles
* Gallons to fill 18.00
* Fuel needle at or slightly below the line for Empty
* Trip computer 19.2 mpg
* Manually calculated fuel economy 19.26 mpg
I wonder if the trip computer on our EX really is quite accurate or if this was just a coincidence? Will monitor this on future fill-ups.
Observations about the trip computer and fuel gauge:
* Fuel gauge reads pretty true. Drops in a linear fashion; does not have the typical undesirable fuel gauge behaviors such as staying above Full for 60-80 miles, or dropping much faster when needle goes below ½ full, etc.
* Range value on trip computer does not adjust quickly enough to reflect current fuel economy
Considering how low the fuel needle was, I expected the tank to take more than 18 gallons when I filled up.
Hopefully this is a software issue and Kia will develop a fix in the future.
The trip computer in our 2002 Sedona was as quirky as our 2006's, but in different ways. It 'remembered' the fuel economy from the driving prior to the fill-up, which was logical. So if I was driving 70 mph on the highway (probably 22-23 mpg in our van, which always did better than the EPA ratings), it might say something like 450 miles to empty after I filled the tank. It seemed even slower to react / update based on the current type of driving, and it was overly optimistic... Driving on the highway for a couple hours, I could get readings of (miles driven + miles to empty) as high as 460-480. Well, we never got more than 400 miles on a tank of gas in our 2002!
I think even before the engine breaks in, 25mpg is attainable cruising at 45-55mph, but that would be excruciating, not to mention pissing off other drivers. I'm glad EPA is revising the antiquated mileage ratings.
I'm in Houston, TX and pretty much sea level. Posting your locale is important because altitude greatly affects MPG. My old VW GTI would go from 25mpg at sea level to above 35mpg traveling through NM & AZ.
Location: Michigan (--> winter blend fuel which reduces fuel economy, fairly flat roads, cold winter air temperatures)
Driving style: Pretty gentle and prudent. We slow well in advance of red lights, rarely goose the throttle past 3500 RPM, generally use cruise on the highway, etc.
Data:
Fillup 2
Incomplete data due to wife forgetting to record information. I'm in process of estimating / piecing it together. Grrrrrr.
Fillup 3
approx 18.5 mpg a couple weeks ago. avg temp 10-15 deg F. Snowy. Fair amount of warmup idling. 40% highway 70mph, 50% country roads 50-60 mph with occasional stoplights, 10% city driving.
Fillup 4
19.5 mpg today. avg temp 30-35 deg F. 40% highway 70mph, 50% country roads 50-60 mph with occasional stoplights, 10% city driving. max observed trip odometer + range = 400 miles. Trip computer said 20.3 mpg, which is only 0.8 mpg off.
Forecast:
It seems 23-25 mpg highway @ 65-75 mph is fairly likely in our van once it breaks in a bit more and we get away from winter which includes winter blend fuel, cold starts, cold air temps, and extra warmup/idling. Even now, trip computer shows highway cruising in the 22-23 mpg range.
Of course, there is no free lunch. Less fuel means less energy per stroke, so the same engine is less powerful at higher elevation.
So far I'm extremely happy with the mileage. With the large 3.8L and the earlier sub-15mpg reports, I was fearing the worst. My loaded Sedona, still new, is getting about the same mileage as our well-broken-in '04 Sienna with the weezy underpowered 3.3L.
I'm hoping our '06 ends up around 2 mpg better than our '02. Our '02 exceeded the EPA ratings (15 city / 20 highway) by 2-3 mpg, so if the '06 settles in right around the EPA numbers (18/25) I'll be a fairly happy camper.
Coming off of our '04 Sienna, both my wife and I felt the '06 Sedona's 3.8L less "strained" in pulling the heavier van around than the lighter Sienna with a smaller engine. The fact that we are getting about the same gas mileage also suggest that Sienna's 3.3L is working harder to keep up with our driving demand.
2004-2005 3.3L 230HP, 242 ft-lbs
2006 3.3L 215HP, 222 ft-lbs
2007 3.7L 266HP, 245 ft-lbs
I seem to recall reading about the Japanese having to recalibrate their HP measurements to be closer to or the same as the Americans and Eurpeans standards.
Don't get me wrong. The '04 Sienna was a very nice minivan. The lack of low-end grunt was about my only complaint. That and the Toyota prices. My neighbor just bought a top-of-the-line Sienna XLE limited for some $40,000. Personally, I just don't see it as being $15,000+ better than the top-of-the-line '06 Sedona we got.
Approximately 60/40 split highway/city. My wife tends to drive it faster on the highway (75-80) than she'd like (70-75), because the power is so strong and the van rides smooth.
1 of the tankfuls was with 5 people including some office bags, around 19.7 mpg with 80% highway driving.
The fuel management systems of modern vehicles compensate well for differences in altitude. The manufacturers want the vehicles to perform well at altitude because the consumer demands it for driving satisfaction and for safety.
A normally aspirated engine will develop lower max hp at high altitude, but this is irrelevant to the fuel economy under low load. Worse wide open throttle acceleration at high altitude doesn't mean that the engine would consume less fuel to develop a certain hp in the range of say 10% to 15% of the max the engine can develop.
If the engine management system wasn't compensating for the lower density of the atmosphere at say 5000 ft, then the engine would be pulling in less air than at sea level giving a mixture that would be relatively rich (in fuel) compared to sea level. Presumably this would give worse fuel economy, not better fuel economy.
You miss my point.
A rich fuel mixture should not result because the ECM will make adjustments for the thin air by DECREASING the amount of fuel being mixed in, so less gasoline will be used for each power stroke, resulting in lower horsepower at all rpm levels (and presumably greater MPG).
Remember, in a naturally aspirated engine, the air is not being forced into the motor. It goes in due to atmospheric pressure. The ECM does not increase the amount of air available to the engine, it adjusts fuel delivery. That's my guess anyway.
Propelling a given vehicle down a level road at a constant speed at a certain altitude requires a certain exact power output from the engine, not more and not less. The power required to propel the vehicle at the same speed will be less at higher altitude because the aerodynamic resistance will be less and this is the major force resisting motion at highway speed. If the power output of the engine is less, then the engine would be consuming less fuel per unit time.
The ECM in a modern engine controls both the throttle position (air flow) and the fuel flow.
If what you say is true, then why has every normally aspirated car been slower in acceleration during non-wide-open throttle situations when at high altitudes? To hear you explain it, my cars should all be faster accelerating during non-wide-open throttle applications due to decreased wind resistance.
That is just not the case.
I believe it is analogous to athletes poorer performance at high altitudes. The race times and other sports records are less than spectacular up there due to less human power being produced because of less oxygen available to burn fuel in the muscles. If what you say is true then runners should go faster up there because the wind resistance is less. Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.
Ever take a hike in the mountains? You just don't make the power up there that you do in lower altitudes.
Interesting discussion, but slightly disappointing!
Seriously, I'm filling 'er up today and will post the figures. Should be around 20, maybe 21, in mixed driving more highway than city.
You can see that the power required to overcome aerodynamic resistance is given by
P,aero = 1/2 x Frontal area x coef. drag x vel^3 x air density
So the power reqd to overcome aerodynamic drag at a given speed is proportional to the cube of the speed. However, power is the energy consumed per unit time and what we want is the energy consumed per unit distance. The latter would be proportional to the fuel use measured in gal/mile or (in the UK and Europe) in Liters/100 km. We get the energy/unit distance by dividing the power by the speed.
So Energy/unit distance = (Constant of vehicle) x (vel^2) x (Density of air)
From this formula we see that the aerodynamic component of fuel consumed per unit distance traveled is proportional to the square of the speed and to the first power of the density of the atmosphere.
The EPA highway mileage estimate assumes that the vehicle is driven at a faily low speed even on the highway, something like less than 65 mph. Driving faster than the EPA assumes is a major contributor to using more fuel/unit distance, that is getting lower mpg than the EPA estimate.
This is the basis for the often quoted "folk" statement that "air resistance at 70 mph is double that at 50 mph". (70/50)^2 = 2.0. What this exactly means is that the aerodynamic resistance consumes twice as much fuel to go a given distance at 70 mph than at 50 mph.
But we know that mpg wouldn't double if we slowed from 70 to 50. The reason is that there are other power consumers besides aerodynamic resistance.
Within a few miles of the surface of the earth the density of the atmosphere decreases by 17% for each mile increase in altitude. So if a modern vehicle gets 20 mpg in hwy cruising at sea level it should get 20/0.83 = 24 mpg at 5300 ft due to the 17% lower aerodynamic power consumption.
The wide open throttle (WOT) performance of a normally aspirated (NA) engine is lower at higher altitude because when the air is less dense the engine ingests a lower mass of air per intake stroke.
But we are not concerned in this forum with performance (like the shortest 0 to 60 time), but rather we are asking about fuel consumption per unit distance to cruise at a given constant speed on level ground.
I'm no engineer, and so I am taking the simplifying approach of assuming that together all the sensors (MAP, MAF, knock, oxygen, etc.) and the ECM of a modern engine keep the air-fuel mixture constant at the optimum ratio from sea level up to considerable altitude when the vehicle is cruising on level ground at some reasonable speed, like 70 mph.
Basic carbutetted engines can't do that but Sedonas can.
See"At high elevations our engines are getting less air, so they need less fuel to maintain the proper air/fuel ratio. Generally you would go down one main jet size for every 1750 to 2000 feet of elevation you go up (info for Mikuni carbs). If you normally run a 160 main jet at sea level you would drop down to a 140 at 4000 feet. Something else goes down as you go up in elevation is horsepower. You can figure on losing about 3% or your power for every 1000 feet you go up. At 4000 feet your power will be down about 12%-even though you rejetted!"
But the reason that the hp is less is that less air and less fuel is burned in the engine. Fuel is not being wasted. It is as if the vehicle had a smaller engine (i.e. lower hp) and this has no effect if the hp actually being developed to cruise on level ground is much less than the max the engine can develop.
My idea is this: Assume it takes 30 hp to drive a Sedona on level ground at 70 mph at sea level. I think it only takes 26 hp to drive the Sedona at 70 mph at 5300 ft altitude, because the aerodynamic resistance is less due to the less dense air. The engine will burn less fuel to develop 26 hp than to develop 30 hp so the Sedona gets higher mpg at 5300 ft.
My car is sluggish at higher altitudes because the motor makes less horsepower at any given throttle opening or engine RPM. The reason for that is less dense fuel/air mixture in the motor. The acceleration disadvantage due to decreased horsepower exceeds any acceleration advantage that might result from lower air resitance.
If my car gets better fuel economy up there it is because the engine is doing less work, at higher constant speeds due mostly due to less wind resistance, and during acceleration chiefly because of less power being produced due to less fuel in the motor.
On my trips at higher elevation, I usually must drive up and down mountains. So any high altitude fuel economy increase is usually overshadowed by the engine working extra hard going up. So, overall, my high altitude fuel economy is worse than on the flat lower elevations where my house is.
One note on break in. All engines are now broken in at the factories so when you get you engine it has already gone through a process to help seal the rings and bearings properly. This does not mean not to take it easy for a while but whole break in idea of the past does not apply to modern engines.
Very happy with the van so far, only two days but it rides and drives great.
Our 2006 EX has been around 21.5 mpg the past couple tanks. This is approx 50/50 mix of highway driving (70-75mph) and non-snarled 'city' driving, i.e. some stoplights but lots of 50-60mph cruising.
21.5 mpg seems like a decent result considering the 18 city / 25 highway ratings. I think we'd be pretty close to 25 mpg in straight highway driving in the 70-75 mph neighborhood. Hope to test it out on a longer trip one of these days...
Kia Sedona=Very bad purchase!!!!!!!
How many miles are on your van? Do you calculate MPG for every fill-up and keep a running average too?
You need to do 3 or more fill-ups consecutively to get a good average.
One time I looked at the average I was getting at the moment (on the console) and it said 10! I am seriously considering making up a bumper sticker that says "Kia Sedona.....Fun van....terrible gas mileage" Just to get the word out!
How long a trip have you taken in the van at constant highway speeds?
It's rated close to the same as competitors by EPA now. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byclass/Minivan2007.shtml