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Most people report better milage as you get a few thousand miles on an engine, so i'd say the elantra is sure to get the milage reported on the sticker.
I love the car after 1 week. I can open the sunroof and it is just as quiet in the car as with it closed going around 50mph.
In about a year and a half and 28,000 miles, I've averaged 26.6 mpg. I had hoped for a little more than that, but considering I moved up from a Ford Aspire that got 31-32 most of the time, a car with twice the power and a lot more room getting almost 27 mpg is pretty darned good.
I took a trip this weekend and got 31 mpg and over 400 miles in my tank. Lately I've been getting almost 29 mpg just in normal commute driving.
The mileage is not as good as my Aspire, but this car is a lot bigger, more powerful and more comfortable. Way to go, Hyundai.
I recently ran a tank of 92 octane to see if there was any difference, and got 36mpg. I switched back to 87 octane for the same drive a few days later, and was back at 30 mpg. By my calculations (mpg/$pg) that makes 92 octane slightly cheaper despite the $0.20 extra per gallon. Any similar experiences?
On my daily commute I tend to follow the same route and don't gun it when entering the freeway, so that helps.
Prius: from 55mpg (combined city/hwy) lowered to 46
Civic: 35 to 29
Elantra: 32 to 28
Likes: exterior and interior styling, fuel mileage!!, roomy, lots of equipment, smooth ride, good power, good highway cruising(be careful), ergonomics, great braking, good handling, good sound system with CD player, night gauge cluster illumination, no lumber support; feels very well built.
Dislikes: seat cushion length for tall drivers, Radio receiver sound quality, no auto up feature on drivers window(has auto down)
Here is the clincher. We used this car for our business this weekend and with temps over 90degrees, had to sit in car with air on for lengthy periods while waiting for our staff. On our first tank of gas we did only city driving, with long periods of sitting and still received almost 25 mpg! I then filled up and took a 120 mile trip with speeds of 70-85+ mph, air conditioning on and filled up on return. I received 33.5 mpg! This is probably the car we'll buy for another vehicle in our family fleet. I feel this car rec'd very impressive mileage considering this engine has very good power. On the highway, this car will easily creep up to 80-90 mph and yet will still get 33.5 for the trip?! It also feels very well put together and rigid with smooth ride. I am very impressed with this car and so is my wife.
The EPA website now has converted all the EPA mileage estimates for vehicles all the way back to 1985 so they are directly comparable to the new 2008 standards.
As most of you know, the 2008 numbers will be adjusted downward from earlier years to more closely approximate the actual MPG that average drivers are getting in city and highway driving.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymake/Hyundai2006.shtml
6 miles to work and back. (city driving)
About 30 miles hwy so far. 130 city.
Sorry so lenghthy. Thanks. But one other thing. When I filled up after the 5th tank it took 3.45 gallons cause I filled up after a week. Will it be different if I fill up when it needs a lot of gas? Will the time of day that I fill up change how much it actually wants (not topping it off)?
If you did the first 4 tanks under nearly identical conditions as your 5th tank, then there may be an issue. Keep in mind however, that idling time can have a huuuge effect. Less than 20 min. of idling on my current tank (4500 ODO miles) has the MPG number about 5 MPG lower than usual.
Also, it seems like if you start a tank out with a high MPG, it'll tend to stay higher and vice versa. So for where I fill up, if I catch mostly greens on my way out of there, the whole tank will tend to be higher than when I catch mostly reds (and vice versa).
The gas cutoff when refueling should be fairly consistent. The time of day can have a small effect on the fuel density as it is pumped. It shouldn't matter what level the tank was at when you pulled up to the pump. Is it possible you had one of those lovely gas pumps that cuts off at the slightest twitch, even when the tank is nowhere near full?
My own math is used. My Elantra doesn't have the computer tech that others have.
It is possible that the pump stopped prematurely on previous tanks, which is weird for it to happen on 4 out of 5.
Here is the tank info so far:
Tank 1: 43 miles 1.66 gallons used = 25.9 90% hwy
Tank 2: 251.6 miles; 7.91 gallons used = 31 98%hwy
Tank 3: 80 miles; 2.7 gallons used = 29 100% city
Tank 4: 319.2 miles; 9.539 gallons used = 33 95% Hwy
Tank 5: 70.9 miles; 3.345 gallons used = 21.195 100% city
Weird stats. I know I didn't write anything down wrong on tank 5 because I was thinking at 3 gallons during the fill-up, that doesn't seem right it should have stopped at 2.5.
Anyway. I don't see any scrape marks on my gas door if someone stole gas. So, I was going to wait until it was hot out again to fill my tank because it has been cold here in SLC, but I will probably do it today even though it is cold because you said that weather shouldn't matter.
The reason to fill at the same station/pump is that I've noticed huge variations as to when pumps shut off. There's this station nearest me where it's very hard to get within a gallon or two of full. The next-closest station to me, that's easy.
If your tank #4 shut off early and really should have taken 10 gallons, that means you only would have needed 2.884 gallons to fill up after 70.9 miles. Your tank 4 would have been 31.9 MPG and tanks 5 would have been 24.6 MPG. These differences are the result of only .461 gallons being applied to either tank 4 or tank 5.
Now if you take your mileage (764.7 miles) for all 5 tanks and your gallons for all 5 tanks (25.154), you will see that you have averaged 30.4 MPG.
A lot of gas pumps shut off earlier (due to vapors) when your are gassing up at the fastest speed. If your pumps have the latches, try using the middle latch. Usually it will pump in more gas than the fastest latch. The slowest latch will give an even more complete fill, but takes noticeably longer.
Whether you start off, after fueling, will all green lights or with stop & go makes no difference in your average MPG.
Short term MPG is not reliable because minor errors in miles or gallons can significantly change the math calculation. The larger the numbers (miles and gallons), the more reliable your calculations will be.
But remember the larger the numbers (miles & gallons) the more accurate you average calculation will be. Do it tank by tank BUT keep track of the miles and gallons for 4 or 5 tanks to get a more accurate average MPG. (I'm assuming you know about weighted averages.)
I keep track of my mileage with a spreadsheet that calculates mpg for each tank but also does a running calculation for the last ten tanks. That, to me, is a better indication of my fuel economy.
FWIW... Unless there are gas stations out there with aboveground storage tanks, ambient outside temperature will have no meaningful difference in the temperature of the gas you pump into your car. Gasoline in an underground storage tank will have a very stable hour-to-hour and day-to-day temperature profile regardless of weather conditions. Even season to season, the changes will be small. The only potential short-term temperature swings (even these probably are not very large) would be after deliveries, until the tank contents all re-equalize to the surrounding ground temperature.
..any informed opinions out there?
Also on the topic of MPG, supposedly the elantra has a odometer / speedometer issue in that it reports more miles / MPH than actually traveled. Has anyone taken the time to figure gas mileage using a GPS?
Related, but a little off topic, Does anyone have any idea if this has a significant shortening effect on my Warranty (will my odometer read 100K at 92K miles because of this)?
Of course then I suppose your next question will be, "How can you be sure the highway department accurately measured between the mileposts?" Right?
The pump doesn't care whether this is 1/8 tank, a half tank or a full tank, it gets cooled just the same.
The same applied to the old wives tale about "gunk" in the bottom of the tank. The "gnk" always settles to the bottom, regardless of the amount of fuel in the tank, and the gas is fed into the system from the bottom of the tank.
The issue wasn't about when to fill up to avoid running out of gas, it was about the amount of gas in the tank when filling up to get best MPG and then someone offered that the fuel pump might not be properly cooled at only 1/4 tank of gas.
I'm skeptical about any advertised 10+% gain in MPG due to spark plugs. Seems like a car manufacturer would latch onto that in a hurry if it was true, equipping all their cars with those plugs.
I'll be watching for your updates.
Now....ready for the interesting fact if you didnt catch it yet ?...i filled exactly 1 mile after my gas light went on..and put in 14.66 Ga. in a tank that is not supposed to be more than 14 ga. If i truly have 1 ga left, or even just 1/2 gallon left...it holds minimum 15 Ga....i filled up in so cal at 5:30 a.m. So it wasnt hot..tanks were cool..no expansion..it really holds 15 ga. Im gonna love that extra gallon when im on my road trips...and Yes..i topped it off..right to the throat.
p.s. Joe..you know what the decibal rating on the Elantra is at 70 mph?....its 69 for the civic & prius...but not sure about the Elantra
Also, decibels is not necessarily the thing to be concerned about. It is not always a good comparison number to use between one car and another. The frequency and nature of the noise is often more important to the occupants' peaceful enjoyment than a relative measure in decibels.
But back to fuel economy... in the same test (Dec '06), C/D measured 28 mpg overall for the Elantra over a 550-mile trip, which was the 2nd best number in the test (Civic and Corolla tied for best at 33 mpg).
Engineering- and manufacturing-wise, it is easier and cheaper to make a smaller car quiet and frugal with fuel while achieving good handling and performance than it is to do the same with a larger car.
Hyundai does all that with their spacious cars, adds equipment over what the competition includes, and then sells them for less... and with longer and more comprehensive warranties too! How do they do it?
Check them out. Buy a couple. Enjoy!
Hyundai shines!