Saturn Outlook Real World MPG
Please report on your Outlook's mileage. Please include any details that will help others compare their mpg to yours - how much city/highway driving, your model, 2WD/4WD, your terrain, etc. Thanks!
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From personal experience it makes a big difference who is driving it in my family. My wife is the type who firmly believes that a right foot must be on a pedal at all times. Gas or brake, no coasting. Never. She gets about 13-15 mpg in it. Me, I'm a gaget guy so I love to watch the fuel economy readout go up and up and I am a firm believer in coasting down hills (something a car this big does very well) and easing off the gas. I can usually get over 20 mpg for the same driving area as my wife.
I have found that if you keep it under 2000 rpm, your mileage goes through the roof.
Mark
Outlook has a 22 gallon tank.
I've been driving my outlook for 4 months and my odometer reading is at little over 8000 miles.
Dashboard computed mileage is about 5% more than actual gas mileage in Houston, TX (one of the hot places in the nation, but shouldn't be much more than 2%, which is caused by the volume increase of the gasoline).
For example, when actual gas mileage is 16 mpg, it will show about 17.3 mpg on the dashboard.
Actual Mileage:
Lowest (full tank, 90% local): 12.4 mpg
Highest (full tank, 90% highway): 19.5 mpg
The mileage at speed of 70 mph in cruise): 24 mpg
The mileage at speed of 80 mph in cruise): 19 mpg
The total overall mileage: 16 mpg
No problems to report so far. The tranny reflash improved mileage a bit too. It seems more willing to go back into 6th after an incline than it was before.
I am seriously thinking about buying one. Look at the Crossover SUV Comparison forum post 3633 Re: AWD Criteria / Test drives Oct 20, 2007 (10:27 am) for a fairly controlled test drive where I summarized the Outlook XR AWD "winning" vs a VeraCruz and Jeeps (I would have bought an 07 XE this week with a $1k rebate until my wife decided she MUST have leather seats). Here is my Outlook report from that forum:
Quiet roomy road warrior. Wife says like our old ext Caravan but I pointed out the swing doors and Fortera 18s that seemed to get her outa that mindset. MPG: 20.5, 16 Highway/City. This last number dropped since we were on a stoplight course late in the day during rush hour. Note we wanted an XE due to budget reasons but all they had were XRs, we are still debating the value of leather which the wife likes & will see if we can swing it depending on when our son's current car sells. Oh yes - did an erroneous first test drive on a FWD version and MPG was 23.5, 24 ... incredible, but unfortunately not the drive train we wanted.
At 10,000 miles, here are my mileage numbers for the last three tanks of gas:
Week___total miles__act gals___act MPG__DIC MPG___DIC error
1_______318_______17.4______18.3______17.4______ -4.8%
2_______327_______19.0______17.2______17.5______ +1.7%
3_______309_______18.7______16.5______17.4_______+5.3%
My driving was about 60% highway and 40% local. According to the DIC,
the best average MPG that I’ve seen is 21.9 MPG for highway and 14.8 MPG for local driving.
Darrell_F
If I lock the cruise at 65 on the highway, and reset the DIC, I can see 27-28MPG. Higher speed, long/steep hills, or any additional acceleration really lowers the number.
I have no complaints about acceleration - floor it and it goes. I've found that you can't be wimpy with this transmission. If you are, it thinks about it for a few seconds; I guess to make sure you really wanted to accelerate.
Mark
Overall we got about 22 mpg for the trip that was 90% highway at 75mph.
No, that was not too great. But, there were a couple of mitigating factors. Firstly we had to fight the wind the whole trip. We had a wicked cross wind on the way there that was a constant 20 mph with gusts past 30 mph as we travelled in the aftermath of the first winter storm in the area. Many cars in the ditch. The Outlook handled the wind just fine and I was surprised at the little amount that such a large vehicle was tossed around. If that wind had shifted 9 degrees, we could have used a bed sheet to sail to Chicago. As it was, I'm sure it did not hurt a lot, but it did not help any. On the wy home it was a different story. The wind did shift, but not in our favor. We had to travel the whole way into a decent head wind. That killed our mpg.
Secondly, being stuck in holiday gridlock in a major metro area did not help the cause a whole lot. We did a lot of sitting in traffic and stop-and-stop-and-go.
Overall I was a bit disappointed, but it was in the ballpark of what I expected. I would have liked to see the 25 I had seen in previous trips but it was only a 10% difference easily attributed to the conditions.
On a side note: you need to turn off the stability control to do a proper powerslide in the snow.
Overall, the MPG ratings of all the CUVs has been very disappointing.
Dealership seems clueless on how to fix the issue.
Also, what is your driving style? If you are gunning it fromstoplight to stopliglight and doing a lot of aggressive driving on the freeway your mileage will be terrible.
I see no reason why anybody should get 11mpg. There has to be something wrong with it. Is a brake "sticking"?
One thing I notice is that it shifts easily into 5th going up hills on the interstate, and it likes to stay in 5th sometimes much longer than it should. Especially in a head wind. If it's not shifting up I'll just tap the brake to get it back into 6th and then resume cruise.
Still very happy with this vehicle even though I was wanting better mileage.
I looked up the '08 and apparently the new EPA numbers are 16/24 for the FWD Outlook. That jibes pretty well with the numbers in this topic. cpkramers, you're getting about 16/21, but you're cruising at 75 and that IME will lower the highway number. Especially with a fairly boxy vehicle. I know in my '04 Nav, I can get 18-19 on the highway if I keep it between 60 and 65mph. Go faster, and it's down to 16-17. In town, just going back and forth to school with the kiddos I'm lucky to see 12. Interestingly, the sticker on my 4WD Nav was: 12/16 It's always been my experience that the EPA number on the sticker is *very* close to the numbers I'll see driving the car. I'm a fairly average driver. Dont goose it that often.
Last, it is interesting to note that nearly identical cars can get different mpg numbers. I recently had my Nav in the shop and had a rental Taurus for several days. Then I picked up the Nav, drove it home and had to bring it back cause something wasn't right. Got a different rental Taurus. Both cars had appx 18000 miles on em. I drove both over pretty nearly the exact same terrain for a couple days. The first one showed just shy of 22mpg on the computer when I returned it. The second one was over 25. That's about 15% difference. If the engineers could figure out where that 15% comes from and guarantee it on every car - that's a better than cylinder deactivation and direct injection combined!
So far we average anywhere from 14-18mpg in regular driving, which mostly is a 20 mile round trip commute from 5 miles outside of town. On the highway we get 26mpg with cruise set at 74mph under very windy conditions. After the K&N filter is installed and after the switchover from the wintertime blend of gasoline, I'm hoping to get to 28mpg on the road and maybe average 17-18 in town.
Am glad we didn't kick out the extra $$$ for AWD. We've had unusually frequent and heavy snow/ice conditions this winter and our Outlook has gone thru it all with no problems. :shades:
A GM (outsourced company) service rep... told me that the software is an "option" and I should be glad to hear they offer that "option", and my sales person should have review all of my options such as engine size, etc. It is a trade off between performance and fuel economy and if I wanted performance I should have bough a sports car. I responded, and quickly corrected him to say, no this is not an option, it is a manufacturers defect and I want it fixed. Here are the results of my findings...believe me, this took time to pull it all together, but it is accurate: Average MPG is 11.85 Combined City/Hwy from Jan - June 2012
Lowest MPG Recorded was 8.90, Highest MPG Recorded was 14.80
Total Miles from Jan - June 2012 is 6330 miles, using 587 gallons at $2170.
Total Cost of Excess Fuel Consumption Since Software Update in 2009: $5069.00
I contacted the National Highway Safety Admin, Better Business Bureau, and next steps are CT Attorney General, Possible EPA and perhaps small claims court for the $5000 refunded to me from gas. GM was no help - they went around in circles leading me on week after week month after month. Our tax dollars bail them out, and they are still rude and incompetent. The Saturn Customer Service number doesnt even bring you to a GM operated customer service department. GM Outsources that first level of calls...all you need to do is look on Linked in to confirm it. It was an outsourced service rep that was rude and told me the transmission issue was an "option".