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Comments
Speed: 55mph to 70 mph
Stop every 60 miles or so.
Interesting article!
2005 Toyota Corolla 4 cyl
K&N Air Filter
Recent Oil/filter change, trans fluid
49,000k
Stop & Go traffic in Los Angeles
A/C on 50-70% of the time
a little aggressive driving.
22 MPG average.... on my 13.2 US Gal tank, I've not broken 300 miles yet. Can A/C and aggressive driving do THAT much of a difference? I read about 27 MPG and cry, I read about 35 and up and I wail.
Help!
Absolutely!
Keeping in mind that really heavy traffic and lots of idling and moving the car, from stop, burns a lot of fuel. Here are some tips that may help. Don't get upset with me. Just read and take what you need and leave the rest.
With an automatic, anytime you press the throttle hard enough, so that the RPM gets much above 2200 before the tranny shifts to the next gear, you are wasting fuel.
Every time you touch the brake, you just wasted gas. The more brake you need, the more gas you wasted. Let me explain that!
There is a stop sign ahead. You can let off the gas back here and coast up to it, or you can stay on the gas until the last minute and brake hard. If you choose the second option, you burned unnessary fuel, used more of the brake lining, and wore extra off the tires. You still had to stop!
If there were cars waiting at the sign and you coasted, you may have had to stop only once, as they may be gone by the time you get there.. If you rush to it, you may start and stop several times before you get through it. Same holds true for traffic lights. Rushing to a "RED" light, so you can stop, waste a lot of fuel, brakes and tires tread. Take your foot off the throttle back here and the light may be green when you get there.
If you think about it, the reason a car gets better mileage on the road than around town is because, on the road, the brakes are not used as often and constantly getting the car up to speed is much less.
Tailgating, so that you are constantly accelerating and braking, waste an enormous amount of fuel and you aren't getting there any faster than if you back off a few car lengths and drive with a steady foot. This will also greatly reduce the possibility of a rear end collision. The car in front suddenly brakes hard and you either hit them or manage to stop, but the car tailgating you didn't have time and plowed into you. If you had been farther back you may not have had to brake that hard and the car behind you would have had to deal with a slow down rather than a panic stop.
On the road, a steady foot at lower speeds requires the car to push less air and the engine is turning less RPM and uses considerably less fuel than trying to accelerate around everything on the road.
While it may be true that the K&N filters may "Add" a few horse power, it is at near "Red Line". If that is where you drive all the time, don't expect much in the way of mileage.
Consider this. The mfg are squeezing all the mileage they can out of these "Economy" engines. They also consider longevity of the engines. You can believe that if a free breathing air filter/intake would add anything to both, they would use it. They tune the engines to the type of filter/intake they establish as best for their engines.
Spend an evening reading the various post on these forums. You will find that people with heavy feet burn more fuel. PERIOD! I personally don't understand why someone buys an "Economy" car and does everything they can to burn excessive fuel. To me, "Bragging Rights" goes to the person that got 40 + MPG on that road trip. Not to the person that got poor mileage but passed everything they could. But that is just me.
Regards,
Kip
Where can Engine Boost 2.0 be purchased?
By April, the mileage was getting worse, so I suspected more was amiss. I recently had the plugs replaced, air filter, and a complete injector and fuel system cleaning. The only thing left is the fuel filter, in the gas tank, which would prove to be a little costly. My last tank mileage was 32 mpg, which is about equal to my worst tank achieved through stop and go city traffic.
Currently I'm at 121,000 miles, the car is not quite 4 1/2 years old. What's the next tep here?
Good luck!!
You may want to verify your odometers accuracy also. Mine is off almost 2 miles every 100 miles.
What do you consider "tremendously better"? My current car is EPA rated 29 mpg highway, but I can easily get upper 30s, and sometimes break 40, when crusing under ideal conditions: little headwind, mild temperatures, and speed no more than 65 mph (it does best at 55-60). It will do mid-30s under much less ideal conditions. But I agree it's a good idea to check the accuracy of the mpg computer with manual calculations, just in case there's a big difference.
Also, I must add that I use safe hypermiler techniques...like coasting downhill.
I'm not trying to mislead anyone. I did get 48.8 and if I can, others can too under similar circumstances.
Confirmed the old fashioned way When I decided to check it I even used the same pump at the same station...NO TOPPING OFF EITHER!
(the station is only about 1/2 mile from the hwy ent/exit).In the city it only it gets about 27 MPG(I guess where the EPA rating is) I LIKE IT! The difference would buy a bunch of Prius' for me!
Posts: I have had my 09 corolla le for about a month now....best mileage I have gotten is 49, it was hilly terrain and so I purposely coasted down the hills and stayed under 2500rpm to climb them.
average hwy miles is 44
when my wife drives it , she averages around 38...she does not try like i do.
anyway this car seems to far exceed the epa ratings....I am guessing that anyone who just remembers to coast down hills will get in the 40's
I have not even read that much on the different techniques used by ecomodders yet but I really enjoy seeing what I can get.
btw mine is an automatic and we have been in a heat wave here since I got it, so all these numbers are with the a/c wide open
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Last edited by mercury7; 07-31-2008 at 10:18 PM.
Yesterday, 09:14 PM #11 (permalink)
mercury7
EcoModding Lurker
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: powdersville sc
Posts: 4 just an update, still at around 44mpg average, I got 47 on the way to work today, I have been experimenting shifting in to neutral down long hills, this helps keeping my speed up while eccomodding but does not seem to help in overall mpg, I guess the corolla does the fuel shut off thing when coasting in gear is the main reason......it really seems like a 5 speed would have made this a 45mpg car without even trying.....also of note is the excellent scan guage feature....if this car had a small electric assist on take offs and climbing hills then I would easily be getting 70 to 80 mpg.....makes me wish I was a mechanic....there is definitely plenty of room in the trunk a mod like that.
Today, 09:16 PM #12 (permalink)
mercury7
EcoModding Lurker
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: powdersville sc
Posts: 4 well it looks like I am doing this thread myself lol...one more update though, increased my tire pressure to 40psi today...up from 35, result on the drive to work today was 49mpg vs the 47 I got yesterday. I am coasting as much as possible while trying to keep my speed up to at least 40 so it looks like 49 may be the best I can do. Happy but wanted to break 50
Just curious how the computer readout compares to your own calculation??? The 42 plus sounds great!!. I'd take the Corolla over the Prius anyday. I've always wondered what the long term cost differences would be over 10-15 years between the 2 cars?
Thanks!!
The Hyundai was a crap shoot, although who knows these days. I bought the Carolla just before the first real gas price spike Who knows what the cost of ownership is on either these days. I figure that trade ins on the Rolla MUST be better in 5 yrs or so. The Sante Fe was like a smaller tank w/ 18" wheels!!!
BTW: changing out a timing belt must run $5-$600 on the smaller interference type engines these days.Smaller Hyundai all have belts). (The 3.3 LITER Santa Fe had dual timing chains). MORE $$ TO FUEL THE CAROLLA...BESIDES, I AM BEGINNING TO LIKE THE LITTLE BUGGER, especially at the pumps! :shades: The 1st month was almost $1k additional depreciation as the public REALLY GOT NERVOUS as we breezed through $4!!!!I LIVE IN A SMALL TOWN AND SEE IT EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE (put a scratch in the rear the 1st month I owned it!)
My first economy car...EVER! It has VSC/.Trac and we will see how I do this winter. This is not a whim either. I sold off the Santa Fe plus my purely fun car....a 2004 Mini Cooper "S", and went for the Carolla!!!!!!!!! One less check to the Chevron company and one less check for the Insurance Company for me!
I will not be going back to an SUV type of auto again. At my age, ya get to change your thought process less often!
With gas TEMPORLARILY imho, down about $.50 off it's high (per gal)that also is of little consequense. Events such as what is happenning in Russia at present, could send prices moving once again. This time a movement of $5 per gal of crude in a single day will not have the "impact" that it had 1st time around!!!!
Is your Corolla Manual or Automatic transmission?
Kip
First of all, I think it does make a meaningful difference to drive a manual transmission. Just a little bit of coasting in city traffic has improved my MPG. Tucson is cursed with no useable interstates, so most of my tanks are pure city driving. And I always buy the least expensive Costco gas I can.
My first few tanks (again pure city, no highway) I was getting between 32.2 and 32.7 MPG without too much effort - just going to neutral when you can see the light turning red up ahead. Looking through the web threads for any meaningful path to improvement (beyond the obvious stuff - correct tire inflation, good tuning) I decided to try a couple.
Tried the Lucas Oil Upper Cylinder Lubricant fuel additive which purports to clean your injectors and improve MPG. After a few tanks, I recorded an average improvement of about 0.5MPG. This was probably just more careful driving and more coasting as it has dropped back to where it was after I lost focus on this. The car did seem to run a bit smoother on those tanks with the additive and it may well make a more meaningful difference in a larger engine. But with such a small engine in already good condition, it is not too surprising it didn't help much (trying it now in my Suburban, but that car is sort of permanently parked right now so slow to get data)
Next I tried replacing the stock air filter with a K&N Filter - Nothing fancy here just the one that drops into the same spot as the paper one. Doing this seemed to pick up another 0.5MPG so I was getting about 33.4MPG in pure city driving after doing both (and I did not add the Lucas product to each tank, just two tanks actually). Again, this might also be just more focused driving to see if it made a difference. Have sort of dropped back to my more normal driving style over the last few months and see about 32MPG on average - still real good. Again, the K&N product probably doesn't hurt and might certainly have more impact in a larger engine.
Now for the interesting part.
In pure hwy driving in Arizona, I was getting about 36MPG - frankly dissappointing looking at the EPA estimates. However, I recently took a 2200 mile roundtrip to Estes Park CO with a lot of mountain driving. Seemed the higher altitude I got, the better my MPG. Going from Durango to Estes I got 44MPG going up and down mountain roads. Does anyone know if this is an altitude issue, temperature issue, different gas in CO or what?? Coming back down from Santa Fe to Las Cruces, I got 42MPG - pretty respectable and consistent with the comments above.
Anyway, like the other people posting, I am very pleased with the Toyota Corolla MPG. I don't know of any other car this size that comfortably breaks 30MPG city and (sometimes) 40MPG highway. Strangely, you don't see it mentioned too often in the high MPG car summaries. Maybe too boring or not a new enough model, but the 5speed Toyota is the best bang for the buck I can find. If there is a better (or comparable) one out there (in a four door sedan) I would sure like to know about it since my teenage son is now looking and wants the same MPG but not the same car as his old man got.
You use less gas at altitude for the same reason you have less power - there is less oxygen in each "gulp" of air the engine grabs. The computer leans out the mix accordingly, and voila! You are saving gas!
I have read of some fantastic mileages people have managed on road trips in their Corolla 5-speeds - yours seem to be about what I would expect based on those other accounts - and what you say is true: it makes a significant difference going with the 5-speed vs the 4A.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Also, that 42MPG I got from Santa Fe to Las Cruces was pure I-10 driving with no stops and the cruise set at 78MPH. I did earlier try a reduced speed in Arizona on I-10 (78 down to 69 - any slower is a hazard on that road) and saw no real difference in highway MPG). All of this is with the AC running as needed.
As far as the Prius goes, I could never justify the difference in cost in my own situation
Down shifting, to slow down, looks wonderful in the movies or on the race track, but real world indicates that every time you operate the clutch, and force the engine to rev, results in less longevity on the associated parts. Compared to engines re builds, clutches, and CV joints, brakes are cheap to replace.
Learn the characteristics of your car and let off the throttle so that the car has slowed to a reasonable speed before having to apply the brakes. Once you get use to it, it becomes 2nd nature.
Kip
I do the same thing you are recommending: allow my speed to drop in the gear I am in, almost until it bogs, then clutch out and use the foot brake the rest of the way.
This is one of the ways a manual-shift car saves gas vs an automatic car.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Kip
Hard to say...check edmunds. The wait list for the Prius was over 500 in this area and it depends on how you equip them
True, but he is still wearing the synchronizers in the transmission when he does this, especially if not rev-matching.
Once I clutch out when decelerating, I shift it to neutral and release the clutch. I am always below 30 mph at that point anyway, and often below 20.
One other way I improve my mileage is to accelerate away from a light and get up to speed, then shift it to neutral and let it coast if there is a light in the distance that is red. I do take care, however, not to drop to an unreasonable speed if I am holding up traffic behind me.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
Your mileage improvement has a lot to do with the gasoline formulation used; which changes in the warmer months. With the exact same driving habits my "average" mileage is:
Warmer months-41-42
Colder months--34
I never warm up my car in colder weather. You can warm up the engine all you want; but the transmission and other parts are still cold. It is unecessary in a modern automobile. Driving gently until the heater air starts to warm is your best bet.
"Once I clutch out when decelerating, I shift it to neutral and release the clutch. I am always below 30 mph at that point anyway, and often below 20"
That's the way I drive also. You are also right about the throwout bearing wear. I believe the way you and I drive is the most correct way in minimizing wear.
My '99 gets 37 mpg on all highway trips at 75 mph - love it.
Later Caaz
I'm curious to see how much MPG difference this makes to the posters on this forum. My mileage "average" drops from 41 to 34. I just do not understand the reasoning behind doing this.
The rating is 27 city and 35 highway. I understand the fuel economy varies based on driving habits and conditions but I'm only getting about 230-240 miles on a full tank of gas. Thats about18.2 miles per gallon right? (240miles / 13.2 gallon tank =18.18 mpg) I haven't done any crazy driving with my car. I don't think there's anyway I should be getting such poor mileage on a new corolla. I don't expect 27 city but I should be getting over 23 mpg right?
I took it to the service station where I purchased the vehicle and informed the serviceman what my problem was. He refused to look at it and told me "you need to break in the car some more, 3 to 5 thousand miles and then you'll see it." Is he being truthful or just blowing me off? I don't know much about cars but every single older model toyota I've driven has given me better fuel economy. Maybe I'm wrong and my economy is suppose to improve after I break it in more. I hope this is the case but I am not sure, thats why I'm asking.
Note: I use the type of gas I'm suppose to.- (REGULAR)I've different gas stations as well.
I need some guidance, please help me. thank you for your time.
Good Luck
MNF