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Comments
I'm not really thrilled with the car's mileage, but let me explain: I really only check it when my wife and I are on a long road trip—the car loaded with luggage, the AC cranked to full blast, and traveling about 78mph (~3100 RPM). Also, we've only ever put 87 octane gas in this car; I've never heard that Echos benefit from premium fuel.
Given those factors, the best I've seen is about 33mpg. More recently, we took a long trip to the Gulf Coast, and we had 2 adult bicycles on a trunk-lid rack. With this setup, my average sunk to 29mpg over the 1000 mile trip.
Anyone care to comment on this performance? Are these normal numbers? Is something amiss?
The manual would do several points better, and you could be into the early 40s with that and a 10 mph speed reduction.
I have averaged 46-49 mpg on trips between SF and San Diego, holding the speed to 65 mph (and mine is the 5-speed) and not varying it too much except to pass.
Isn't that Rostra a great cruise? Mine still works like the day it was new, at 160K miles. Well worth the money for making highway cruising easier and also improving fuel economy. The Toyota people are idiots for not making cruise a factory option on all the Echos and Yarises.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
I'd check the usual suspects.... air pressure in the tires, and the engine air filter. I'm sure the auto tranny costs you a bit of MPG, but it shouldn't be on the order of 7-10 MPG. If you have many hundreds of lbs of stuff in the car, that will also affect the MPG.
I am consistently getting 40+ MPG with mid grade gasoline, compared to high 30's on lowest grade.
But instead of an auto I have a five speed, no air conditioner, otherwise stripped, and I would just guess am a lot more conservative driver than you are. It is possible to significantly exceed estimated mpg if you drive carefully, but 78mph with air conditioner, you should get less. Yours sounds about right to me.
And I know someone posted that the difference between manual and auto shouldn't be all that much, but in the Echo it is quite extreme. The automatics made much worse real-world fuel economy.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
With my manual ECHO on the highway at a steady 60 mph I got 53 mpg once! One of the few times I drove it on the highway.
I keep about 38 pounds in the tires, front and rear. Air filter is clean. Car has nothing in it, but me and a carseat for my kid. I coast aggressively. Turn off the car at traffic lights. 5w30 oil is always full. Coolant looks good. I ride with the windows up, but cracked a little. (It's starting to get too hot to keep doing this, however.)
Park head out in parking spots to keep down idle time. I coast to the end of the driveway. When you get in, get yourself settled and buckle up before turning on the car. Don't let anyone drive your car for about a week but you. Somebody else's habits will throw off your experiment. Keep your speed to no more than a smidge over 40, which is where you slip into the highest gear.
Leave earlier and take your time. Slow down when you approach a light to let the other people trip the sensors to get it to change. That way, you can roll up to it and never have to stop. Also, park in the shade.
Fill your tank no more than half way to keep down your car's weight. When you get low, fill back up to half a tank. The tank has 11.6 gallons. Leaving out half a tank saves you about 46 pounds. Wouldn't you take out 46 pounds of unneeded stuff?
That's about it.
Just FYI. You make the call...
We got this car from Carmax about 5 years ago, and although they reportedly examine everything thoroughly, I can't help but wonder what might have happened to the car before I bought it. (As an aside, within a week after purchasing, we had to bring the car back to Carmax; it was shaking badly because a couple engine mounts had failed—something that Carmax is supposed to check during their inspection process.)
The worst mileage I ever get is not in the summer with the A/C running constantly, but in the coldest part of winter, because the car takes longer to warm up (and I often idle it for a bit while I wipe the windows so I can see out, and so the defroster will work as soon as I get on the road).
The per-tank mileage is very consistent for me in this car: 40-41 mpg in summer, 42 in spring and fall (less A/C use, mild nights), 39 in winter. That is for my typical suburban driving, including my commute which only sometimes has traffic. A trip out of town on the highway will net me a 5-7 point gain.
2014 Mini Cooper (stick shift of course), 2016 Camry hybrid, 2009 Outback Sport 5-spd (keeping the stick alive)
It spent the first 50K miles driving between Port Orchard, and Redmond, WA. Nasty drive. The next 60K or so saw me going from Pt Orchard to Dupont, WA. Then from Pt Orchard to Hillsboro, OR. 5 years of driving between Hillsboro and Rainier, OR.
Now I drive 48 miles one way to work in rural VA. The car has about 210K on it and it's needed basic maintenance.
My GPS tells me that my average speed over the last 3,000 miles is 48 MPH.
I have observed that if you refill the tank at the half way point, the MPG is considerably lower than if you run the tank all the way down. Lower 30's. If I run to the blinking light and then fill, I get 41-43 MPG running 89 Octane.
In the same conditions, with 87 Octane, I get 35-38 MPG.
I have found that if I drive with my windows down consistently that my mileage is about the same as if I ran the AC consistently too. It was 91 today and will be that way for about the next four months. I have to have the AC going, so my stellar 44 mpg is going to be on hiatus for a bit. 95 degrees with the windows down at 60 mph feels like I'm standing behind a bus.
The issue of half filled tanks makes less sense to me (though I'm not disputing what you say). I always go from empty to full, so I have no personal experience on this. But my very best tanks (those of 50mpg or above) have all come on roadtrips when the car was very heavily loaded. And five gallons of gas I would think does not weigh enough to make a big difference.
As an aside, I've given up on trying to find another similar Echo. You just can't find them, and the few that are for sale, are WAY above book value. Basically, it apears the car is way undervalued by KBB, NADA, not to mention the groups that provide valuation data to the insurance adjusters (CCC and ADP, primarily).
Darn it.
We motorcyclists "fly and drive" all over the country to get the bikes we want/can afford. Use Craigslist a lot. I would think in the case of replacing an ECHO that would be justified if you can find one a reasonable distance/good tactical situation ie a relative or friend lives in the city and can check it out for you.
If there is no ECHO what will you get?
Just interested. What are you thinking of getting?