Big List of Fuel Economy: August 2009

I find the range of the mpg on the civic gx interesting...it has the best and one of the worst tanks....that bad tank killed the average.

Mazda6 over SX4. Genesis between A4 Avant and 135i. How much of this is about the way certain cars are made to be driven?

I really don't know how people live with 13 mpg. I'm all for driving and the pleasure of owning a car/truck .. but at some point enough is enough. It verges on wasteful.

I've been known to really hustle in my car and the figure never really drops below 20 mpg. I've got a turbo four, though. Definatly not a hemi.

wheres the lexus and the prius?

did you ever find a buyer for your 135?

what did it finally go for?

"The fact that the Genesis is right on top of the Avant kind of takes the wind out of that V6 performance with 4 cylinder economy turbo crap."

Not at all.

A turbo 4 can easily beat a V6 in light driving. The mpgs only fall when the foot goes down... like when magazine editors drive them.

everytime i see it i think the jetta TDI is oneve the best cars in america. german engineering and power + hybrid beating (almost) economy

Camaro more efficient than M3? Surprising considering the M3 is about 200lbs lighter. S5 is also trailing but it does have AWD. The FX's mileage isnt bad when you consider its a crossover and not a small coupe.

While the current roster of cars is by no means an exact representation of all the cars sold today, it's telling to note that the overall fuel economy of the fleet is actually worse than twenty years ago. We got fat, the cars we drive got fat and the HP went up, squandering any savings from improved technology. OPEC caught on almost ten years ago now and we've been paying for it ever since.

The Focus gets sold and the only way we know is from an offhand remark in another thread.....how about a long term wrap up for on of the most trouble free cars in the fleet? Or will it become one of those cars that just disappear???

"I really don't know how people live with 13 mpg. I'm all for driving and the pleasure of owning a car/truck .. but at some point enough is enough. It verges on wasteful.

I've been known to really hustle in my car and the figure never really drops below 20 mpg. I've got a turbo four, though. Definatly not a hemi."

I live with it just fine, and I definatly do have a Hemi! I also only drive about 6k miles a year and as for being wasteful, that is my choice and last I heard the U.S.A is a free country and I can drive whatever I want.

'The Focus gets sold and the only way we know is from an offhand remark in another thread.....how about a long term wrap up for on of the most trouble free cars in the fleet? Or will it become one of those cars that just disappear???"

They only got the Focud for Sync- they really weren't into the car. It was reliable but it wasn't sporty or exciting so don't expect any kudos for staying out of the dealer's service bay.

I sent an email to Ford yesterday, begging them to make a diesel Flex for me. Help me out with my campaign, people! :)

"I really don't know how people live with 13 mpg. I'm all for driving and the pleasure of owning a car/truck .. but at some point enough is enough. It verges on wasteful."

To me, wasteful means inefficient, the opposite of efficient. The fuel efficiency of a car is the ratio of useful work produced to the fuel energy consumed, in the same way that your furnace's efficiency is the ratio of heat produced to the fuel energy consumed. You say your furnace is 90% efficient? heat/energy = 0.9. Your car is how efficient? work/energy = ??? Heat, work, and energy all have the same units, and one can be converted into another.

I've estimated the efficiency of these long term cars with the assumption that the 'best' mpg listed represents something like steady state 70mph. I can then use the a-b-c coefficients found here: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/tcldata.htm to calculate road load (force) at 70mph and multiply by mpg to get pound-mile/gal (work/energy, or efficiency).

The efficiency of the Ram pickup is comparable to many of the other cars. If the Ram was as efficient as the Fit, at 31%, it would be getting 22mpg instead of 16mpg. That's about all we could reasonably ask of the Ram (and I'm pretty sure a Ram can get 20-21 under the steady state condition I've assumed). The reason it goes fewer miles per gallon is because it is doing more work, not because it is less efficient. I can agree that we should not be wasteful, i.e. that we should be efficient. But I do not think we have an obligation to limit the amount of work we choose to do.

Car Best eff.,%
2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI 43 29.4%
2007 Honda Civic GX 47.3 34.3%
2009 Honda Fit Sport 39 31.1%
2009 Mazda 6 30.2 25.3%
2009 Suzuki SX4 28.3 24.5%
2009 Audi A4 Avant 26.8 27.3%
2009 Hyundai Genesis 27.5 24.4%
2009 Ford Flex Limited 26.7 31.8%
2009 Nissan 370Z 24.4 22.1%
2009 Pontiac G8 GT 24 22.4%
2009 Infiniti FX50 22 26.8%
2009 Dodge Challenger R/T 26.4 25.3%
2009 Audi S5 22.3 19.3%
2009 Nissan GT-R 21.8 19.3%
2009 BMW M3 20.5 16.0%
2009 Dodge Ram 1500 16.3 22.8%

I average exactly 20.0 mpg with my G35, and seems to relate well with the 370Z reported here. I have yet to report a 13 mpg Worst, however, since I haven't flogged it at the track. I plan too, though! It all comes down to your routine driving habits and type of commute. If you are a salesman driving 70mph steady-state on your route, you are gonna so numbers in the higher ranges. If you have traffic and stoplights, you get near the bottom.

Small displacement, low-horsepower and turbo-diesels seem to be the way to go for everyday fuel economy.

"To me, wasteful means inefficient, the opposite of efficient. The fuel efficiency of a car is the ratio of useful work produced to the fuel energy consumed, in the same way that your furnace's efficiency is the ratio of heat produced to the fuel energy consumed. You say your furnace is 90% efficient? heat/energy = 0.9. Your car is how efficient? work/energy = ??? Heat, work, and energy all have the same units, and one can be converted into another. "

Exactly. In addition you have to factor in size and capability when talking about mileage. A full sized SUV that gets 14mpg can do much more with its size than a 14mpg M3 compact sedan.