What's your mileage?

[bbhjoe]

I just bought a new to me 2000 malibu and I am so far pretty happy with it. The only problems that i've had is dealing with the dealership and the gas mileage seems to be low (17 city, 26 highway). What are you getting? I've been able to rule out bad sensors, i've had them checked by two different shops and they both came up with the same thing. Right now i'm going through the vacuum system to see if that might be affecting it.

Please give me some suggestions!

[ViperJ]

I also have had not as good gas mileage. I get 16/17 city and i rarely take it on the highway so I dont know what that is. I got the 4 cylinder because i thought it would get better gas mileage but i guess not.

[Rhcmlc]

I have a 2003 Malibu that also gets bad gas mileage. The car only has 32,000 miles on it. Most of my driving is city not highway so I guess that has something to do with it. Others I've talked to agree that Malibus are not efficient. I guess I should have purchased a big SUV. At least those get 12-15 mpg consistently!

[wpbharry]

Most of my '98s mileage (V-6) has been city with A/C on (live in FL), so I doubt I've ever hit 20 city.

Your mileage sounds about right.

[psychobadboy]

I have a V6 and generally get horrible milage. It does good on the highway (calculated it at 28 mpg) but is seriously offset by city driving. I get an average of about 20 mpg on a tank...that's about driving half on the highway and half on the streets. doesn't make sense, but driving the streets burns gas like crazy

[bbhjoe]

Thank you all for the input, it is at least comforting to know that other people are getting the crappy ass gas mileage I am. (even though GM claimed much better)

Does anyone know any tricks to improve gas mileage other then the usual? (i.e. turn of A/C, smooth starts and stops, don't drive over 60 mph) I was thinking about putting in synthetic oil instead of conventional oil to help with the mileage. Would higher octane help (not that anyone wants to pay $2.60 a gallon)? Has anyone had any success with this?

[Rhcmlc]

I've been using Mobil 1 full synthetic oil, but my mileage has not improved. I'm still using Mobil 1 because I believe it's a superior oil anyways. I don't think changing motor oil will improve mileage on any car.

[psychobadboy]

well one thing you can do is to use cruise control whenever you can on the highway. using cruise control saves gas. i don't think higher octane gas would help any...it's more expensive and the malibu doesn't need it in the first place.

[seniorbigs]

I rented an 02 for a trip. Short trip of 450 miles round trip. all highway, 32 mpg. We loved the car.

[ViperJ]

Originally Posted by bbhjoe

Thank you all for the input, it is at least comforting to know that other people are getting the crappy ass gas mileage I am. (even though GM claimed much better)

Does anyone know any tricks to improve gas mileage other then the usual? (i.e. turn of A/C, smooth starts and stops, don't drive over 60 mph) I was thinking about putting in synthetic oil instead of conventional oil to help with the mileage. Would higher octane help (not that anyone wants to pay $2.60 a gallon)? Has anyone had any success with this?

The first thing you could do is replace the sparkplugs and sparkplug wires. This will create a hotter spark which will give each cylinder more efficiently. Thus creating more power, torque and better mpg.

For the oil it could help, i have had different options on this. If you do replace oil i suggest Royal Purple as this is the best oil and it to also frees up a couple of horsepower.

Higher octane can help you car but most likely it won’t. You could add fuel injector cleaner to your gas to clean the injectors which would also help.

[sparkn]

'99 four here. Gas mileage around 24-27 all around. Found number 4 spark plug cracked and a leaky fuel injector. I haven't replaced the injector set yet, but the spark plugs have made a difference (23-24 before). I keep Lucas oil for fuel systems in my tank and it keeps the gas mileage up about 27 for two or three tanks. I really think these fuel injectors are the cause of most of my woes with this car. I'd like to put in an Accel matched set, but haven't found info on the lbs./hr yet. Anyone know?

[burly]

I get between 30-34 mpg on my highway trips. Around town I get around 19-21 mpg, though if I do longer distances in town I get up to 22-23 in town. With a highway/city mix i average 25mpg on the tank. I have a '03 Malibu which only came with the 170HP 3.1V6 and currently has 23k miles on it. I have got as low as 18 or 19 mpg, but only in the winter when it takes the car so much longer to warm up. If you do a lot of short trips (<10miles) and/or a it's cold where you live, you will often get substantially lower gas mileage. While the car is warming a number of things are going on including retardation of timing and decrease in the air fuel mixture (meaning, running richer). This is to warm up the catalytic converters so that it can do its job, part of emissions control. This translates in to lower gas mileage. Once the car is warm, the timing and air/fuel mixture is placed at an optimum level. This means that the longer your car takes to warm up due to the temperature or if you do a lot of short trips where many of the miles on your tank were spent warming up the engine and emissions system, that your fuel efficiency will suffer noticeably.

As far as what you can do to improve your mileage here are a few things:

1: While there isn't a whole lot that can be done to make the engine warmup faster And more fuel efficiently (revving it will warm it up faster, but use just as much if not more fuel doing so), you can minimize it's effect by planning your trips and consolidating errands so that your car spends less timing warming up.

2: Tire pressure. This is a huge MPG killer. I run my vehicle 35psi front 33 psi rear cold. The vehicle recommendations for the Firestone Affinity tires is 29psi front 27psi rear cold I believe. You need to make sure that you are at Least running the 29/27 and that that is a Cold tire pressure measurement - meaning you haven't driven in several hours. I saw about a 2-3mpg increase going to 33-35 psi. Do not exceed 35psi cold however, unless your tires are marked for higher pressures, as the Affinity's max pressure is 35psi cold.

3: Regular oil changes. While I use Mobil 1 sythentic oil of the same weight as the factory (5W-30 if I recall), the important thing is to do it regularly. I don't think I got any improvement in MPG by switching to sythentic, and if I did it probably only improved 1mpg. However, proper oil and filter changes at regular intervals improves the efficiency of the engine and helps to minimize warm-up periods. Oil that is to heavy (like 40 weight) or to thick will decrease the engine efficency. As oil gets old and used it breaks down and its effectiveness is lessened.

4. Weight. The less your car weighs, the less the engine has to work to keep it moving. Now, I wouldn't go removing things like AC and stuff, but if you have items that you keep in your car that weigh a decent amount and are not necessary, then remove them. Things like, your shovel and cat litter that you may have still in there from summer or all that stuff you brought home from work that you never took out etc. Again, don't remove factory items but personal effects that are simply taking up space (and adding weight).

5. Climate control. At highway speeds driving with the windows down can be more inefficent than running the AC. The parasitic drag created by having the windows open can place more demand on the engine than the AC compressor. While this is certainly not true in town traffic at 35mph stop and go, its the speed and constant engine speed that makes this true on the highway. Also note, the AC compressor automatically comes on when you turn on the windshield defogger. If you aren't using the defogger at the moment, the either turn off the fan completely or move the air to a vent.

6. Gas. While you will see no benefit from runner on gasoline of an octane rating higher than is recommended, you may see a difference running on "good" gas versus cheap gas. I consistantly get better mileage running on Shell or Mobil or Texaco gas, etc after a few tanks than I do running off of Price Club gas or some other discount gas. While running the occasional tank is usually fine, the additives in a good gasoline keep the fuel delivery system clean which keeps it as efficient as possible. Over time the use of cheap gas can neglect this effect and cause a reduction in mile efficiency.

7. Maintenance. Besides oil changes, make sure the vehaticle is in good working order. Things like, cracked spark plug wires, fouled or improperly gapped park plugs, faulty O2 sensors, out-of-alignment suspension and so on can all lower fuel economy.

8. Acceleration. This is kind of a no brainer, but minimizing not only the rate at which you accelerate, but also the frequency with which you do it, will effect your fuel economy significantly.

I think I hit most of the major things. There may be some other minor things that play a role that I neglected but by thinking about these guidelines above, I think you can get pretty close to the highest fuel efficiency your car can deliever. One final note about engines. While a 4-cylinder of smaller displacement may consume less gas than a 6 cylinder engine of larger displacement at idle, if the engines are placed in identical cars, the larger 6 cylinder can yield as good or better gas mileage as the smaller 4 cylinder. This is because if the 4 cylinder has less power or if its power is made higher in the revband where its fuel consumption is higher, it may have to work harder to propel the vehicle to the desired speed and with the desired acceleration. This isn't always true, and it depends on driving conditions but don't think that because the 2.4L I-4 engine is a 4 cylinder and smaller in displacement than the 3.1L V6 that it is automatically going to yield better gas mileage.

[Linkin12]

my mileage for my 02 with 40k on it isn't that great either..i get 15ish on local and about 30 on highway..i asked the dealership why i was getting such bad mileage local (considering i drive slowly..less than 2k rpm) they just put extra pressure into the tires and that was it

[Verywhittieguy]

I have a 2000 mali with a 3.1L and I have been getting an average of 29 mpg just about everytime I fill up a new tank of gas. I have never gotten below 23 mpg. So Im not sure whats going on with everyones gas milage.

[wpbharry]

Granted, the engine in my '04 Maxx LS is still green (400 miles), but I've only gotten a max of 15 in city driving (A/C always on). But yesterday I got 31.2 on a 250-mile (rountrip) day jaunt, nearly all highway, if you can believe the Driver Info Center.