breaking in and gas mileage

[thinc]

Hey people, been lurking for a while but I have a small nagging problem that I wanna ask you guys about. I bought a new '01 g20t w/ auto a couple months ago. The only one that was available was about 400 miles away. That wasn't a problem for me so I went and picked it up and drove it back home. Now I know that during the break in period I'm not supposed to drive over 50 and supposed to vary the speed a lot. I did limit my speed, however I didn't vary my speed except once about halfway and only for about 10 minutes. So it was basically 400 miles at 50 mph. That's an 8 hour drive so you I hope you can understand how I didn't want to get off the highway and vary my speed a lot. Cut to present day, I now have about 2100 miles on the car and have been driving "normally" since 1000 miles. The problem is that I'm only getting about 23 mpg with mixed city/highway driving. I hardly ever rev the car high or drive aggressively. Could that initial long drive at constant speed be the culprit? or is this normal for a new car? Sorry for the long post. Thanks all.

[kenchan]

hey, congrats on your new car.

naw, I wouldn't worry too much about that drive back. I've seem people do nastier things like wot from a standstill on their new cars or drive over 70mph for hours touring around the country with their new car...not knowing it's bad for the engine... oh wait, am I talking about my parents on their lexus? ehehehe.

as long as you drive normally for the first 1,000-2,000miles, you should be fine. I'd be more worried about taking off the bugs on your front bumper and side mirrors! hehehe.

as for milage, your AC does make a BIG difference... if you want, try driving around with the climate control set to "Econ" to see how much more milage you may get.