320 mile road trip - gas mileage- what ya think?

[bleepster]

well - we finally took a LONG road trip (long for us)
round trip was 360 miles +/-

with 7 passangers (avg. weight prolly 210 lbs) and a 20 cu. ft. cargo topper on the van LOADED and the back of the van LOADED we ended up getting 19.6 mpg

we were highway all the way. Avg. speed was 73, no wind really.

considering all that - is 19.6 good?

its an '04 venture - runs like a champ. has 40k miles on it now.

[cdru]

EPA gas milage is somewhere between 19 and 26 for a Venture. I looked up a 2002 FWD model but other years should be similar. The fact that you had it completely loaded, especially with 1400lbs of people, I'd say you got pretty good milage. With the cargo carrier on top, I'd say you got excellent milage. The cargo carrier adds a significant wind resistance.

How did you compute your milage? The computer or my hand? I know my computer usually is 2.5+ gallons incorrect the wrong way, reporting a higher MPG reading then it should.

[bleepster]

mileage was calculated by setting the trip odometer to zero when we filled up to leave.
when we filled up again, i read the milage on trip odometer and divided by the gallons put in on fill up.

i dont have a computer on this vehicle that reports gas mileage. at least that i know of.

all i have is "trip a", "trip b" and "oil %"

[cdru]

Your way is the most accurate way. Some vehicles have a driver information center (DIC) as part of the overhead console. I imagine that it calculates the fuel used based off the duty cycle of the injectors or some other method (other then gas tank level), but after a tank full of gas, it's normally several gallons off. I'd say you did very well if you got over 19MPG fully loaded with the carrier.

[DRW1000]

I woud think you did well too. I assume you are using the smaller US gallons. I doubt we get more than that using imperial gallons. Of course this is usually city driving.