i had a long drive in my rdx for abt 500 miles, and i see that the avg mpg was around 21.5 on the freeway. no aggressive driving.
how to increase the avg mpg??

 

wow! That's pretty good milage! I average 20 or so, so I'm not doing too bad either. I didn't buy this car cause it's economical.

 

Yeah...if you look through some of the other mileage threads, you'll find that there are a lot of folks having trouble hitting 18-19. 21 is actually pretty good. If you find a way to increase it, a lot of us would be interested!!

Mike

 

I hear this thing does miracles.

http://tornadofuel-saver.com/

Try it!

 

thx Mr.F.Rizzo for ur suggestion.
i have another question for u? will acura dealer install this add on that u have suggested. coz i dont want to install it with some local guy and tamper with my warranty.

 

tornado may be good for N/A engine, but for turbo is a big ?

the tornado is install in intake pike, after intake pass though turbo, I don't think the tornado will have any effect

just my 2 cents

 

Don't waste your money or even your time talking about this device. It does not work. It is like over 100 other devices tested by the EPA that do not work. While the EPA has not tested the Tornado, Conusmer Reports has.

This is a link to that test, and and a test of two other "gas saving" devices:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/c...20fuel%20saver

I should caveat that by saying that it does work enough to line the pockets of the manufacturer and marketers of the product.

 

I think FRizzo was being sarcastic with his suggestion and wasn't serious.

As Chas2 clearly indicates, the tornado is a gimmick.

 

I did a 160 mile round tirp with a few country roads and just a few miles of city driving off the freeway and my MID had me at an average of 24.0. Best I ever seen on mine. FWIW average speed loged in at 58 MPH.

 

The "As Seen On TV" devices probably work in much the same way as the Prius consumption screen - when you think you might get better mileage you drive differently and then you often do get better mileage. One of the local automotive journalists who reviewed the car when it first came out mentioned that he enjoyed watching the screen and realized that he was turning it into a mileage game - turning entertainment into energy savings.

The consumption screen draws a tiny icon of a car in the bar graph for each 50kwh that you regenerate. I took a ride in my sister's Prius this weekend and she talked about "how many cars" she "makes" driving to work.

Similarly, I find I get a little better mileage when I leave either the trip computer screen showing on the main display or set the MID to the instantaneous mileage display. I've never had the SH-AWD display on for long (as its usually hidden by a spoke of the steering wheel when you are turning and it might do something interesting). Does anyone find that they get, just guessing, worse mileage when they put that on to watch?

 

I've had 25.1 avg MPG on 80 mile trip (almost all interstate). I have mastered art of driving this thing at high MPG. Just don't let that turbo needle do anything -- rolling stops -- lay off gas on downhill, etc. Now on that trip I was only on 1/4 tank, no AC or heat, by myself, not eaten and was wearing shorts and t-shirt, but I got it up there! My average mileage (50/50 city/hwy) is actually 21. My wife (Mrs. Leadfoot) only gets about 18.

 

hey chavez77,good to hear from u that ur avg mpg hit 25, but switching off ur AC /HEATER and driving might be good for u in tampa,FL but i can't do that since am located in Jersey city.
anyhow,u gave us a naive idea abt how to increase avg mpg.
thx dude.

 

Keeping your speed reasonable is the best way to improve highway MPG from what I can tell. At 70-72mph, I get about 21-23mpg on trips. On country roads where the speed limit is lower (50-60mph), my RDX hits 25+ mpg. I tend to drive it very gently on highway trips for the most part -- no heavy throttle, gradual stops and starts.

 

anyone can get high mpg on the rdx by being easier on the gas...i think the consensus is that if you want to have some fun with it, expect lower mpg

 

Neo is correct. Best way to get better mpg seems to go easy on the turbo. Think feather-tip acceleration, watch the turbo needle to make sure it stays at the bottom of its arc. If it starts to move up, lighten up on the gas until you've mastered NOT engaging it.

This isn't hard to do, although for me personally it isn't much fun! I am testing a theory, though. Last tank (probably 90% city driving) I drove like a granny and my low fuel light came on at 260 miles after which I immediately filled up. I think my RDX said I was averaging 17.5 mpg. Which wasn't too surprising considering all the stop and go I had.

This tank I'm just gonna enjoy the normal ride (sometimes I feel like punching that turbo, so I will!) and see what I get when the light comes on. My guess is it won't be a huge diff. Either way, I don't care too much as this car is just made to be enjoyed (responsibly) and that's what I'm gonna do even if my mpg isn't awesome. That, and tint my front windows!

Another factor: your mpg will increase slightly as your miles increase. Not a lot, but you should see a bit of improvement.

 

I started with my first two tanks getting about 16mpg. The last tank (my 3rd) I got 18.8mpg. This is with about 60% city / 40% hwy on all tanks. But in reality, if we were talking 10-12mpg then I think it would be a problem. The extra $200-300 in gas costs per year is nothing to worry about. In fact, if I didn't have that mpg calculator on my display I probably wouldn't even notice the difference ;-)

 

Couldn't have said it any better myself! That's how I feel. I love driving it into the turbo mode, sometimes. If I get lower mpg b/c of that, so be it!

 

Couldn't agree more. Why buy a turbo if you don't intend to use it at least once in a while. To intentionally not engage the turbo on a consistent basis is a waste of RDX's power. I'll pay the few extra bucks to enjoy, particularly coming out of a turn.

 

I agree. We all bought our RDX's because of that sweet turbo! Stop worrying about a couple of extra hundred dollars for the year, drive it hard, enjoy the damn ride!

 

This "we all" doesn't really include me. It's an interesting engine and I appreciate what it does and I am enjoying the car for its many other virtues, but I would have preferred something else - like a normally aspirated 6 - under the hood if I'd had a choice.

 

Me too... at first. Originally, I really wanted a 30 MPG powerplant. I've never needed or wanted a lot of horsepower. I was sold on the style, interior and technology. Heck, I almost bought a CR-V -- but they were too ugly and no deals were to be had.

HOWEVER, after the first 100 miles, I became addicted to the turbo. Passing the lost tourists, elderly snowbirds and general highway idiots with impunity is pure joy. Also, taking high speed turns and curvy roads without hitting the brake (ala SH-AWD) has also produced some unexpected fun.

Flar, I also used to live in San Francisco. I understand your point. Gas is so expensive, lots of stop and go. Even on 280 or 101 rush hour can be just like city driving. Plus if you live in the city you have terrain which does not help MPG. BUT, most folks in Bay Area actually know how to drive. Here in FL, it's death on a popsickle stick. You really have to drive defensively (even if it's much less volume than SF) and having the turbo actually helps with that --- I can at least out run the morons.

 

You speak as if the two are incompatible.

My last car got weighed only 200 pounds less than the RDX, had HP and torque figures not that much different than the RDX (250 HP, 260 torque) did 0-60 in 5.5 seconds, did have turbos but with less lag than the RDX, passed people on the highway with impunity by just brushing against the gas in 6th gear [way more highway passing power than the RDX - not even in the same league], was rated lower in city mileage by the EPA than the RDX, but got almost as much city mileage in SF (19 or so) that the RDX is getting on the highway (unless I use cruise control) even though I was driving it very aggressively up and down the many hills. And the highway mileage was noticeably better than the RDX - 24 MPG easily at 80 without using cruise and passing people aggressively - a bit more if I was careful. The RDX has trouble getting much over 20 on cruise control at 75 and can only barely get its rated MPG if I stick to 65 and use cruise.

I do very much want some power, I just don't think this engine was the right choice to give this car power efficiently. "Turbo" may seem high tech and cool and fun, but in my experience, this one isn't delivering the goods that I think this car should have on either the power or the mileage fronts individually, much less in combination.

It does have plenty of power for city driving, though, but with much less mileage.

 

Sounds like you made a poor choice. You should unload your RDX and get something you want, not something you settled for.

 

I'm sorry, but I didn't say that I didn't like the car because of its engine. I also never said that I settled for the car. We all have things we like and things we don't like about everything - nothing is perfect.

I'm glad you like the engine. All in all, I think it's a pretty cool engine, but not the choice I would have made for this vehicle.

 

I see where you're going with this, I can't be alone to agree with you, that if it had a v6 it would be a no brainer. But It doesn't offer that option, so I I looked other places to get that option. Came back to RDX because it had the best of all worlds for a resonable price (period)

 

Agreed. When I have the display on I am obsessed with maintaining a good mileage rate. Also, I get better mileage when I use the paddle shifters. I'm not used to driving automatic, so I tend to drive hard w/o the shifters and my mileage goes down.

 

I imagine that they feared that with a V6 it would compete too much with the MDX and draw sales away from it, so they gave it a 4 cylinder and then boosted it up with a turbo to give it the performance that was needed. Looking back at the sales figures, it looks like the opposite has happened, though, and perhaps it could have used one more leg up to keep sales from jumping to the MDX. Although that may not be a bad thing for Acura in the long run as they sell a higher priced car with higher profits, it is bad because they manufactured way more RDX than they needed. They may also have lost some sales to the Rav4 V6 which performs better and gets better mileage.

I also think that they might be able to do some tweaking to the throttle management software to improve efficiency a bit. One of the first things that I noticed on the test drive was that the throttle seemed a little too sensitive. I kept thinking "whoa nellie" - it would want to take off when you just glanced at the throttle. That gives a nice comforting feeling of "Gee, look how much power this thing has", which probably helped with initial impressions, but in the long run it makes it a bit harder to do a low-drama (and thus efficient) launch. Sure, you get used to it after a while, but there is very little room to choose a launch speed between 0 and rocket boost. Since it is drive-by-wire, they can modify the car's character to give any impression they want from "gee, it just wants to jump off of the starting line" like it is currently set up, all the way to "gee, I have to plant my foot fairly far down just to get it to move". Somewhere in between there should be a happy medium where standard launches will not gulp as much gas, but getting some power is just a short and quick press of the throttle away.

 

I would love to hear more about how you use the paddle shifters for better mileage. I haven't used them much yet, but plan to start doing that more and more.

 

If you use them like you would the gears in a manual car - keeping your engine at lower RPMs, coasting in higher gears (i.e. use 4th on the street insead of 3rd), downshift systematically (i.e. if you're driving in 4th, downshift through 3rd and 2nd once you are around 15MPH), and controlling the shifting of your car (shift around 3000-3500 RPM) - you should see a difference. I also find that I can make the car drive smoother when I am using them. Again, that may just be me because I'm not used to driving automatic.

 

It didn't take a whole lot for me to adjust from the turbo H4 / 5-spd auto in my old Outback XT to the similar powertrain in the RDX. I am getting good gas mileage in the RDX and am able to drive it fairly smoothly. It does seem less willing to downshift and go than my XT was, and is especially reluctant to downshift out of 5th when I need a tad more power (to the point where I feel like the engine is lugging in 5th). Part of it was the transmission learning mode in the XT, which I had well trained after 2.5 years, and I think the sport mode in the XT was generally better -- it made for much crisper upshifts and downshifts. In contrast, the RDX sport mode merely seems to lock out 5th gear -- I don't notice any noticeable impact on shifts.

In the transmission's regular mode, I do use the paddles for downshifts quite a bit, when I need to slow down or go into a corner. It holds the lower gear until I begin to accelerate again, which is good on downhils. In corners, it upshifts when it shouldn't. That's another area the XT sport mode was better -- it would sense cornering loads and hold gears there too.

I have only used the "manual" mode 1-2 times on the RDX. Since I can get 20-25mpg without it, I have not seen the need for more control to improve MPG. Like the manumatic shifting in my XT, I find it to be no substitute for a real manual and don't get a lot out of it in terms of excitement. My S2000 has one of the best manual gearboxes ever, and that I *do* appreciate.