Just thought I would share some strong MPG I've been getting on the freeway recently. Yes, I realize it's just 100+ miles (90% freeway, either flat or uphill), but I've been enjoying 35+ on the freeway for the past several months since having the timing belt service (including a new engine air filter). The point of this post is to give some confirmation to the comments about the engine really hitting it's stride at 100k+ miles (I'm at 108k):



BTW: if my engine dies tomorrow...

 

You sure it's not on a slight decline with a tail wind? ;-) I would be curious to see what figures you get that tank with hand calculated figures.

 

49 MPH isn't exactly highway speed

 

37mpg? that's it?

 

I actually took this before the decline part of the drive! But I absolutely agree that it's time for some hand calculated tests. I was fine believing the MID when it was 32+ mpg, but now I wouldn't mind an old-fashioned confirmation.

I did say "90%" freeway. But there's a ton of 55 mph limits (I was mostly at 65 mph) due to construction in Denver/Boulder right now. Probably worth testing it at 75 mph as well...

 

Yeah I would like to see hand calculated on it. I wish our cars got that

 

Yes, don't forget the odometer discrepancy these got hit with - tiny, but it did add an extra 2000 miles to the warranty.

It's also fairly easy to hit a high MPG for a short distance. The best I ever got across an entire tank in my 05 M6 was 36 - all highway, stayed 70 or under. I think I hit 515 miles on that tank, and boy was I scared I wouldn't make it to the gas station!

I haven't taken my 04 M6 on a long trip, but even with 200K+, it gets 25 mixed, so I'm not complaining. Hell of a lot better than the garbage G35 I replaced it with.

 

+1

Whenever I cruise at like 75mph, the MID will always say I'm averaging lie 73-74mph. It's always just a tad lower. And no I'm not doing it incorrectly. I would set the cruise at 75mph, and then reset the mid. and it'll always show a slightly lower average mph even though I never touched the brake or gas pedal.

 

OP, lemme guess.. You were driving west to east today?

I got 36 MPG for 125 miles today averaging 68 mph, but it was with a substantial tail wind (out of the west). The north central plains were very windy today!

 

When I drive to the Lake of the Ozarks down the 45mph and 55mph country roads, I can pull mid-30s easily ('05 MT 135k). Keeping under 60mph and not ever stopping will send your MPG way up. Once you hit 60 and keep climbing, the MPG just start dropping.

Much better to actually see MPG from several tanks of gas and not just from a portion of a trip. No matter what, we all know this car does great on the highway and not so great in the city.

 

My 05 manual averages 27mpg in mixed driving. All highway did NJ-Cali-NJ and it averaged 30mpg.
I consider that very good for a 4 door with a strong v6. I have 100K on this car and will drive it til it dies.
Way better than my weekend car which averages 18mpg...

 

wow this is impressive!

I don't do a lot of highway driving... Mostly city so I average 24mpg but I'm still at 85K on the odometer.

 

No cheating, I swear! If anything, more east to west driving - 7am trip east to the airport (DEN), back west home, then northwest up to Boulder - no wind, as far as I could tell.

For reference, two years ago I drove from SF to Denver and was at 33 mpg. That had been pretty consistent until 12/2013, when I had the timing belt service (including spark plugs and air filter) - now I've jumped a few mpg. Just giving some love to the TL...

 

Very impressive. Headed out on an 1100+ mile round trip from MA to VA. I would love to get that mileage. I used to get 33 / 34 MPG in my 04 TL, but best I have ever done is about 29/30 in my 08 TLS. I know part of the key is keeping speeds down below 70 but it can be so hard to do so in general but also where the speed limit is 70...........

 

dude drove in a car train or behind a tractor trailer to get that milage

 

Man you guys must feather that throttle but with speed limits of 70 here in MO, I usually do about 80. I think I usually get about 25-26. I also have yet to do a complete full to empty all highway.

 

mine says 17 mpg and 17 mph haha

 

My '05 6mt just hit 177k, you guys all have babies for cars! Mine is young compared to some. Cruising at 80, with cruise set at 80 and occasion bursts from 80-100+ (didn't buy a fast car to not have some occasional fun) I average 27-28 on the highway. All my stats are from my 210 mile trip from Syracuse where I go to university, to northern nj, and back. If I went the speed limit, I get 33 no problem. If I try hard to feather up hills and accelerate down hills, and draft bigger cars/ semis(not tailing, just 55ish feet back drafting) I got 35. That was brutally slow. It's a 3:30 trip if I go the speed limits, but my speeding makes it right around a 2:40 trip. I can live with getting 27-30 mpg while having a decently powerful v6 that can keep up or outrun 90% of cars on the road. With the 6mt, this car is quite quick and responsive, and comfortable yet sporty on the highway for long trips. Bought the car at 157k, hit 177 and it hasn't even been 12 months! I've put some serious seat time in this car and I only love it more. What I don't love is my slipping clutch(as expected, it's my first manual, and I don't know how old the clutch is. I suspect it was original actually.) and the $2400 price tag on a clutch job

 

Pshh... 22 mpg

 

So I drove to VA this AM and the numbers on the Mid look like this -

AVG MPG 29
AVG MPH 69
DIST 464
TIME 6:43


This was for one tank of gas as the total ride is about 540 miles, which I can't do in my TLS. Spend a lot of time between 75 and 80, but many stretches at 65 as well.
As an aside we have an 09 Accord I4 and have gotten 580 miles on a tank of gas and could have gone further but we were home. Only took about 17.5 gallons to fill it back up. Calculated out to 33.2 MPG, but besides being a 4 cylinder, it also has a 20 gallon tank.

 

The speedo always over reports speed. Most manufacturers do that. The MID reads actual wheel speed sensor data and the speedo shows higher because the computer tosses in a few extra MPH. My BMW and VW did the same thing.

The most I've ever gotten is 30mpg with my TLS, what are you guys doing to get more? Stupid 5AT needs another gear...

Most I've ever gotten was 37mpg out of my 330Xi cruising in 6th gear for 300 miles. Pretty good for a AWD 6 cylinder car. I think I did something like 580 miles with that tank (16 gallons).

 

what do you do to get this gauge to show in a 06 tl auto???? i couldn't find a mpg gauge.

 

I generally average 25-26 mpg in mixed driving, 33 on a long highway cruise and no less than 24 in the winter with snow tires on. My 06 now has 99,000 miles and runs as good as when it was new.

 

Agreed.

37 is impossible on level ground with no tail wind and not drafting.

I had to make the 280 mile drive from Vegas to Bakersfield and realized my card did not work and I only had a $20 bill. I got 36 or 37mpg but that was settling in behind a diesel doing 54-55mph for the whole trip, no stopping, as close as I could get without destroying the paint. I was using every technique I knew to make it home.

I also used to have pictures of it reading >50mpg with a 70mph average for 60 miles. It all depends on where you reset it. Start it at the top of the Grapevine and reset it once going 70mph and it will do this every time. I've done nearly 100 miles with it around 42mpg on that trip.

 

No it doesnt, the 5th gear is tall enough as it is. cruising at 70mph is only at 2k rpm. There are no cars in its class that cruise at such a low rpm.

^agreed. my pic up top was a prime example. I'm aware 38mpg is impossible to average but I know there are so many ppl who believe everything the MID says so I wanted to show them up.

 

Agreed. I didn't see the comment about the 5at needing another gear. It's rediclously high. Considerably higher than the manual. It's easy to manipulate the mpg. My 36 or 37 was a painfully slow pace for 5hrs drafting behind a diesel, no stops, using fuel cut excessively on the steeper downhills, hoping that I could pick up reasonable speed without much throttle on the next decline.

 

The best I have done is 31MPG (actual MID read 32) with an average speed of 70MPH via MID. This was not babying the car with a family of 4 with luggage and a speed closer to 75 most of the time. I had the OEM Michelin tires which gave better MPG than my current tires do.

So 37MPG at average speed of 49MPH is very achievable for a 3.2/5AT and definitely if the car wasn't loaded with passengers or luggage. I think many of you with the 3.2/5AT should be able to do this. Hint: don't use cruise control.

 

keep dreaming with that fleet!!

 

FESS UP! YOU BLEW YOUR WAD AT THE BLACKJACK TABLES!!!

 

I wish. It was even dumber than that. My debit card was about to tear so I called the bank for a replacement on Friday. They didn't tell me my current card would be cancelled. It worked all day Ssturday and for breakfast Sunday but when I went to put gas in it was invalid. No banks were open and I had about 1/8 tank. I remembered I had a $20 in the glove box for emergencies and used that to get almost half a tank. That emergency $20 is now a $100.

I don't gamble, I would have just as much luck throwing my money in the trash can lol. It definitely would have been a better story if I had blown it all.

Sort of on topic, I had 255 NT05 tires which do not roll as well and are not as aerodynamic as stock so there's maybe 1mpg there. The car itself was lowered so there's a slight increase there. Not using cruise control except on the flattest of the flat roads probably helped plus it was hard to get it adjusted good enough to keep pace with the truck. Sometimes one bump up was too fast yet one bump down was too slow. I would have to turn it off and back on until I got the range just right.

I wish there was a "mpg" mode for cruise control where instead of trying to keep speed rigidly at the set point it would allow a +-2 or 3mph variance so it could use less throttle to bring the car back up to speed when hitting an incline. Right now it will dip into the throttle hard to keep mph constant.

 

J30 '04 Accord with the 5AT:

 

^ Yep- that's consistent with what I did too. I noticed with the Navi hack which yields the blue screen that that calculated MPH and MPG was a little high for some reason. I lost the hack a long time ago when I upgraded my Navigation disk. My run was 274 miles from Grapevine to Santa Nella in Northern CA.

 

In all honesty I do get about 28-29 mpg on highway realistically. City suffers quite a bit at like under 20mpg lol

 

This is very impressive. I average 26-27 mpg for combined driving.

 

Doing the math, that tank was within 0.3 mpg, just forget which way.

 

I drive in traffic,over the sepulveda pass

i get 21mpg after the 105k service before i got 19mpg

avg 25mph.... L.A. 405 Traffic sucks, actually hwy 101 is worse

 

Nice mileage! And yea, once you get over 60 mph, you're losing average MPG.

 

Haha ya I got 42 mpg once... but only for 2 miles

 

Think I got in the low 40s once coming back from the Poconos, PA think I was going about 80-85mph at times but this was before I hit 100k. Think It was due to down hill driving. My average commute I get about 30-31 mph on Hwy and i'm at 164K now.