2013 1.4 Turbo mpg

[Eranthe]

I'm pulling 23-24 MPG with a 2013 auto 1.4T LTZ hatch in almost exclusively short-trip, stop and go driving on hills. I disapprove.

 

[IN CARS]

I drove my 45 mile gently rolling Interstate today and got dead on 30MPG@72MPH. This was in Trifecta ECO mode. On the way back, same. This was according to the car DIC. If I had driven, say 100 miles one way, I am sure it would have continued to rise. But how far do you have to drive until it tops out I wonder? You all who are getting 40+MPG: Are you using pump math avg over time or the car readout? Reason I ask is today I reset the computer about the time I ramped on and set the cruise at 72MPH, and watched it rise. It was continually going up until I reached my destination. Maybe on my first 600+ mile trip to New Orleans, I'll get 40+!

 

[klystron]

You guys are doing better than me. At 560 miles my average is 30.6 and I don't drive hard at all. I've run it to redline once.

 

[ungawd]

I haven't noticed any difference in gas mileage with the belly pan, but I bought it for stability. Prior to the winter gas switch I did get better gas mileage from 93 octane vs 87. Now, using the winter blend, that difference is very small. Could they be using more ethanol in order to bump the octane rating up to 93? That is what I really wonder. If that is in fact the case then efficiency will be reduced by 30% by volume of the added ethanol.

Also, temperatures at 40f and below really cause my mpg to plummet.

 

[MartyH]

I'm giving you a milege figure that is being calculated by hand and averaging the tanks to compare to the lifetime mpg shown on the display and they're running very close. Yes, it does vary slightly from tank to tank. I'm now at 36.4mpg average for the life of the 1600 miles I have on the car. I finally got some highway time and it bumped the milege a smidge. from the 36.2 I had been holding at. Tank to tank there has been ZERO difference in average fuel economy between 87 octane and 93 octane.
I'm running 87 for now on and not looking back.

I've gotten a couple tanks that nearly got 50 mpg.

How are you tacking your gas milage Marty?? From your post you are going off dic and also hand calc but what are you basing your # off of. For instance I fuel up. -reset DIC and Trip. -refill when I get close to running out of gas. -fill tank. -calc mpg. Trip/gal=mpg that tank, I do this every tank and log it as well as my DIC mpg.

The reason I ask is it sounds like you are doing a lifetime mpg calc. Almost every subsequent tank I've had has varied by atleast .5 mpg even if I made no modifications and had a near identical drive cyles. I've had as high as 49 and as low as 34mpg with an average of ~38-40 mpg (20%rural- 30%city- 50%highway usually). If you are doing a lifetime avg it will take along time to notice anychange and it will be hard to notice if any change was due to drive cycles, mods, gas, etc.

Don't take this the wrong way, I'm not calling you out or saying your doing it right or wrong . Simply trying to understand your style of doing this because I would expect some mild variances between fill ups mods withstanding.

By thw way I saw no definitive numbers to support that either running 93 or a bellypan were better than the alternatives. My max was about 0.5mpg better on 93 vs 87 with very similar drives, but at 500+ miles on either tank simply idleing a little longer a few times could account for the difference. Same with the belly pan but my comparision for it have the bellypans before and after has been thrown off by mods, so I don't have enough data to paint a picture on it..

-tyler

 

[ThatTmoGuy]

Took this one this morning after my 24 mile commute to work, mostly 65-70 a few drops into 3rd to pass.

 

[firstorbit84]

Seems like those with low mpg have brand new cars. I think the engine needs to break in a little before getting advertised mpgs or better

 

[ThatTmoGuy]

That could be very true but I've gotten pretty good MPG's since my car had 30 miles on it. Learn to hyper-mile to stretch those MPG's out. I don't HM to the fullest because it's too much fun to do hard WOT pulls but when I'm not driving like an @$$ I do really good on MPG.

 

[klystron]

I think it's the gas. I notice my Cobalt is averaging 29 which is the worst I've ever seen it on a tank. So if the Sonic is over 30 then I guess that's an improvement.

 

[ungawd]

I don't hypermile or anything. My mileage per gallon increased slightly over a month until winter blend hit the pumps here. When I was forced to start using that crap my mpg dropped significantly. It went from 37 down to about 32. It has steadily increased since then to around 35mpg on winter blend. I was a bit annoyed about the abrupt drop considering that it was becoming more economical by the tank, but I didn't fret it. Once spring hits I'm sure I will be quite pleased.

For brevity sakes; winter sucks.

 

[jchasp59]

I'm a tad disappointed with my mpg - OnStar says 35 lifetime but calculated out is 34mpg - right with what the combined mpg is supposed to be but I drive 80% hwy miles. I stick to 65mph most of the time but do drive 70 on occasion. I try and drive to creep the mpg avg up but it seems finicky.

I'm almost set to blame the lack of quality gas stations - don't have many that have separate lines for 93 (87, 89 and 93 combined into one) so I do get a mix of 87 in there.

It's silly though, when I fill up with 93 the miles remaining always says "430". When I fill up with 87 it's "395" so the car knows what octane I'm running yet I still have problems getting the mpg to be 37 on the hwy, even with 93 @ 65mph.

Still stock here on my 1.4T and 3500 miles on factory oil and air filter. Guess it's time for full synth and K&N filter.

I changed to Mobil 1 Extended Performance and a drop-in K&N filter 5k miles ago (all else is stock) and I still average only 34mpg (70% hwy, conservative driver), regardless of the octane (or ethanol content) of the fuel that I've tried since I bought the car new in May, or the weather. Close to 9K on the odo, now, and avg mpg hasn't changed since I bought it. Have never achieved 40mpg on a 100% hwy trip. Best was 38mpg, once. The trip computer is always 3-4mpg optimistic, as is OnStar's lifetime mpg. I think GM may have over estimated the mpg for this car. That didn't work out so well for Hyundai...

 

[firstorbit84]

Maybe some of the factory tunes are miscalibrated. Didn't Trifecta say that some of the stock cars they dynoed had less power than others?
I get 34 in mostly city, and it quickly starts to jump up when I get on the highway. I haven't checked it manually yet vs the on board trip computer or done any all highway tanks

 

[sx sonic]

Jchasp69 how fast are driving?? This is my first car with an MPG display (DIC) and before I thought the key to mpg was gentl accel.

I quickly learned that speed and idleing play a HUGE factor in MPG. Once the engine is warmed up I can get upwards of 70-80 mpg at 42mph (65mpg usually). About 55mpg at 55mph. Aprox 50 at 60mph. 35-45 @ 70mph depending on conditions and about 30-38 @ 80 mph (I've hit 45mpg). That's all instantaneous on an UG or a "rolling reset" where u reset the DIC at cruise speed.


With very little idleing, light accel/ short shifting, and cruising at the speed limit an all highway run should yield 40+ all highway and about 35+ city.