Road trip fuel mileage

[hybridbear]

More 75 MPH driving with 20 MPH crosswind.

 

 

Gas tank from Billings to Bismarck

 

[hybridbear]

Again you can tell when I drove and when my wife drove by the brake scores lol my wife says I'm fixated on brake scores

[hybridbear]

Last leg that my wife drove at 75 MPH then decreasing to 70 MPH once in MN because that's the speed limit here

 

I drove the final stretch home at 65-70 MPH. There were also quite a few construction slow downs to 55 MPH for a few miles here and there. This took us all the way back to our apartment

 

The tank of gas from Bismarck home

Bismarck elevation - 1686 ft

Home elevation - 852 ft

Drove about half at 75 MPH and half at 65-70 MPH with strong crosswinds. The winds were straight out of the north while we were driving straight east and then when we turned SE the winds shifted and were blowing out of the NE...we just couldn't win with the winds on this trip

 

Overall summary for the entire road trip

 

Before we left home I was optimistic in hoping for 45 MPG. Driving at 75 MPH really killed the gas mileage. If we had kept our speed to 70 MPH yesterday we would have been above 43 MPG for the whole trip. This screen showed 43.9 when we left Billings yesterday morning. If we had driven 65 MPH all the way home we probably would have been close to 45 MPG for the whole trip. Driving 75 MPH lowered the trip MPGs as low as 42.4 but then driving slower through MN raised it back up. Overall an average speed of 54.54 MPH according to these numbers

 

One thing we noticed is that the gas mileage at 65 MPH is pretty good, at 75 MPH it's terrible. At 65 MPH on a lot of small downhill slopes you will see the power demand go to 0 on the Engage or Empower displays. At 75 MPH even steep downgrades do not provide enough pull from gravity to overcome the wind resistance and friction. This has a big impact on MPGs at the higher speeds. Another thing is that rolling with the mountains is very effective. I tried to minimize the engine braking when driving in the mountains as much as possible since that is just wasted energy. When I knew a downgrade was coming I tried to get the battery as low as possible at the top of the mountain so that I could store more electrical energy going down. I also used the cruise control to gradually increase my speed. In some cases I went from 60 MPH with a low battery at the top of the downgrade to 75 MPH at the bottom with a full battery. Our brake pads also probably got more use on this trip of 5000 miles than they did on the 6000 miles of city driving we've done with this car.

 

Another note is that the passing power is great. In Canada we were driving almost exclusively on 2 lane highways so we did quite a bit of passing. The FFH seemed to accelerate effortlessly to pass. The highest speed I saw while passing someone was 85 MPH. The car seemed to accelerate from 60-80 MPH very quickly and without making a lot of noise. I would have been really scared to do something like that in a Prius or in any other hybrid.

 

Overall it looks like at 65 MPH you can get 45+ MPG, at 75 MPH it is closer to 37-38 MPG. And at 70 MPH you're somewhere in the middle, around 42 it seems from our travels. This is all driving with air conditioning, although it doesn't put a very heavy load on the car over long distances like this.

[acdii]

Nice summary. Welcome home. I think you are on the money about the speed vs MPG. Thats what I am seeing in mine, between 65-70 I get 45.

[corncobs]

Great summary hybridbear!

Your expierences and results match mine pretty well I would say the only major difference are the tires. It appears that especially on long road trip we pay an extra premium for the 18" shoes.

 

An average 43 MPG @ 55 MPH is pretty awesome considering that you didn't just drive circles around the flatlands of the Midwest you went thru the mountains as well.

[keithsm2]

Great numbers ..even at 75.. I would say the AC load would depend on the outside ambient temp.. Cause when we were traveling at 78 MPH and about a 100 degree day....we were turning in numbers around 33!!

[GrySql]

I realize how jaded we've become with these cars when traveling at 75MPH in a 20 MPH crosswind with the A/C on - and our cars 'only' get 36mpg's LOL!

Then a comment about how easy it is to pass with plenty of power... definitely not a Prius.

Your trip average was impressive by any standard with a car this big, comfortable and that weighs 3,600+ pounds.

I think you've gone on more and longer trips than anyone here on the Forums, and your reports are very valuable for others to see how darned good the FFH's really are in all kinds of conditions, elevations and temperatures. Thanks for all the great input.

 

Welcome home!

Edited July 1, 2013 by GrySql

[kuzzi]

Don't want to push you to do some unecessary wrenching, but have you checked your plugs after the road trip?

 

I would venture to guess after the trip they are much lighter than others who are EV heavy drivers.

[milleron]

It really depends on the situation. If my battery has been mostly discharged (let's just say it's at below half capacity) then I do see exactly what you describe. But what I usually see the car doing, and again this is on relatively flat stretched that I'm talking about, is it will say it's charging the battery most of the time, and then when it needs the extra help it discharges a little. It's like the car is trying to stay at 45 MPG instantaneously while keeping the battery around 80%. So it's playing a little balancing act, and I sometimes see it discharge a little more and the instantaneous will go even higher for awhile. I think this is when it's getting close to capacity on the battery.

 

And yes, this all happens above the EV threshold. Everything I've described was observed at 65 MPH, so no EV mode.

 

That makes perfect sense and matches my experience almost exactly. My problem is that I have very little level freeway to drive around my home. When I do find some, though, and set the cruise control to 65, it behaves just as you describe. That's reassuring.

[acdii]

Traveling today Rockford IL to St Paul MN and got between 39 & 43 MPG. Made the trip on 8.75 gallons on the trip 2, and will fill tomorrow. Very pleased, further proof the other car was broke! It wasn't as bad a trip as I thought it would be.

[hybridbear]

Don't want to push you to do some unecessary wrenching, but have you checked your plugs after the road trip?

 

I would venture to guess after the trip they are much lighter than others who are EV heavy drivers.

I plan to do this. No time after we got home Sunday because I was helping my parents get acclimated to their Energi. I will start another thread about spark plugs because I also haven't taken the cover off to see how to get to them yet either and am looking for what others have found of how to get to them.

 

Traveling today Rockford IL to St Paul MN and got between 39 & 43 MPG. Made the trip on 8.75 gallons on the trip 2, and will fill tomorrow. Very pleased, further proof the other car was broke! It wasn't as bad a trip as I thought it would be.

What speeds were you going?

[acdii]

I plan to do this. No time after we got home Sunday because I was helping my parents get acclimated to their Energi. I will start another thread about spark plugs because I also haven't taken the cover off to see how to get to them yet either and am looking for what others have found of how to get to them.

 

What speeds were you going?

Kept it at 68 for the majority of the trip up, trip back experimented with 75-80. then kept it under 65 for the last 2/3rds. 75-80+ 35.5 MPG. It was also quite winding, hitting me passenger front for most of the trip.

[GrySql]

Kept it at 68 for the majority of the trip up, trip back experimented with 75-80. then kept it under 65 for the last 2/3rds. 75-80+ 35.5 MPG. It was also quite winding, hitting me passenger front for most of the trip.

Fully loaded, a frontal wind and various speeds to 80mph - that's pretty good mpg's I'd say. The extra room if you'd taken the Flex was more than paid back in the FFH with it's good mpg's.

Besides, a couple months ago you had two FFH's and would have gone on this trip in one of them anyway.

 

Glad you avoided any large critters on the roads too. I wonder what your front radar would do if a deer was in your path.

[acdii]

Fully loaded, a frontal wind and various speeds to 80mph - that's pretty good mpg's I'd say. The extra room if you'd taken the Flex was more than paid back in the FFH with it's good mpg's.

Besides, a couple months ago you had two FFH's and would have gone on this trip in one of them anyway.

 

Glad you avoided any large critters on the roads too. I wonder what your front radar would do if a deer was in your path.

According to my wife's back side, going to MN was OK, but anything longer will not be in the Fusion. She was sitting between the 2 kids in the back and the seat has that hump in the middle that was giving her a butt ache after 5 hours. We got the Flex back yesterday, and still getting 21-23 MPG in it, so happy there, but sad that the paint is no longer perfect. I can tell the hood and fender were repainted, just a subtle difference in the color. Under Florescent lights I can see the spray lines too. The finish is flawless, smooth, not a mark at all, but that slight color difference to me is quite noticeable, so I may be giving them a call tomorrow.

[GrySql]

I can tell the hood and fender were repainted, just a subtle difference in the color. Under Florescent lights I can see the spray lines too. The finish is flawless, smooth, not a mark at all, but that slight color difference to me is quite noticeable, so I may be giving them a call tomorrow.

Sad stuff, sorry to hear it, that sort of takes the 'new' out of your new car. :o(

Hope they can fix it right.

[hermans]

Took a trip, in the FFH, over the long weekend from Philly area to Northern Ohio and return. 1008 miles and averaged 45.2 MPG for the trip and used 22.28 gallons of gas.. This is great mileage considering AC was used for about 25% of the trip, up and down mountains, driving rain and winds. I now have 5100 miles on the car.

 

I still don't go along with the "break-in mileage" crowd as this is the same MPG I got when the car had 25 miles on it and took a 305 mile trip.

 

In August I will be making the same trip and will use the MKZh.

Edited July 8, 2013 by hermans

[GrySql]

I haven't seen any 'break-in' mileage improvement either, and oh, how I wish it would.

My car has almost 11,000 miles.

[acdii]

I haven't seen any 'break-in' mileage improvement either, and oh, how I wish it would.

My car has almost 11,000 miles.

Same here, at least on the new model. Getting pretty much the same as it did when it had 3 miles on it. The 2010 however I did see a jump at 11K, then again around 28K( probably just because the tires were nearly gone though).