Seasonal Fuel Economy

[acdii]

With gas prices back on the rise again($4.09 this morning for 87), use of remote start/warming up is a discretionary expense. If you are anal about getting as high MPG as possible as some are, then following the tips of no heat, using seat heaters is the option to use, but if, like me, you are perfectly content getting between 38 and 43 MPG in the car, using heat, then go for it. :) After driving hybrids for the past 7 years, on the same route 5 days a week, I tend to have a feeling of what I can expect to get without too much work, and from day one, when I got that first hunk of*** now known as the Blue Devil, I fully expected 38-43 MPG, sad to say, never happened, but the one I got to replace it, one I ordered and thankfully my dealer changed the color from Blue to Black, has met my expectations fully and exceeded it at times.

 

Here's the thing, I know if I were to get Anal over MPG I could get 47 in it, but I am not, I just drive it and enjoy it, and that's really what it is all about, enjoying the car. Besides, where else can you find a 5 passenger sedan that looks this good, drives this good, that gets 38-43 MPG? Be happy and enjoy the car.

[lolder]

Whaddaya mean, "Don't warm it up?" Seems to me that's a personal choice. If my long-past-retirement-age bride is still willing to get up at 4:30 am to drive 25 miles over a mountain to see patients, and FoMoCo provides us with a cozy car with heated leather seats, I'll cheerfully spend a tad on gasoline while I clean the windshield to make the start of her commute a bit more comfortable.

We bought the Silver Bullet to enjoy it, not to claim bragging rights on a high mpg number.

To each his own, I reckon.

I am not an advocate of not warming it up if it's cold outside. It's not necessary to warm it up for other reasons and to start getting over 45 mpg requires unusual driving attention. I actually advocate pushing the "Auto" button on the HVAC unless you have the time to fiddle with it.

[hermans]

With gas prices back on the rise again($4.09 this morning for 87), use of remote start/warming up is a discretionary expense. If you are anal about getting as high MPG as possible as some are, then following the tips of no heat, using seat heaters is the option to use, but if, like me, you are perfectly content getting between 38 and 43 MPG in the car, using heat, then go for it. :) After driving hybrids for the past 7 years, on the same route 5 days a week, I tend to have a feeling of what I can expect to get without too much work, and from day one, when I got that first hunk of*** now known as the Blue Devil, I fully expected 38-43 MPG, sad to say, never happened, but the one I got to replace it, one I ordered and thankfully my dealer changed the color from Blue to Black, has met my expectations fully and exceeded it at times.

 

Here's the thing, I know if I were to get Anal over MPG I could get 47 in it, but I am not, I just drive it and enjoy it, and that's really what it is all about, enjoying the car. Besides, where else can you find a 5 passenger sedan that looks this good, drives this good, that gets 38-43 MPG? Be happy and enjoy the car.

There's a whole lot of anal going on here.

[Silver Bullet]

It's kind of fascinating the comments that this thread has generated.I agree totally with lolder that the car itself has no need for warm-up, we do it strictly for creature comfort. I'm also in agreement with acdii and hermans comments. I'd be delighted if hermans is right in disagreeing with my expectation of never seeing 47 mpg.

 

Fueled up yesterday in Oregon (at $3.59/gal compared with $4.13 here in Northern California) and calculated 41.6 mpg over 282 miles including seven 1000' mountain crossings and one 2000' mountain crossing. Temperatures have been about 15 deg. above average, around 60 deg. F. We'll see what the future holds, but we're happy.

[acdii]

Thats better than what I got this morning! Just barely broke 40.

 

Oh for the love of warm weather, What the he** will this cold crap end! 30* this morning, 24* yesterday barely cracked freezing.

[Nick Golden]

Had my first warm-weather fill up since I got the Fusion. 49.0 mpg on Fuelly (49.3 on my trip)!!!

[inco]

Not very representative of a long trip, or maybe not even credible, but this morning went out and did a few errands around town. Ok I'm sitting down, ready for this - 3.7 litres per 100 km which equals 63.57 US mpg. The trip was about 16 miles total.

[inco]

And back to reality- went into the city with Lady Leadfoot driving and that number fell down to 42.767 mpg. Did I mention that was at speeds up to 130 km per hour? That would be about 81 mph down your way. Usually traffic moves about 120 kph or 75, but I once looked over and was shocked at how fast we were moving. It felt fast, but not that fast. Gee I can hardly wait to get my car back and do these trips myself. I know I can do better. :)

[MaineFusion]

 

 

Having used the cover for this past winter, I do have some ideas for minor changes that would improve it:

1. Provide two bolt assemblies so that it can be bolted to two different vertical slats instead of one. This would make it more secure in brushless car washes.
2. Use blocks similar to the end blocks with the bolts (drill hole down middle of block) This would allow the cover to be tightened against vertical slat without it having to come in contact with the plastic horizontal slats. This would avoid rubbing the chrome off the grille.
3. Use stronger "industrial" velcro on end blocks so that the velcro holds better.
4. Instead of attaching the velcro to the grille cover, attach it to the grille This way, when the grille cover is removed, the spacing block is also removed.

 

 

So I finally decided to take the grille cover off this past weekend. The week prior to taking it off the temps were in the upper 60s and I was doing 50-53 mpg for my daily commute. My best fuel economy for my commute with the grille cover was 53.4. This past week with similar weather and driving conditions for my commute I was averaging 50 - 54mpg. One day this past week I got 54.6mpg. Obviously it would take some serious testing to figure out if the grille cover helps with aerodynamics and if this benefit out weighs any negative factors (e.g. engine cooling). However, based on this limited test, in the summer, there may not be a significant difference in fuel economy with or without the grille cover. The winter is a different story because the grille cover helped reduce engine heat loss when trying to keep the engine warm and heat the cabin. The grille cover reduced how much the engine had to run simply to stay warm.

[ptjones]

 

So I finally decided to take the grille cover off this past weekend. The week prior to taking it off the temps were in the upper 60s and I was doing 50-53 mpg for my daily commute. My best fuel economy for my commute with the grille cover was 53.4. This past week with similar weather and driving conditions for my commute I was averaging 50 - 54mpg. One day this past week I got 54.6mpg. Obviously it would take some serious testing to figure out if the grille cover helps with aerodynamics and if this benefit out weighs any negative factors (e.g. engine cooling). However, based on this limited test, in the summer, there may not be a significant difference in fuel economy with or without the grille cover. The winter is a different story because the grille cover helped reduce engine heat loss when trying to keep the engine warm and heat the cabin. The grille cover reduced how much the engine had to run simply to stay warm.

Aero improvement would increase with speed and you didn't say what speed you were doing for your commute. I would leave the cover on all the time if you can monitor WT. Really the only time you could have problems if you had along up hill climb from my testing. You could set up MyView with the temp gauge if you needed too. I use my covers almost all the time. :)

 

Paul

[MaineFusion]

Aero improvement would increase with speed and you didn't say what speed you were doing for your commute. I would leave the cover on all the time if you can monitor WT. Really the only time you could have problems if you had along up hill climb from my testing. You could set up MyView with the temp gauge if you needed too. I use my covers almost all the time. :)

 

Paul

63mph is about the fastest I go normally.

 

Something I did observe when I removed the grille cover was that the double sided tape had pretty much worn out and the black end blocks came out with zero effort. When I reinstall it this winter, I'll just screw them to the cover and then velcro them between the grille slats. At least this way I won't be relying on tape to hold everything together. Where do you get the material to make the black blocks? I'd like to make five more to provide feet to keep the grille cover off of the grille so that it doesn't rub the chrome off. This past winter I used high density foam insulation, but this won't hold up real well and gets a little squishy.

[HighwayJerk]

As most of you look forward to Summer to increase your MPG, here it has lowered mine by about 5 MPG so far.

Where I am at, in the thick of the Summer temperatures reach 115 degrees on a daily basis. (leaving the house in the morning it's 85+ already) Getting into a car that's upwards of 150 degrees inside after sitting in the sun all day REQUIRES AC, not only for me but for the batteries too. The AC runs full blast almost my whole commute (which is into the sun both ways) and really drains the battery and keeps the SoC really low so I have way less EV miles. So while most of you look forward to the Summer to increase your mileage some of us are looking forward to any season but. ;)

 

[GrySql]

Still, you're getting better mpg's than most and looking good while doing it, rejoice!