Jump to content

Intentionally get worst MPG challenge?


Recommended Posts

I was just curious since everyone always asks about what's the BEST MPG you've ever gotten,

what's the WORST?

I don't want to encourage anyone to do anything dangerous but have you ever driven the car pretty hard for a full tank

and see what's the worst MPG you can get? Accelerate hard at every stop, brake hard at every stop, corner

very hard, and hit 5,000 to redline driving on the highway and city.

I don't think anyone's ever done it for obvious reasons, but just curious, what's the WORST MPG you've ever gotten if you can even remember?

I was recently going 150 km/h on the highway passing every car on the road and uphill too and recently felt like pushing it harder from stop at every light to be out in front. Actually, I rarely ever get passed in traffic. It's not so much because the car is fast or faster than other cars. Every car can drive 160, 180 km/h. Just some cars get to it faster than others. But it's about the driver. It's about confidence and skill and knowledge of the roads. Most people have more powerful cars than the Spark (they probably have 160-240 hp) but when it comes to tight corners, narrow roads, and lower speed zones, they can't handle the speed or they don't have confidence driving with that speed.

I've averaged my stats and calculated I'm getting roughly getting 33.54 miles per gallon or 14.2 km per liter.

That's not the greatest nor the worst but sort of right in the middle of the advertised which is 28 city and 37 highway so im right in the middle.

Basically per 35 liter tank, I'm getting about 500 km per tank. The worst I got so far was about 450-470 km. I think I'm going to try to get it lower one day. I want to push the car harder and see how much difference it makes when one drives soft and when one drives hard. Is it 50% decreased mpg or 25%?

Edited by cornflakes
Link to post
Share on other sites

Even at 136 km/h on highways, I think aggressive acceleration and stopping in city driving uses up more gas. I haven't tested it out but I'm pretty sure that even if I drove 150 to 160 km/h for an hour straight on freeways would still get better mpg than city driving aggressively.

The thing I noticed most about our little sparkies is that it's so slow and sluggish off the block. It takes an enormous amount of power to get her going. But I found a great deal of power in the mid to upper rpms. When I'm on the highway doing 120 or 130, I can feel the power there and can move up to 140 to 150 quite easily and quickly to pass.

Accelerating is the worst or going uphill from low speeds. The strategy I've used to go uphills is pick up a lot of speed before going uphill (ie. on highways) so it actually keeps its speed at 4000-4500 rpm going uphill with no slow down. But if you're going uphill at 3000 rpm at 100 km/h, car speed drops dramatically to 80 km/h or less even though you are still revving at 3000 rpms lol.

Most of my driving is local city driving, but occassionally I get to go on a bit of a drive (30 to 40 km on highway) but that's rare...like once a week or less.

You know those bars on our gasoline display? There are 4 bars per quarter for a total of 16 bars for the entire tank. I even measured how much km I get per bar. It averages out to about 25 - 30 km PER bar. HOWEVER, the FIRST bar (after filling up the tank) doesn't disappear until about 80 to 100 km! I've even driven the car 111 km without a single bar disappearing yet (still showing full tank after 111 km of driving). But of course, by the time the tank is almost empty, it always seems to round out to about 500 km for me.

Link to post
Share on other sites

111 km and still had a full tank of gas LOL.

I was projected to get 1600 km per tank at that rate. But oddly it just empties anyways at about 500 km lol.

I almost feel like there's no point in bothering to look at the km per tank anymore....whether i drive it fast or slow

or whether i get 111 km without evening losing 1 bar yet, i will still get 450-500 km by the time the tank is empty.

I think the reading gauge is just for show. I don't actually think it's measuring anything LOL.

Here's an example. First bar i get 111 km. 2nd bar i get another 30 km. Then suddenly for some reason 3rd bar only

last for 18 km!! Then 4th bar around 21 to 25. So it fluctuates up and down to just somehow avg itself off by the time

the tank is empty.

If one of the bars lasted 35 km, then the next bar will disappear at a much lower rate like at 17 or 18 km to just sort of avg the

2 bars out again to 25 - 30 ish lol.

Once i had 2 bars disappear on me at ONE TIME. I was wondering how the heck did I lose so much gas all of a sudden. Then about

5 minutes later, 1 bar came back so I somehow regain 1 bar of gas ?? LOL. Stupid electronic gauges. They should just leave it to the

old traditional needle. That thing was ACCURATE AS HELL to the micrometer!

post-1392-0-97530900-1408810177_thumb.jp

Edited by cornflakes
Link to post
Share on other sites

24? The only times I've had real big swings are errors filling the tank, last fill said 48 mpg with a previous 40, the last two fills must have had errors because my average has been 42 for several tanks... Even with all the oil burning.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The last time I brought it in for the mpg issue (along with other issues), the average on the DIC said 32 mpg after filling up, resetting it and getting on the highway (that's right, my highway mileage was 32 mpg) to go to the dealer (55 miles away).

When I brought in they "looked at it" and "could find no problem", then drove it a whole 5 miles and came back with 32 mpg on the DIC, and said "it operates as designed"!

When I get gas, I go to the same station and use the same pump every time, and I usually add at least $2 after the pump clicks off.

Edited by Gossamer
Link to post
Share on other sites

What I'm really trying to find out is how much % difference does "driving style" matter?

I guess there's no real concrete way to ever know, but I'm curious what the range is. For example, if I drive the softest and easiest style possible, and ended up with 600 km per tank, and then the next time I drive really hard and get 300 km per tank, then then answer would be approximately a 50% reduction in mpg based on driving style.

Is it really 50% or is it say only 20 to 25%?

Of course, I do not mean stay in parked mode and idle for 5 hours straight revving the engine and then you'd get 0 km per full tank as the lowest mpg. I mean under normal driving routes (50% highway 50% local, variable but consistent weather and traffic).

Link to post
Share on other sites

Mine is still getting over 35mpgs city, even with the problems I'm having with a slight missfire on cylinder 4 and oil consumption. It's going to the dealer in a couple days for the pcv valve recall, and to have them check the missfire issue. I'm sure I'll gain 1-2 mpgs once fixed.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Right now the DIC says I'm getting 31 mpg, and that was 99% highway miles.

Since I pretty much drive like what I am - a retired person in no hurry to get anywhere, I should be getting high 30s if not low 40s.

But of course, there's nothing wrong with my car, "it operates as designed".

I guess they designed it for the motor (with only 5300 miles on it) to sound like ball bearings in a coffee can too! B)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Right now the DIC says I'm getting 31 mpg, and that was 99% highway miles.

Since I pretty much drive like what I am - a retired person in no hurry to get anywhere, I should be getting high 30s if not low 40s.

But of course, there's nothing wrong with my car, "it operates as designed".

I guess they designed it for the motor (with only 5300 miles on it) to sound like ball bearings in a coffee can too! B)

I am also retired and don't drive it that way and yesterday we took a trip to Gatlinburg. We got 45 mpg with 3 people in the car and averaging 58 mph for 220 miles. Maybe you have a brake dragging or something. Something is definitely wrong.

What RPM are you running at when you are doing 60mph? Mine is right at 2000rpm at 60 and 2300-2400 at70mph.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Angrybird12, forgive my skepticism, but I'm going to have to call you out on that claim. You said you are getting 60 mph (roughly 100 km/h) at only 2000 RPM???

And then you're going 70 mph (110 km/h) at only 2300-2400 RPM??

Spark's should get 100 km/h (60 mph) at 3000 rpm. How you are doing that at only 2000 RPM is incredible! Please do show photo the next time ur driving at 60mph and I'd like to see that at 2000 RPM.

If it's TRUE, then no wonder why you are getting 45 mpg. The whole reason why a Spark loses fuel efficiency is the HIGH RPMs it needs in order to push out speed.

Most small cars/sedans like my previous one that had 130 hp stock was doing 120 km/h (75 mph) at 3000 rpm.

Please pics!!

Greg E's 3000 rpm at 60 mph is exactly like mine. Maybe there is a difference in the years or trim level? What's yours angrybird? This is very INTERESTING.

I just saw that yours is a 2014 LT, 1.2 L ? Hmm....maybe that's why. Mine is a 2011 model and a 1.0 L engine. How much HP did yours come with stock? If stock hp is around 100 to 110 hp, maybe that explains it. I think the older Spark's are rated at 80 hp.

Edited by cornflakes
Link to post
Share on other sites

Angrybird12, forgive my skepticism, but I'm going to have to call you out on that claim. You said you are getting 60 mph (roughly 100 km/h) at only 2000 RPM???

And then you're going 70 mph (110 km/h) at only 2300-2400 RPM??

Spark's should get 100 km/h (60 mph) at 3000 rpm. How you are doing that at only 2000 RPM is incredible! Please do show photo the next time ur driving at 60mph and I'd like to see that at 2000 RPM.

If it's TRUE, then no wonder why you are getting 45 mpg. The whole reason why a Spark loses fuel efficiency is the HIGH RPMs it needs in order to push out speed.

Most small cars/sedans like my previous one that had 130 hp stock was doing 120 km/h (75 mph) at 3000 rpm.

Please pics!!

Greg E's 3000 rpm at 60 mph is exactly like mine. Maybe there is a difference in the years or trim level? What's yours angrybird? This is very INTERESTING.

I just saw that yours is a 2014 LT, 1.2 L ? Hmm....maybe that's why. Mine is a 2011 model and a 1.0 L engine. How much HP did yours come with stock? If stock hp is around 100 to 110 hp, maybe that explains it. I think the older Spark's are rated at 80 hp.

Yes mine is a 14 and I also have the CVT. I have posted pics in another thread but right now I cannot find them. I am on the road right now so if I get a chance when the traffic allows I will take a couple pictures for you and post them here.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Here are the pics I promised. I had just gotten on the interstate. The miles and mileage are from driving the back roads through the mountians. The last picture is after driving the rest of the way on the interstate and averaging about 66 mph, still in the mountians, so there is very little flat land driving.

The 60mph pic is kind of blurry but the 70mph pic is very clear.

I hope you can see by these pictures I was not trying to put one over on anyone.

post-1528-0-99511000-1409089715_thumb.jp

post-1528-0-35558000-1409089783_thumb.jp

post-1528-0-32866800-1409089842_thumb.jp

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...