MPG?

[austex04 48]

+/- 900lbs between 4 passengers (don't ask), and 40 miles of 90mph toll road with a/c going in 100 degrees results in 30.2 mpgs, my worst ever. My usual commute with 35% city streets and rest 70mph local hwy brings 36mpg average. Above 70mph really kills mpgs in these cars, and larger cars like the Elantra and Civic get the same or better mpgs at higher speeds. This car is a block on wheels.

[NoSprak 17]

Aerodynamics and really short gearing are not working in your favor at higher speeds.

[Jeph Swift 3]

My best MPG was 75.1 on a 500 mile round trip drive from King of Prussia PA to Do swell, VA. High speeds, 3 passengers, and a cooler. My car was so over weight my tire pressure light came on. But on the way back we hit heavy rain and was stuck going 45-50 with cruise control. It took a lot longer, but I barely used any gas coming back.

[Greg_E 211]

I'm almost at a full year and more than 15,000 miles, might make tank to tank at 40mpg by that time, which is not bad considering the snow and winter headwinds.

[Spark_Rules-0713 9]

this boy lives in the city and if i'm froggy and watch the lights i've hit 70mpg on the computer headen home and 58 to work

ponca city, ok

but it really pisses other drivers off....ps hard accelerate...it saves gas.

I have a LS Automatic what rpm should I let it hit per gear normally it shifts a 3000rpm in 1st and 2nd I set my tire pressure at 39 psi I'm at 29.9 mpg avg in city with AC on over 1000 miles on odometer

[Greg_E 211]

Tire pressure is stated to be 40psi, bumping it up one or two pounds might help.

[Spark_Rules-0713 9]

Tire pressure is stated to be 40psi, bumping it up one or two pounds might help.

ok will up the pressure to 40 psi

[tommyspark 24]

I have heard from a couple sources that Sparks don't get the 38MPG right off the bat. I was told they will achieve that after a "break-in" period of 10K miles. Any comments??

Our LS just hit 1200 miles and today, our "at the pump" mileage in it was 36.7 overall. We did an at the pump after our first tank, and only got 32.2. I don't know what break in would be on these motors, but as we put miles on em, the MPGs just keep going up. Got 39.1 in our LT last fill up so were easily pulling mid 40 highway

[tommyspark 24]

I don't pay attention to what the car says it's getting. Not saying that it's not accurate, but I prefer the no joke, real world, at the pump numbers.

Edited September 16, 2013 by tommyspark

[Greg_E 211]

I didn't start getting really good numbers until 2000 miles or so. Also this is a good time to remind everyone about tire pressure changing a lot with temperature, so keep an eye one it. 4 pounds low will take you mileage down about 4mpg from what I've seen.

[dbnspark 7]

^{I didn't count my first (dealer filled) tank. I refueled car with 345 miles on the odometer..I refueled again at 707 miles. I got 43.2 mpg. The tank after that was 43.42mpg. For 21,415 miles my lifetime average was 44.63.. The Spark does not like highway speeds (65mph or more), hills, being driven aggressively. For me driving Spark aggressively means keeping up with traffic from a stoplight, not fallng behind and have the 2 cars directly behind you change lanes to pass you. I'm not trying to piss people off...Using higher grades of octane did not increase mpg either, I didn't expect it to, but I thought I would try a couple of tanks of 93.}

Edited September 18, 2013 by dbnspark

[Smikster 10]

http://youtu.be/lVmZyfJ1woo

forgot I posted this a while back, ehh

[njresler 14]

I have noticed a big difference with 92/93 octane fuel. I get better mpgs and more power.

[Hobo1 8]

Something tells me putting a higher octane then recommended might not be a good idea. Especially in this car lol

[21783mike 17]

Mine gets 41-42 on 87 e10 running 70 mph on the interstate.... Higher octane should not make a difference except that it costs more. I have ran a few tanks of non ethanol 87 octane though and that did make a difference of about 2-3 additional mpg. I won't go into a long explanation here about octane other than to say that the higher the octane is the higher the flash point is so..... unless you've added a supercharger, turbo, or upped the compression ratio there is no need for high octane fuel.

[njresler 14]

I don't know for sure. But isn't the engine in the spark a high compression engine. I'm aware that the higher octane combusts easier. But I seem to have a smoother running car and all together better performance with higher octane.

[Greg_E 211]

It is possible that with higher octane the computer can change the spark advance to get different performance, you'd need to log the advance on both fuels to find out.

[njresler 14]

I've just looked at avg mpg with them and get a 10%+ improvement. Also gets going to interstate speed smoother.

[njresler 14]

I've done 43-45 on a long trip by staying under or around 65mph with regular 87 octane. But find with higher octane I'm getting that at 70mph.

[njresler 14]

Ok so the 1.25L engine LLO used in the U.S. Is a high compression engine. It's 10.5:1

So it should burn ethonal or E85 well but may not have the proper seals and gaskets bc it doesn't day you can use it. But it has vvt and many other sensors allowing it to run in 87 octane.

[21783mike 17]

It is possible that with higher octane the computer can change the spark advance to get different performance, you'd need to log the advance on both fuels to find out.

True, but I doubt that it would make a difference enough to tell performance wise or at least until you ran a few tanks and the ecm adjusted itself to run the timing more advanced. If the programming and sensors were able to adjust the timing that much I would have thought they would then have made the Spark E85 or Flex fuel approved.

Running a "Top Tier" fuel on a regular basis would probably net better results performance and MPG wise than buying high test at a convenience store.... Since the advent of adding ethanol to fuels the refineries are putting out some real crap gasoline with rather low octane then they spike it with the ethanol (which is around 103 octane) to get to the octane shown on the pump. BTW a higher flash point means it's harder to ignite, not easier.

[21783mike 17]

I've done 43-45 on a long trip by staying under or around 65mph with regular 87 octane. But find with higher octane I'm getting that at 70mph.

It may as well be the warmer weather, I've picked up 2 mpg over the past month and the only change is the temps.... Take a look at my Fuelly page. Ignore the ones from 2 weeks ago that was a trip to Florida, 80 mph with luggage and passengers dropped the mileage a good bit.

[njresler 14]

Ok. Thanks.

[njresler 14]

Idk y but can only guess the spark recommends 87 because it's cheaper and the stand gas rating. It has variable valve timing and an advanced ECM so it can adjust and burn whatever. But other high compression engines especially ones with a 10.5:1 ratio the same as the spark recommend only using 92-93 octane. The higher octane allows higher compression before combustion and it's important in a high compression engine. But with vvt it's can adjust the spark timing to be delayed so lower octane can be used. I've been using 93 for awhile because my car seems to run better.

[Abdullah Hj Kasim 3]

Wrong post

Edited April 30, 2014 by Abdullah Hj Kasim