Someone wants to know: how's the Mirage on highway hills? (2500 ft. elevation change)

[MetroMPG]

Question posted on the EcoModder forum:

I'm looking for a new commuter and am trying to get some info

I'm really curious about how the car does at highway speeds and on hills?

my commute is just under 55miles each way
lots of hills (probably 2,500 feet of elevation)
almost all at highway speeds (60-70mph)
with a bit of sitting in traffic at the end

I'm currently getting about 37mpg out of my 220K mile 1995 Nissan 200SX with a 5sp

Thoughts?

[Ares]

Hard to say from here in houston. I reckon it would be fun though with that much elevation change. Wish it was curvy too.

[cyclopathic]

should have no problem, at least with 5sp MT. On absolutely green one off dealer lot with 13mi we drove through the Allegheny mountains both on highway and secondary roads.

US interstates are rarely steep, there are very few places with grades exceeding 7%, and Mirage is geared lower than say Civic in top gear; with lesser air drag it feels peppier than most other cars. On secondary roads light weight helps with power to weight, so it climbed double digit grades well.

I reckon it would be fun though with that much elevation change. Wish it was curvy too.

Most definitely! hope coilovers get here soon, so we can do the quick run through the mountains before it gets too cold and slippery

[bkessinger1109]

I've made several trips to and from las vegas and phoenix, there's several hills in the road and the mirage handles it well. there is a couple times I would have to drop a gear to maintain the speed up the hill but I'm not complaining, I get to hear the engine sing when that happens haha. with the stock wheels and tires with the intake and exhaust i'll get around 41-44 mpg depending on what speed I cruise at during the trip

[Donut]

I can second that.

The Mirage can certainly handle steep highways, but it's still good to be educated about some of the constraints. If it's really steep, the AC will have to be cut, or it will be a pain to keep up speed with running compressor. It simply drains too much power from the engine. I don't suppose you'd have fun using 3rd gear on a 70 MPH highway.

On the roadtrip, my thoughts about hills were that I would take it easy and not try to drive the speed limit, but attempt to stick around 60MPH or below instead. I would also not use the cruise control for the steep parts, since it tends to over rev the engine when you disconnect the clutch to switch gears (I installed a rostra kit on my 5 speed M/T). If I was fully floored in 5th and lost speed, I'd switch to 4th, but would not try to gain much speed and continue at about the same, albeit always well above 40 MPH. Fuel economy is not that bad. I got values in the low 50 MPG or high 40, since any uphill stretch will be followed by a downhill parts on the way back at the latest. Most of the times, the steep hills have an additional lane where I'd bother only few drivers. Similar for downhill: I would use lots of engine braking in 4th or set the cruise to 60 MPH for more shallow descents. Here, the AC can actually help to add more engine braking power, as was described here.

For my new 10 mile commute I have to climb 800 ft and get 38 MPG at the top, when I return I'll typically end up with 65 MPG, which yields an average of about 50 MPG.

Obviously, a big difference makes the payload in the Mirage. Throw out all stuff you don't need to haul around and the Mirage gets off like a mountain goat.

good luck!

[cyclopathic]

If anyone saw pictures of Donuts car on his trip across the country, he would understand that he put car through the worse case scenario.

The grade on I-64 he had issues with is one of the steepest. Last time I was on that grade my Mazda could not maintain speed at WOT, and was running out of RPMs in lower gear. Similarly on Vale pass I had to put minivan transmission is 2nd gear, and it was overheated at the top. Prius on Vale pass could barely maintain 65-70 floored. Had issues on steeper grades in Sierra Nevada and Cascades.

Mirage with just a commuter on board would do as good or better than any non-performance car would on those grades.

[Cobrajet]

The Mirage is fine on hills, but you have to do what most people don't want to do or aren't used to doing with the average car.

DOWNSHIFT.

Most other cars have quite a bit more torque than the Mirage, and drivers can use that torque to pull hills in high gear. With the Mirage you just have to drop down a gear.

[MetroMPG]

Thanks, guys, for all the posts.

I pointed the asker of the question over to this thread to have a read.

[25Plus]

There are nearly no highway hills in Germany the mirage can´t climb in 5th gear, only in the mountains. At 50-60 mph my fuel consumption is about 2.9-3.6 l/100 km (65-80 mpg). But I´m not a usual driver.

[KrautBurner]

Question posted on the EcoModder forum:

that was me