Has anyone tried further reducing weight for MPG?

[Jimmyess333]

When I had my Suzuki Swift I would leave the front passenger seat and spare tire home on weekdays while doing my workweek commute. I used to keep a small air pump and tire plug kit under the seat.
This returned a noticeable increase in MPG by the end of the week. Has anyone tried this with the Mirage?

[wellswebdesign]

I've started running 3 times a week, and I'm hoping to reduce the weight of the car by about 50 pounds in a year or so, give or take.

In all seriousness, I know there was a post recently about someone taking the Mirage autocross racing (autocrossing?), and they removed a significant portion of the interior. I believe they said it lightened the car quite a bit, but they weren't going for high MPG numbers. I think the rear seat removes fairly easy. The front passenger seat probably weighs more than the whole back seat, but at least you don't have to deal with plugs/wires/occupancy sensor/airbag lights.

[MightyMirageMpg]

yes.

i have a fair amount of stuff pulled from the car. stupid small things really add up.

at one point i had the entire rear seat area gutted, (for something else) and was debating leaving it out, but the high pitch whine from fuel pump, and increased (drastically) road noise prompted me to reinstall the back seat, which included all the seat belt brackets and pulls, latches etc. it added up to a very heavy box.

if your going too remove weight too increase mpg, keep mind its more effective for city driving, and aerodynamics play a much larger role on the freeway.

i have a passenger wiper arm from an early 90s suzuki, it lays flat instead of that stupid angle, which allowed me too lower both wipers out of the wind (and my sight)

i also deleted my passenger mirror. sound silly? it's easily 8x10. thats 80 square inches of wind resistance I'm not fighting. combine that with my toyota echo driver mirror i recently got (conversion brewing) and lowering the car (tire fronts) and you can see I'll be down quite a bit in frontal area.

is it worth it?? i think so. I don't log my fuel economy here but its excellent.

[Jimmyess333]

I used to leave the back seat alone too. It leaves a couple of seats just in case.

[strawboss]

I found a nice set of Honda VX rims locally at 9.5 lbs each I figure I have dropped at least 20 lbs

[cyclopathic]

i have a passenger wiper arm from an early 90s suzuki, it lays flat instead of that stupid angle, which allowed me too lower both wipers out of the wind (and my sight)

i also deleted my passenger mirror. sound silly? it's easily 8x10. thats 80 square inches of wind resistance I'm not fighting. combine that with my toyota echo driver mirror i recently got (conversion brewing) and lowering the car (tire fronts) and you can see I'll be down quite a bit in frontal area.

is it worth it?? i think so. I don't log my fuel economy here but its excellent.

Time to install vortex generatiors.

[nickpon]

Removing the spare tire/jack/cover are no-brainers. I just bring them along if I'm going out of town. Without the spare tire, all of my groceries easily fit in the trunk.

i also deleted my passenger mirror. sound silly? it's easily 8x10. thats 80 square inches of wind resistance I'm not fighting.

is it worth it?? i think so. I don't log my fuel economy here but its excellent.

I don't know, is the safety of yourself and other drivers worth a couple of dollars in fuel savings? I don't think so. Not to mention the ticket you'll eventually get.

[inuvik]

I don't know, is the safety of yourself and other drivers worth a couple of dollars in fuel savings? I don't think so. Not to mention the ticket you'll eventually get.

Many states in the USA (like Oregon) passenger mirror is not required. In Oregon driver's mirror and rear view mirror are required if the passenger's side mirror is removed. However if you have both driver's and passenger's mirrors then rear view mirror is not required and could be removed.

[Jimmyess333]

I don't know, is the safety of yourself and other drivers worth a couple of dollars in fuel savings? I don't think so. Not to mention the ticket you'll eventually get.

Many of the older cars I have owned had no passenger mirror from the factory so I never learned to solely depend on them. That plus all my years of riding motorcycles have trained me to always do a neck check. I don't know if I would remove a mirror but if it wasn't there I don't think I would mind as long as I still had the rear view and the driver's door mirror.

[nickpon]

Fair enough, I didn't know it was legal in some places. Still seems mighty stupid to me, however.

And yes, blindspot checks should always be done anyway.