What's the most gas you've ever filled in your Mirage?

[7milesout]

White paint reflects a lot more wavelengths of light, and there's a lot more paint on the front of the car than the back. Lots more light to push out of the way. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

I don't know what's up, but I've been laughing at a lot more of what you guys say here lately. These last couple posts about mpg vs color theory are so right up my alley, we would have been perfect for Seinfeld. I think you guys are geniuses, and think you're right. The more light that must be shoved out of the way as one is motoring along MUST affect (affect / effect, I give up) drag.

I pussed out on Monday night. I left the house with 3 bars, and thinking I was going to make it all the way to my dad's house, ~142 miles away). And I was going to "calibrate" the trip meter / odometer while doing it. But I pussed out. I like to get gas at one particular brand, not because of fuel quality (or maybe the lack thereof), but for the overall cheapness as well as I get points and free coffee / drinks everytime, and other free crap too. Anywho, I was just getting north of Atlanta, and there is a long gap between available preferred gas stations, so I pussed out when it said I had 50 miles range left.

The things I observed:

• The range left distance couldn't get its story straight. It went something like this: 110, 100, 110, 100, 80, 90, 90 for a long time, 80, 90. Then within maybe 5 miles it went 80, 70, 60, then 50.
• The fuel bars went down to 1 but didn't start blinking before I stopped.
• I had 68 miles left, so the problem was that I was concerned I might not make it to the preferred station near my dad's house, and either stop some place I didn't want to, or run it out of gas.
• When I stopped for dinosaur squeezins, I only took on 7.144 gallons.
• Theoretically, I could have made it to my dad's house since we have a 9.2 gallon tank, I had 2 gallons left. I was getting probably 48+ mpg, so I could have gone another 96 miles or so, and had only 68 miles to go.

I wasn't feeling the risk though, and juiced up.

[Fummins]

The gauge in the white car would always make we worried I'd run out, it'd be flashing and zero mile til empty displayed. Then it'd usually "only" take 28-29L (7.4-7.66 Gallons) to fill. I filled black car a while ago with one bar showing and no flashing and it took 31 liters(8.1 Gallons).
The furthest I've gotten from a tank in the white car before chickening out was 510km(316 miles). When I filled up black car today I was at 550km(341 miles) so that's a new record for me. I only filled at a gas station because I'm a dork and wanted to know exactly how much I poured in. I have at least 70 liters in gas left over from my quading trip the other week that I should have used.

[klroger]

FYI: that's why we get slightly worse fuel economy with the headlights on, unless you're driving backwards. Also: I agree about the werewolves.

Sooo... If I'm driving at the speed of light & I turn my headlights on, does it all even out then???

[Dirk Diggler]

The only thing I trust on that little orange screen is the B trip meter for miles after I reset it. The mpg avg is only accurate if your on the hwy for 20 mins or more IMO. Gas tank gauge, fugettaboutit! Mine's extremely conservative e. g. I got 1 flashing bar left, fill up at 7.3 gallons. I got a new mpg low score too, 27 mpg last manual calculation! Here's a typical trip to work for me. My area has long rolling hill roads that quickly lead to the hwy 75 (speed limit of 65 by me). I have to get on quick so I floor it to about 3500 rpms to get to a merging speed of 70mph. Then I lay off the pedal and climb back down to 3200 rpms doing 70 to 75mph. It takes me about 30 mins, with a medium amount of traffic, to get downtown and then a lot of stop and go to get to work. My wheel & tire combo weighs 3lbs more than OEM and I got some cheap non llr tires too. Maybe those Barums really are killing my mpg? But man, I almost got side swiped on my way to work and had to veer left hard and fast in the rain. The tires handled it pretty good. I was proud of how my Mirage did in an emergency maneuver. But does it justify killing my mpg? Any recommendations for a non llr tire that also is good for mpg? Maybe my engine is just old at 75k miles. I'm putting in new spark plugs when I hit 80k miles to see if that will help. The absolute best mpg I've gotten was 38 mpg since the new wheels and tires and that was because I was forced to go 55 mph down hwy 75 in moderate traffic. Thoughts from the wizards on here? Eggman, please summon a council meeting of the collective sorcerers sir!

[Eggman]

The range left distance couldn't get its story straight. It went something like this: 110, 100, 110, 100, 80, 90, 90 for a long time, 80, 90. Then within maybe 5 miles it went 80, 70, 60, then 50.

The MID Distance To Empty display reflects current MPG. As your engine warms up to optimum efficiency and MPG tops out, it's not unusual to see the DTE get extended. This gets even more pronounced at slower speeds, say under 60 mph (100kph?)

Thoughts from the wizards on here? Eggman, please summon a council meeting of the collective sorcerers sir!

What's your tire pressure set to? Air up and see if that helps. That and slow down. Cheap, easy & effective.

[7milesout]

Thoughts from the wizards on here?

Have you considered, or taken into account the difference in diameter of your new non LRR tires? I don't know, could be the same or very similar diameter. But in case they are not, it could be adversely effecting ... your calculations. Meaning, maybe your mpg didn't change so much, but tire diameter difference is effecting accuracy of your calculations. Just thinking out loud.

[Fummins]

Good point, he's running 175's I believe which are a couple dark ones taller.

[Dirk Diggler]

Yeah that came up when I first was inquiring about changing from 165 65 r14s to 165 65 r14s there was about a 2% difference on the speedometer is IIRC I didn't think it would be enough to really throw my mpg so low and then I added slightly wider alloys at 5.5" vs the old OEM steel wheel being 4.5". I didn't think all these tiny variations would add up to enough to be this drastic lol. I think my issue is mainly being around 3k rpms whether on the hwy or keeping up on fast Atlanta streets and not being a nuisance. I try my best to pulse and flow but its hard in all this traffic. I got about another 15k miles left on these tires I think since last measurement so I'm wondering if I got a higher grade tire that wasn't an LLR but an all season that provided better mpg.

[Dirk Diggler]

Good point, he's running 175's I believe which are a couple dark ones taller.

it's a 2.2% difference in revolutions per mile if that helps

[Dirk Diggler]

The MID Distance To Empty display reflects current MPG. As your engine warms up to optimum efficiency and MPG tops out, it's not unusual to see the DTE get extended. This gets even more pronounced at slower speeds, say under 60 mph (100kph?)

What's your tire pressure set to? Air up and see if that helps. That and slow down. Cheap, easy & effective.

I do 37 psi all around