Gas Mileage Experiment

[swisstype]

I use my X5 as my DD, which I am sure most of us do. I read, prior to buying, how bad or less than good gas mileage was. Coming from a Toyota 4Runner, after driving the X5, I will say that it wasn't as bad as I thought.
Well, I noticed something recently. My wife is Pregnant, and really does not like the bumpiness of the ride. It seems to be a job to manage feathering the gas and the brakes so as not to jerk her too badly as well, so I came up with something. I use the CC getting around and have noticed a better response from her regarding the stop and go aspect - she still doesnt like the stiff ride, makes our baby bounce around.
WEll, I always clear out the BC so I can see a new set of info for mpg, mph, and miles left. On the way home from getting gas, I noticed that I had an avg mpg of 17, with and mph avg of 28. Not bad I thought. So i set up parameters of not exceeding 10 MPH over the designated speedlimit where I am at, which should at least ensure that I don't piss off the other drivers, and using the cc to see what happens. So far, I am at about 78 miles and 17.6 mpg - ALL City. I will say that it seems less of an enthusiastic way to drive this vehicle, and I sure as hell did not buy this for mileage...just a little experiment to myself and thought I would share the results. I DO enjoy Sport Mode on my own, and having fun with my vehicle, but for this tank of gas, I will do my experiment and fill you in with final results. Just thought some of you might beinterested or at least give you 2-3 minutes of reading over your coffee.

G

[swisstype]

First of all, the X5 is extremely boring to drive with nothing but using CC, especialy when it is just me in the car. I would like to at least to get through this tank of gas this way, just to compare, etc, and I am anal like that.
Second, I am impressed at how easy it is, does not really cost you any time, and I am easily averaging 17 mpg. So, if I avg 10-12 mpg with my lead foot in town, in essence, 6 more mpg per gallon. This translates into approximately 120 more miles to a tank (22 gal tank), which based on the lesser mileage is 10-12 gallons of premium = $15 per fillup at $2.50 /gal.
Fill up twice a week this equals $1600/yr.
I guess this may be why I have the C2S Cab as my toy car. I don't even have the mileage turned on in that thing,....

[rh71]

today on the LIE, I had an hour to get somewhere that only takes 30 mins to pick someone up. I set the cruise to 65mph and it was the dullest drive of my life in this thing. It was really weird driving in the right lane and having everybody in all kinds of vehicles pass even in the middle lane. I don't know how the speed limit is actually 55mph when even right lane drivers go 65. I only noticed that it improved my avg mpg by .1. It went from 15.7 to 15.8 but it was only a 30 min trip.

Oh, one more thing, it took 35 mins instead of the usual 25-30mins. Goes to show you driving aggressively is just for fun, not to save much time.

[Zoich]

Swisstype, do you have a 4.8 or a 3.0? I am jealous. I may give this a try. As my daily driver (4.8), I am getting 14.7 miles to the gallon..
I do have the third row seat, is that really that heavy?
rh71, if the 3.0 gets only 15.7 miles to the gallon, may be I don't feel so bad...

[rh71]

Originally Posted by Zoich

Swisstype, do you have a 4.8 or a 3.0? I am jealous. I may give this a try. As my daily driver (4.8), I am getting 14.7 miles to the gallon..
I do have the third row seat, is that really that heavy?
rh71, if the 3.0 gets only 15.7 miles to the gallon, may be I don't feel so bad...

It's really weird... when I drove up and down the road to the train station exclusively for nearly a full tank, like 2mi. a day, lots of red lights, I was only getting 12.7mpg. Now I'm still doing that (it really hurts) but also doing like 50mi. highway on the weekends and getting that nearly 16mpg "mixed". If I did majority highway (like working somewhere other than home) I'm sure it'd push 18+...

[swisstype]

First off, I have the 4.8. Next, I live in South Bend, IN, so the "City" driving is more "around town." I have the luxury of going maybe 1/2 mile at minimum before I have to stop normally. On ething that I have been focusing on is not mashing the pedal to start and giving myself plenty of coast when I see a yellow or red light. So far I am right about 17.0 mpg and my MPH Avg is 28.2, so I am not getting the highway miles to offset this. I will post some pics.
And yes, it is B O R I N G!

[Paydirtdog]

I just took my second "road trip" with the 4.8 and noticed that if I keep it around 80 mph I couldn't get any better than 17 point something mpg. In between 70 and 80 mph it was 18 point something. At 70 mph or less it would get about 19mpg or even a little higher. The trip was about 1100 miles so I went through a few tanks of gas.
Around town it still looks to be 13-14 mpg but we live in a fairly congested area and traffic sucks most of the time.

[alexmish]

Ha, big deal.... I went upstate NY (Catskills) from NJ, 320 miles round trip, 4 adults in the car, not exceeding 75mph, and I managed to get 20mpg avg ! yes, it was feathering the gas pedal and predicting stops/traffic lights, wasnt fun at all, but I did it

[TaMbALoLoNg]

I cant believe you bought this expensive car and now your nickel and diming it over mpg. Thats sad if you have to think about your mpg kinda hard to enjoy. Me, I just.

[alewifebp]

I've gotten about 22-23 on a long trip from NJ to DC, and I can usually get around 20 on a typical 1.5 hour highway trip. But generally about 14-15.