Gas Mileage Experiment
 

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

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,....

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. ;)

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+...

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!

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.

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:)

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

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.

I did an experiment like this a while back with a 318ti, 5spd. Try this - instead of using CC - just 'lock' your foot angle into the same spot. So get up to about 55mph, if that's the speed you'll be cruising at, and keep it there. Nevermind you may decrease in speed going up an incline. If you go up - you will go down, so your speed will naturally increase. Try not to brake if possible and pop it in Neutral any chance you get (even if you have an automatic) : Coast to stop lights and when moving into the exit lane to get off the highway.

In a car that was originally designed to get a max of 29 MPGs highway, I was averaging 33.1 MPGs.

But because CC will vary your throttle position to maintain your speed, it doesn't really give you max performance. Maintaining the throttle position is what will get you MAX mpgs.

As I mentioned before, I travel the same couple miles everyday and it bores me so much that I look at my mpg needle on the dash... if you're accelerating to something like 45mph on a local road and want to stay there, typically you'd keep your foot on the gas just enough. What you actually can do is let off a tad and the needle will show that your mpg increases quite a bit... if you hit the gas again just a bit to maintain, it will still show better mpg. I'd say at least by 10mpg on the meter. I don't know if it messes with the gearing but you're basically going from a pull to a coast. Seems like common sense but we drive in the 40mph range so often on local roads that you just don't think about stuff like this. I just find it interesting how much you could possibly save if you wanted. Personally, I don't drive frequently enough to care... I spend about $120/mo. on gas, 2 fill-ups.

I ended up having to drive some highway miles on this and had to cut it short. I did, however, get just under 200 miles of strictly city driving. Again, I have a 2008 4.8, so these are not 6 cylinder results. I averaged 23.2 mph with an average of of 17.8 mpg. I ended up driving in the downtown vicinity and noticed that the consistent stop and go was horrible on the mileage, and it was hard to manage the X5 trying to feather the gas and then slow down/ coast to the stoplights. It pissed off the other drivers too, so I had to moderate as best as I could. I am currently on another tank of gas and am seeing my city MPG be around 14-ish, but again, I can drive around South Bend for a while and not have so much stop and go. I think I will be seeing about a 4 MPG difference, but I will follow up. I will say that the thing i s way much more enjoyable to driv ewith your foot than the CC stalk.

You should have purchased the diesel. I don't have to watch the way I drive and I get pretty decent mileage...

Craig

I wouldn't even attempt this experiment. I would fail miserably after the first mile. Driving this beast like a priest is the equivalent of hell.

As I said in a previous post, it is boring as hell, and I really did not enjoy it. I have been driving it normally for this tank and am so much happier when I am in it. I can actually here the exhaust note!
I just wanted to see what the actual difference in Mileage would be, not that I bought this for good mileage. It is showing up to be a difference that in your daily driving cause you to think, especially as premium is nearing $3 per gallon. I figure I will juice a project a for a little extra coin and cover my gas expenditure sthat way right?

I reset my consumption before I hit the road for my drive to CT for the meet. On the first leg of the trip up the Garden State Parkway, traffic was fairly light and I was able to maintain 75 mph and achieve 18.8 mpg. Traffic conditions changed once I crossed into NY.

On the way home I had a wide open road but maintaining one speed is boring. I jumped on her and had some fun, having to dodge the damn left lane hoggers and those that feel the need to block the roadway by driving steering wheel to steering wheel :rant: 80 or so all the way home. An hour and 10 minutes including a bathroom and coffee stop, I managed to average 17 for the trip. :thumbup: Not bad considering my norm is 13.5

I'm done with my experiment :rofl:

I will be making a 1600mile road trip shortly, will give a good idea how good the mpg is ;) BTW, when I am driving I usually get 17.5 in mixed city/hwy driving, what I have noticed with BMWs, atleast my 328is and X5 is that accelerating hard and then cruising, anticipating the stops and avoiding getting stuck behind left lane hogs, gets you pretty good mileage and you don't miss out on the fun ;)

We take our 08 3.0si up to the White Mountains, about a 170mile trip through Boston so there is some traffic. After some breakin we were getting 22-23mpg on the roundtrip. Speeds run from city traffic for 30 or so miles to 75+/- on the interstate to 45 on the last 30 miles. For local suburban driving we are getting 17-18. We are not doing much of that since we got a Mini for local.

2007 X5 3.0is Easy driving results.

The X5 is heavy what impacts MPG more than anything is stop and go driving.

I normally take my foot off the gas when the light turns red and roll in to the stop.

Yes if drive above 70 the wind resistance is a factor but the fun factor is to big to make that compromise.

If you take it easy around town/in stop and go traffic you will get better MPG and still can have fun on the highway.

Shifting "manually" at 1500 rpms (yes, boring, I know) yielded me 19 mpg in the city and 22 mpg on the highway.

I'm now getting a combined 19.1MPG over the last month. I'm not taking it ultra easy feathering the gas but not hammering it every chance I get either. Shifting manually helps or at least leaving it in sport mode. Holding the gears longer helps = less shifting.

I would like you to test that :

- Go into the car, put the key (not start the engine).
- Reset "Travel computer" and "On board computer" (so, all data are erased).
- Now start engine, for few minutes (10 or 15 minutes), but don't move the car.
- And now, you can go for a ride.

You'll see MPG is not the same on the "TC" and the "ODB" !
I think it's strange, because they were "0.00" before moving the BMW.

I'm not sure. If someone can try this method.

It's hard for me to say what i want !!! i hope you understand me !

Just got back from my 1600 mile road trip which took me over a flat stretch of central California across the Sierras and the coastal ranges on the way back. I averaged 19.2mpg which was a tad bit disappointing but explainable because I did a lot of driving on the clogged freeways and inner streets of LA. I did get almost 22mpg, average on the way out on the open freeways which was impressive.

Overall, I would love to get the diesel both for the power and mileage specially in the light of the lower diesel prices of late, but someone I know just payed 10Gs more for a slightly less optioned Xdrive 35d, which I find difficult to justify.

The best way t get good mpg is to simply use the technique a driver's ed instructor told me many decades ago -- just drive as if there was an egg between your foot and the throttle.

Now, I am not advocating this method, as it takes away all the fun of driving... but if you want the absolute best mpg, that's how you do it.

Cruise control does not work the best in non-level situations, as a constant speed is not the way to get the best mpg in hilly country. Cruise applies too much throttle on the upwards part of hills or rises to maintain a constant speed "no matter what," even downshifting to keep the speed up. The best mpg in hilly country is to slight let off the throttle on the upwards bit (avoiding downshifts to the extent possible), slowing 10-15 mph by the time you reach the top, and gently picking-up extra speed with a little extra throttle on the downwards slopes to "get a run" on the next hill.

Again, I am not proposing this, as (a) it's not much fun (b) the changes in speed irritate other drivers, and (c) police like to nail people on the bottom of hills where you'd have the extra speed... but that is the method which provides maximum mpg.

I have a 2008 3.0si that was quite loaded with a lot of boxes since I was driving from Dallas to Denver.

I started off with 93 Octane from Chevron in Dallas and according to the computer averaged 21 mpg.

As I filled up in Amarillo with only 90 octane, I noticed that the MPG shot up to around 23 mpg.

My last fill up was in Trinidad, Colorado with 91 octane at a Diamond Shamrock or something like that and here's what I finished with.

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/2574/mpg.jpg

Now, the minimum speed I drove was 65 and the max was around 85 mph. I was wondering if the computer was just being generous or if the gas is different in the mountains? Does higher altitude affect mpg?

Just wondering b/c I was quite surprised with the mpg.

I assume that mpg is better at higher altitudes where the air is thinner. Thinner air = less air mass = the computer send less fuel = your HP sucks, but you get great gas mileage...

MPG
 

I regularly drive upstate on the weekends from NY (2008 3.0) and almost always average between 24 and 27 mpg. I think that's pretty great considering I'm coming from a Honda Ridgeline where I was barely making 20. Oh, and I also tow a 4000 lb Airstream a few times a year and get 14-15 mpg. Yes, the torque is not neck breaking but it all works for me. I love this car.

James

I agree that maximum power is reduced at altitude due to less oxygen. In practice, the driver is likely to just push down on the throttle more to compensate, so I don't see why this alone would change fuel consumption. If anything, I would think that the fuel map would be less optimized, and fuel consumption would therefore increase at altitude. A quick search on the web for a source suggested that EGR mapping will be off as well, thus reducing efficiency.

I used to drive an Expedition with a 4.6 litre V8 from sea level to 15,000 feet and back to visit a customer, and it was a dog beyond 12,000 feet, even unloaded. Mileage was reduced, likely because it couldn't pull the usual gears.

I would put the observed mileage variables down to driving practices, roads, tailwinds, stop/start cycles vs steady cruise, and so on. Also, who says that the fuel purchased is really what it says on the pump? The pump label is a minimum, not an actual. Then there are the variable effects of ethanol %, ambient temperature changes, and ambient humidity changes.

All that said, the best fuel economy I ever got on my X5 3.0 was on 89 octane, measured over a full tank and not on the OBD.

don't all ya'll Northerners have a train you can take to work? why do you people bother to even purchase cars? apparently driving doesn't cause a stir somewhere in your nether regions.

i don't care if i am driving .368 miles or 500 miles. somewhere in the trip i am going to find a damn apex to nail. you f'n guys kill me. buy a damn Acura if you want gas mileage. if you are bored with your BMW then you should be among the Premier League with one of those people movers. Mini-van driving wannabe motha......

and i have averaged 17mpg for 18 months.

actually Penguin, if you remember correctly, your driving instructor was trying to instill in you car control. MPG enhancement is simply an additional benefit of throttle control.:D

:rofl::rofl:

You drive an F350 and an SUV, and criticize those of us who nail our apexes in a twin turbo 5 series? Yes, I bought that model because it got better mileage than the M5 (and had a real transmission). No, it doesn't have the same engine note, but that is a different story. In either case, there is nothing boring about it, and I have seen 37 mpg (imperial) on trips. Maybe I better trade it in though, to improve the stirring in my nether regions. :D

you are a Canadan for crispy bacons sake JCL, you don't count. i for one would never criticize anyone that nails an apex.

one of us is off the note on the OP's post. might be me. stranger things ah have been known to happen.

my point was that if you drive a vehicle from this here Bavarian Motor Werks company the word boring should absolutely never enter in to any discussion of the driving experience.

i get shitty MPGs in everything i drive. maybe i missed the point of the post. :bustingup