improving MPGs

[mattada]

I have an 05 baja NA, manual. on 100% highway we can get 26. City, we get down in the 22's. Not great. We dont speed, dont race off the line, in fact try to never get the RPMs over 3k before a shift. Although At 65 mph we are right at 3k rpm on flat land. We do live in AZ and its 110 out AC on full blast. but even in the winter we dont get anything different on MPG totals.

Still, we average under 24.

Anything wrong? We have 90k miles. Would new spark plugs help? We dont really have an lack of power that we know of, just not thrilled with the 22 - 24mpg we get these days.

[WillGT]

nothing really wrong with that.
My 03 which has 135K on it and Manual gets about 20-22 around town and about 26 on the highway
Best bets would be to check tire pressure, air filter, spark plugs and also remove the roof rack cross bars.
Thats about it. If your getting 24 around town, then I think your getting the recommended mileage anyways, not going to get much better than that

[tomato_88]

I have an N/A 03 with 162000 miles on it. I live in CA, so I run the a/c in the summer. I am getting between 25 and 28 mixed driving right now. I did change the plugs and wires about 8000 miles ago. Its still on the Potenza tires too.

[mattada]

Did you notice any better MPG gains with the wire and plug changes?

[tomato_88]

I did them when I purchased the vehicle. Seeing as how they use an older style plug, that has a 30,000 mile life, it should help some.

[mattada]

Pulled the plugs and the wires while i was at it. 2 of the plugs looked beyond dead. No spark node left, gapped at .06+ and scorched looking. We'll see how it does.

[bulwnkl]

Did that help any? I'm in southern AZ, too, and I get very roughly 23 on my nearly-all-highway/freeway commute (75 miles round-trip) once it gets reliably below 100F for the winter. Summertime I'm more like 21.5 - 22.5. Mine's a turbo, but A/T. Subie's short gearing in the M/Ts REALLY kills mpgs.

[jseabolt]

Mine get's around 23 mpg around town and 28 on the interstate. One day on a trip to the beach I overinflated the tires to 45 PSI and got a whopping 31 mpg!! They were about worn out and just wanted to see if this effected the fuel mileage. I've checked my mileage before on this same route and average 28 mpg.

I don't think the cost of wearing out tires prematurely would offset getting an additional 3 mpg.

I hope I don't sound smart but if you want better gas mileage than 23/28 then buy something without AWD. All that extra AWD equiptment causes drag on the drivetrain. My wife had a Chevy Cobalt that would get 33 mpg on the interstate but had very poor traction on wet roads. Being front wheel drive you had to be careful at how fast you went around turns in that thing.

In my opinion AWD is well worth it. Having the benefit to drive around idiots spinning their wheels on snow trying to make it up hills knowing good and well their car can make it in the first place only to end up abandoning them in the middle of the road. One night I had to call in work and tell them I could not make it to work on time simply because I could not get out of my driveway due to all the cars spinning out. I waited until 7:30 pm and it looked like all the 9 to 5ers were off the roads and I was able to make it into work with no problems.

Last big snowstorm we had the state of Tennessee towed hundred or so abandoned cars parked along Interstate 26. They said they were a traffic hazzard.

[tomato_88]

@mattada.
Any improvement with the new plugs?

[KensAudio]

I got a bit of a bump recently after a 4-wheel alignment. I live near Boston, MA, so if I drive enough on Boston potholes it takes a toll on alignment and subsequently, mileage. Prior to the work done on my trucklet, I was getting about 22-24. Since then, my on-board computer is trying to relearn itself and how I drive: a tank at 26 mpg, another at 24 (mostly city), and most recently, about 2/3 of a tank on highway to/from NH, with a lot of tooling around the more rural highways up there (which I really think is a sweet-spot for a Subie transmission), I filled my tank and was pleasantly surprised to get 29.1 mpg.

I genuinely think my Subie gets as good or better mileage on hilly, winding country roads, as it does at highway speeds.

- K
p.s. I've got a ScanGaugeII on my dash, to help me track my mileage, but while it's precise, it's often not accurate. Has anyone else come across this?

- K

[subienewbie]

Ha! I get 11 mpg in the city and 15 freeway. New tires, alignment, spark plugs, air filter. Went to the Subie specialist and all they could say was that I have a lead foot. I would kill for 22 mpg!

[Takaaco]

following this topic. Whats the best method you guys use for figuring your mpg's

[mikenmel08]

A good 4 wheel alignment should help out the MPG. Make sure everything is in line where it should be and not fighting itself....