bates's Forum Comments
Showing comments 1-30 of 69 by bates.
Need separate option for Cruze Eco
PB, not to jump into this fray since I don't have a dog in the fight so to speak and I am tremendously appreciative for all that you and Mathowie do for us here on Fuelly but I do have a question / suggestion on this thread. Would it be possible to add 1.4LTurbo as an engine option? It would seem that this would allow the Cruze Eco crowd to filter within the model as they are asking without breaking out the manuals and automatics and maintain the Fuelly policy of not adding superfulous trim lines that confuse the membership at large and exponentially expand the vehicle lists to the point of being unmanageable.
I am not trying to jump into your business by any means and again I really appreciate the site and all your hard work. It just seemed to me as I read this thread that possibly this would keep all parties happy and not create a new rule or additional workload for you and Mathowie. In effect it would be like the difference between a V6 and an I4, both are gasoline engines but may have significant fuel economy differences due to horsepower and application variances. Is this workable for you?
Thanks again,
bates
posted by bates February 10 at 6:52 AM
High NO reading on Smog Test?
Rem83 and ChrisM, thank you both for your input. The air box and intake are stock, I bought the car new and by CA Smog law can't legally add a cold air intake. The air filter may be dirty, I can change that.
As for the mixture, the rest of the numbers are right at the bottom of the measurable levels so I don't think that is it since a lean mixture should add other values to the report. The Test Only Tech was far from helpful and basically just said, "I only test them, I have no idea what the results mean." I know that a test only station can't repair, but would have appreciated a direction to go in. I wouldn't have used the test only station if it wasn't required on the renewal notice. I'll get a better qualified tech to look at the results and see if they can diagnose it that way or run a diagnostic series on it.
It is almost due for service anyway, one of the valves is rattling slightly and the rocker cover gasket needs to be replaced along with a trans fluid flush and filter change, I'll just add smog diagnostic to the list.
posted by bates February 1 at 9:44 AM
Best tank yet!
MMUK, I normally fill the spout in my vehicles when I fill up, but that is rarely more than 1/2 a gallon in a passenger vehicle, maybe a gallon in a full sized truck or something with a long filler neck but more than 2 gallons seems way off the chart to me.
Filling the spout saved me once when I would have otherwise run out of gas. I was driving across Arizona at night and didn't stop for gas at the border since I still had half a tank. The next 200 miles didn't have a single open gas station (wee hours of the morning) when I finally found an open station I put 12.252 gallons into a 12.2 gallon tank by refilling the neck. My passenger was grateful that I made a habit of that when we pulled the manual and realized that I'd filled with more than the official capacity of the tank, otherwise we might have had to push it the last mile or so.
posted by bates January 26 at 6:12 AM
Congratulations, well done dz302. Keep up the good work. I too don't hyper mile but work hard at maximizing my mileage for the commute route I drive to work. Good luck on hitting 40 MPG, that is ambitious and I hope you make it.
posted by bates January 23 at 8:28 AM
High NO reading on Smog Test?
Good Question BDC, I appreciate the input and suggestion, I may have a partially obstructed or sticky EGR valve. I'll have my mechanic check that out at my next service. Thank you.
posted by bates January 19 at 6:29 AM
Winter Blend
Back before the Bush Administration started the ethanol mandate CA used to switch to a high ethanol blend for summer before they outlawed MTBE. I could tell you the exact tank that I got the first slug of the E10 summer blend because my mileage at the next fill up would drop significantly. Somehow by replacing 10 % of the gasoline with alcohol my mileage would settle down about 20% from 33-35 MPG down to 27-29 MPG. After the outlaw of MTBE in CA the mileage never recovered in the summer or winter. Now I lose about 3% in winter or 1 MPG on average with the year around E10 blend. I live in Southern Cal with very mild winters, normally a dozen or so nights that get down to or slightly below freezing and about the same number of summer days with highs of 100 degrees F.
posted by bates January 11 at 6:53 AM
poor mpg
dremartinez are you possibly using E85 or a high ethanol blend of gasoline? When the ethanol blend increases my vehicle mileages drop quickly. 24 mpg seems way too low if you're not ricky racing it all the time even with a new "tight" motor. If there is a lesser percentage ethanol gas available like E10 or E15 and you've been using high ethanol content try switching and see what happens after a few tanks. The first tank or two may not dilute the Ethanol a lot if you're topping off a half full tank of E85, it will take 3-5 tanks to get the Ethanol percentage down enough to see a potentially meaningfull mileage increase.
posted by bates January 11 at 6:39 AM
Can't Retire
I'd be glad to pay you guys a service fee to compensate for the value I get out of your free site. If you ever move forward with that idea you can count on at least one paying user. I figure that it is the least I can do for all that I get out of Fuelly. I truly appreciate all the work that you guys put into the site, thank you.
posted by bates January 11 at 6:28 AM
Fuelly Moving to New Servers
Thank you gentlemen once again for all you do for us Fuelly users, I appreciate it.
posted by bates December 1, 2011 at 6:31 AM
City vs Highway Percentage
GeneK,
Yes, ethanol blended fuel definately decreases mileage and the average speed of your non highway commute is probably higher than some, both will add up to economy increases. Be proud of your better than most MPG figures, I certainly am proud of mine. Also be aware that many of us that are active here on Fuelly are extravigilant at squeezing the most mileage out of our tanks and fuel, that is after all the purpose of the site. To track and share our experiences with other drivers who want to maximize their fuel economy so it only makes sense that you're doing better than the average. Well done, keep up the good work.
posted by bates November 7, 2011 at 6:44 AM
How many clicks to fill up?
First of all, I fill it to the next full dollar if it is less than $xx.75, if it is less than 25 cents shy of a dollar I fill it to the 2nd dollar. With gas at $4.00 a gallon I'm never adding more than 1/3 of a gallon past the click. Back when gas was $1.00 a gallon I'd almost always still be able to round up to the next full dollar on a car or truck tank. My motorcycles used to go up to the next even multiple of .25 so $xx.25, xx.50, xx.75, or $xx.00. This was due to the smaller tanks on motorcycles and me filling them pretty close to the top with no filler nozzle directly into the tank.
As for the vapor return nozzles, yes at least in CA they can return a little liquid fuel to the tank if you overfill it too much but in a sense you are both right. If you go past the click and give the vehicle tank a few seconds to settle down and let the bubbles pop, it will click again numerous times before any liquid gasoline will be returned. If you just pin the handle immediately after the click you will spill gasoline out of the filler neck and potentially have some recovered by the vapor return nozzle, but even then the amount returned to the Station's tanks is going to be extremely small, the nozzles are intended to return vapor, not liquid, so they really aren't designed or set up to recover liquid. They are an AQMD requirement intended to keep the gasoline vapors out of our atmosphere. If you pay careful attention the next time you're at a station that sells Diesel, you'll probably notice that there aren't any vapor return nozzles on the Diesel pumps because Diesel fumes haven't been linked to smog and other air polution in the same manner that gasoline vapors have been.
posted by bates October 31, 2011 at 7:58 AM
94 MPG!
I can honestly say that my 1980 Diesel VW Dasher wagon was at least 15 seconds 0-60 and probably closer to 20 seconds. I knew it and drove it in a manner that didn't expose me to unnecessary danger while merging. I absolutely conceed that there is an acceleration issue that could potentially be hazardous to an inattentive or inexperienced driver, but I propose that it is probably safer than driving an exotic that can light up the rear end in a burn out on an onramp and put a driver into a retaining wall or K-Rail and that doesn't seem to be a major safety concern.
As for buying lower horsepower for the same money, when the life expectancy of the engine with the lower horsepower is significantly longer then that would be a factor to me. I've seen boats repower with higher horsepower at significant costs due to new transmissions and propeller shafts only to continue to cruise at similar speeds to the previous engines in an effort to keep fuel costs down and often at added maintenance expense for the new engines due to excessive coking due to not running the engines hard enough on a regular basis to clear out the carbon.
I'll take the longer life expectancy and reduced maintenance costs for my commute vehicle over added horsepower. I also like the idea of having a lower horsepower slower accelerating vehicle for my kids to drive. It takes away the impluse to race when you're driving the slowest car on the block, I know this from personal experience.
posted by bates October 31, 2011 at 7:44 AM
City vs Highway Percentage
Distance or time are the best methods, but the most important thing is to be consistent. I tend to use a hybrid of distance and time with the greater weight being given to time. This is because I use engine hours to set my post warranty service schedules. The benchmark 3,000 mile oil change interval was actually based upon 100 engine hours at an average of 30 miles per hour. That is the reason that back about 15 years ago some manufacturers started with the 5,000 mile interval for vehicles with heavy freeway miles, it was the same 100 engine hours but based on a 50 MPH average. The 7,500 mile interval came about with some of the newer generation oils and synthetics that manufacturers feel can stretch the inverval to 150 hours without danger to the engine.
posted by bates October 31, 2011 at 7:30 AM
94 MPG!
Draigflag,
I understand and know that diesels are NOT banned in the US, but the US EPA does make it difficult for manufacturers to import and sell them here for passenger vehicles, why I don't know. Further, the Manufacturers are understandably gun shy over selling clean diesels in the US due to the lackluster sales performance that they have received in the past.
I'm just glad to see that there are people out there who are championing these vehicles and I hope that it will translate into some additional sales and importations into the US for our market.
For the record, I owned a 1980 VW Dasher Diesel Wagon and loved it, 50 MPG no matter how I drove it, freeway, city streets, or any mix thereof. I've also been working on and driving diesel boats for more than 30 years and have watched the Heavy Duty Marine Diesel industry evolve over those past 3 decades. The switch to low sulfur and now ultra low sulfur diesel has had a nominal effect on emissions but a drastic effect on the life expectancy of these engines due to decreased lubricity of the fuels.
Once again, well done, I'm glad to see you getting such great mileage and economy.
posted by bates October 25, 2011 at 6:56 AM
Cold air intake tip is incorrect!
Any Turbocharger or Belt driven Blower has a built in heat source, it is called the heat of compression. When you compress a gas it builds heat which in some applications is great enough that the blower or turbo requires an intercooler to keep it from overheating.
As for warmer air giving better mileage, that is true to a point, warmer air is less dense at any given pressure than cooler air. Less density means less free oxygen for combustion which in a fuel injected application means less fuel delivered in order to maintain a proper fuel / air mixture that will fall into the combustable range for that application. But as the density of the air charge decreases so does the available horsepower which helps mileage up to the point where the engine can not provide adequate power to maintain a constant speed.
posted by bates October 20, 2011 at 7:54 PM
94 MPG!
Alas it seems that in the US the EPA monkeys with the numbers and plays with the data to aid some manufacturers while punishing others. Europe has had several generations of high effiency small diesels over the past 3 decades or so that were kept mostly out of the US for one reason or another. Unfortunately, many US drivers associate diesels with the rattling smokey beasts of 40 years ago and that has made the manufacturers more than a little shy about fighting to import them since they often receive luke warm at best sales over here. Fortunately the Germans have done a great job recently with the TDI in VW and Audi and other diesel engines in BMW that are showing the fickle US buyer who truly extraordinary these new generation powerplants are. I hope that this Kia Rio will make its' way over here, but I seriously doubt that it will. Good luck with your planned aquisition and I hope that you break the 100 MPG barrier.
posted by bates October 20, 2011 at 7:44 PM
Tire sizing odometer modifier?
I might suggest BuggyMeister that you go to a Speedometer shop and have the correct tail shaft sprocket installed. That would correct your speedometer and your odometer readings and eliminate the need for the feature your asking Fuelly to add for you. The last I checked it wasn't particularly expensive item and will aid you in other areas such as maintenance schedules and the like.
posted by bates October 12, 2011 at 10:39 AM
Fuel Consumption on High Altitude
If you are driving a modern fuel injected engine the fuel injection system should reduce the fuel charge to match the available air for combustion. Old carbureated engines had to be retuned to run at high altitude because a carb doesn't change the fuel charge it delivers a constant amount per butterfly valve position and in thin air they would sometimes literally rich out to the point where an engine's fuel air mixture got so rich that it wouldn't continue to combust. Places like Independance Pass in the Rocky Mountains were famous 25 years ago for cars left on the side of the road that just couldn't climb the mountain. This is the reason that reciprocating (piston powered, not turbine or jet) engines in airplanes have a mixture lever, so that the pilot can lean or enrichen the fuel to air mixture depending on alititude and power requirements. I can tell you absolutely that at altitude airplanes get better mileage if they are leaned properly. That is not only theoretical data, but I have years of experience flying and leaning engines and literally hundreds of hours of first hand experience with the increased range provided by proper leaning at cruising altitude.
While I agree with the poster that the air resistance drops as altitude increases I'm not sure that it will affect your mileage significantly as rolling resistance (the friction between your tires and the road surface) won't be dependent on altitude and remains more or less constant for a given weight on the same vehicle.
Finally, for improved performance you might be well served to utilize a turbo charger or belt driven blower (super charger) or nitrous oxide system to add more free oxygen to the combustion chambers which will aid combustion and horsepower.
posted by bates September 11, 2011 at 2:03 PM
Most Miles Logged
I have 63,566 miles and 246 fuel ups for my primary driver since September of 2008 when I started using Fuelly. The car has 244,000 miles on it and I religiously tracked my mileage prior to Sept. 2008 but didn't keep the records.
My wife's car has 26,977 miles and 108 fuel ups tracked on Fuelly, but she misses about half of her fill ups.
Together they account for over 90,000 miles and 350 fuel ups. In the last year I've changed work locations so my daily commute has been cut almost in half from 92 miles round trip down to 52 so my average mileage has decreased due to more city driving for my commute and my miles tracked per year and fuel ups have decreased by almost half as well.
posted by bates August 14, 2011 at 2:13 PM
Tracking my MPG on my 2007 Honda Civic EX
One more thing, if you are in an area where you can get pure gasoline, without any ethanol, that will increase your mileage. Now that I think about it if you are using E85 in your car you are probably doing quite well getting 20 MPG. Even E10 (10% Ethanol) decreases the mileage in my Acura Integra by about 20 % over straight gasoline.
posted by bates July 30, 2011 at 3:12 PM
jonswifey,
Like DTMAce pointed out there are dozens if not hundreds of factors that affect mileage. Check the Tips page here on Fuelly for dozens of good ideas to help you increase here our mileage. Some of the biggest factors are properly inflated tires, dump the junk in the trunk (don't carry around extra weight in your car), accelerate smoothly and easy so don't floor the gas pedal, use the highest gear possible for cruising if your car is a stick, don't coast with the clutch in or in neutral, since you're already looking at new tires consider LRR tires for your replacements (LRR stands for Low Rolling Resistance) and keep them at the top end of their air pressure range it makes for a slightly harder ride but helps your mileage quite a bit, get the car a good tune up from a reputable mechanic who specializes in Hondas, new plugs and wires can make a difference along with a fuel injection system cleaner and replace the fuel filters both inline and on the engine if your car is so equipped. Have the brakes checked to ensure that they aren't dragging, change the transmission fluid and filter if it is an automatic or the fluid alone if it is a stick, have your wheel bearings checked to make sure they aren't worn or inadequately greased. Since this is a salvage vehicle, also have your alignment checked, a car that is dragging a wheel can cost you 5% in fuel economy pretty easily, possibly more if two or more wheels are rolling in different directions.
I'm not as big a believer as DTMAce in the synthetic oils but I know that they are popular and many people swear by them, to me they just aren't worth the added cost. Talk to your mechanic and see what they recommend for your application.
A big factor in your mileage numbers being low is your City Driving, the fact is with the exception of some hybrid and electric vehicles city driving equals lower fuel economy and highway driving at steady speeds for long distances works out to high fuel economy. That being said 20 MPG for a Civic is pretty low even the CNG Civics I used to drive at work got into the mid to upper teens, usually 15-17 when I was at the wheel. That being said this isn't a CNG or Propane conversion is it? Those get horrible mileage compared to the gasoline versions due to the low BTU or energy content of CNG and Propane compared to gasoline.
Finally, I agree with DTMAce completely, fill your tank every time if at all possible for a number of reasons. First, it makes Fuelly work much better for you and as pb pointed out above it doesn't mean that the tank was empty when you started, it just means that it was full when you left the gas station and gives the system a good point to calculate from. Second, with the current generation of gasolines containing ethanol they are prone to absorb moisture from the air which is BAD for your engine and fuel system, a full tank doesn't have much room for air in it compared to a low tank and therefore doesn't pick up nearly as much water vapor from the air. There are safety reasons to always have gas in your tank, if there is an emergency it is good to have gas in your tank, if there is a supply interruption or economic problem you can go a few days without stopping at the gas station, and if you get stuck on the roads in a winter storm you can spend the night with the car on and heater running. And finally, as I was told when I was first driving, half a tank of gas costs the same amount if it is the top half or the bottom half of the tank so pony up for one fill up and then if you can only afford half a tank fill it when it is half way down rather than wait until it is empty and you'll always have at least half a tank.
Good luck and let me know how it goes.
posted by bates July 29, 2011 at 8:49 PM
Fuel Additives...
In my experience modern gasolines are fairly clean, calling oneself a detergent gasoline is basically redundant since gasoline is a solvent in and of itself. That being said before I take my cars in for their smog checks I tend to run a tank with a name brand high quality fuel injector cleaner through them at least 2 or 3 tank fill ups before taking them down for the test, I figure it may be wasted money but it probably can't hurt.
I would steer clear from anything containing acetone, it is a very polar solvent and can damage hoses, gaskets, and seals in your engine and fuel system. Acetone also has a propensity to hold water similar to that of alcohol and water in your fuel system is not good ever. It is bad enough that we have to use ethanol fuels that attract and hold water, but I wouldn't consider adding an additional water attractant to my fuel. A tiny flake of rust can wreck havoc on your fuel pump or fuel injection pump if it wedges or lands in the wrong place.
I agree completely with MatrixDom, don't add octane if it isn't needed for your application, it will cost you money with no return on investment. If your engine is suffering from detonation, knocking or pinging, go the the next higher pump octane rating for a few pennies a gallon but don't pop for a bottle of Octane 105 at $5.00 a fill up, your car will run best on the lowest possible octane rating that prevents detonation, higher octane ratings than that figure are just wasted money.
posted by bates June 25, 2011 at 3:37 PM
MPG versus air temperature and Altitude
I'm going to take this from a different perspective, as a pilot I can tell you that at higher altitudes in gasoline powered reciprocting engine airplanes you definately get much better fuel economy at altitude than you do at sea level. Airplanes have a fuel mixture lever to control how rich or lean the mixture of gasoline is and a properly leaned mixture at altitude increases fuel economy dramatically. However, that has less to do with air density, which while a factor is one of many forms of drag involved in moving a solid body through a gas or liquid. What is the largest factor here is the thinner air in a non turbo or super charged engine is less dense and therefore the engine produces less horsepower, less horsepower production reduces fuel consumption and less fuel consumption at a similar speed equates to greater economy. In an airplane lower air density does work out to slightly higher speeds for the same horsepower output in straight and level flight so the airspeed stays fairly close inspite of the reduced fuel consumption, but there is some penalty in airspeed over full horsepower available altitudes. The greatest fuel economy versus airspeed altitude is theoretically at the highest altitude where the airplane still makes full cruise horsepower. Modern fuel injected automotive engines do this mixture adjustment automatically via computer controls which sample the density of the air charge entering the fuel injection pump and then meter the fuel delivery at an appropriate rate to ensure maximum consumption. What that means at altitude is that the injection pump delivers less fuel because the air density is lower and a sea level fuel delivery would not combust completely in the combustion chamber.
Like BDC pointed out there are numerous other drag factors that you're fighting here, primarily rolling resistance from the tires against the pavement and don't forget that drag increases with the square of speed so a 10 MPH increase in speed works out to a drag increase of 100.
Finally, you can go back into my history for my 2000 Acura Integra and see exactly what tank the summer blend started in Southern California. I suffered a 20% decrease in fuel economy prior to the MTBE ban in CA when ethanol would begin being added to the so called Summer Gas due to the lower BTU content of the oxygenated gasolines, alcohol just doesn't have the energy content of gasoline. Since MTBE was banned the difference isn't nearly as noticable since the gasoline is 10% ethanol year round now, but back in the day my commute mileage would drop from 34-35 MPG every tank down to 29-30 literally overnight.
posted by bates June 19, 2011 at 3:04 PM
Mitsubishi L200 S T O R M V6 consumption increase
Has there been a change to the type of fuel? When in California they used to switch to "Summer Blend" gasoline I would immediately lose 3-5 MPG due to the lower BTU content of the fuel. I have permenantly lost those 3-5 MPG since the US went to Gasohol, with gasoline having a 10% methanol content requirement thanks to former President of the US George W. Bush and his Congress. If there has been an addition of or increase in the amount of Alcohol in your fuel that may be your culprit, it has been in my case.
posted by bates May 25, 2011 at 8:02 PM
AT in neutral at a stoplight?
I would guess that fuel wise it is going to be a wash, that slight increase in RPM that Kimoeagle talks about is really the same amount of fuel through the system, just without the wear and load of the clutch plates and torque converter slipping when in gear. That being said, I hadn't considered the extra wear and tear on the AT that moving the gear selector back and forth might create, but those same clutch plates and torque converter have a limited life and leaving them spinning and slipping for an extended period of time definately decreases their life.
I pull my AT into neutral at a rail road crossing when there is a freight train crossing or anywhere that I'm going to be stopped for more than a minute or 90 seconds, other than that I leave it in gear, especially at stop lights or anywhere that I may have to get moving again quickly. This is because it takes a few seconds after a shift for the fluid pressure to build back up in the Tranny and keep it from slipping, I don't want the light to turn green, drop it into gear and put unnecessary wear on the tranny while the pressures stabilize.
posted by bates May 25, 2011 at 7:58 PM
A/C Impact on MPG
While I agree that the newer A/C systems aren't as big of a horsepower pig as those of decades past, I can tell you from experience that on my wife's 2005 Mazda MPV (minivan) and my 2000 Acura Integra, I notice a drop in mileage with the A/C running. My last car took approximately 10 hp to run the A/C which worked out to about 1 gallon per hour of gasoline, the Acura now burns about an extra 1/3 to 1/2 gallon per hour with the A/C on by my mileage tracking, the Mazda uses more like 2/3 to 3/4 of a gallon per hour, larger interior volume to cool, but has a lower relative MPG impact due to the average MPG being lower to begin with so an increase in fuel consumption doesn't show up as glaringly as it does with a car that burns about 2 gallons per hour at 65 MPH when it increases to 2.3 or 2.5 gph the mileage drops from 33ish to 27ish a loss of almost 20% as opposed to burning 3 to 3.5 gph at 65 and increasing to 3.6 or 4.2 for a mileage drop from about 20 mpg down to 17ish for a drop of more like 15%. For some reason that doesn't seem to hurt quite as much.
posted by bates May 25, 2011 at 7:52 PM
New Fuelly Design
Hey there Fuelly Team,
Thanks for the new look and redesign, I appreciate all the hard work you guys put into this site for us. Well done! Mathowie and PB, you guys ROCK!
posted by bates May 25, 2011 at 7:41 PM
A preview of our new site for Earth Day!
The new site looks fabulous, thank you Fuelly for all that you do, I truly appreciate it. I love the current site, but it looks like I might be in for a very pleasant upgrade when the new site is ready.
Will all of our old data from the original site be automatically uploaded to the new site or will I need to reenter my historical data?
posted by bates April 22, 2011 at 3:52 PM
ATV / quads - why are they not legal?
Also consider that many are 2 strokes and some states will not license a 2 stroke for on road use no matter what other factors are involved, California for one.
I can't even get a pre 2 stroke ban Vespa (that was designed for on road driving) licensed if it has been unlicensed since the ban went into effect if I understand the Vehicle Code correctly. I'd sure love to have one of my old Vespas for an around town ride but the ones that are still licensed are ridiculously expensive due to their inherint value for having been continuously registered.
posted by bates January 26, 2011 at 7:37 AM
Difference in blend: higher fuel efficiency or higher power fuel?
DTMAce and BDC,
I like BDC can literally pinpoint the first tank of the switch from summer to winter blend and back again as I too see a way off the scale increase and decrease in my mileage. It was bad before the outlawing of MTBE, but it is worse now with the E10-E15 blends we get in So. Cal.
I agree that there is a difference in extreme temperture changes, but in So. Cal. much of the time the difference between summer and winter is maybe 30 degrees, fall and spring are usually negligable. There is definately something there but it is often statistically irrelevant compared to the fuel blend differences.
Traxii,
I too lived in the bay area for a while while my wife and family were in So. Cal. back in the early 90's and my monthly drives up and down I5 were the times when I got my best mileage, 400 miles at a nearly constant speed made for excellent mileage. The most notable exceptions were during times of Tule Fog and holiday weekends when traffic would interrupt my cruise speeds.
posted by bates December 17, 2010 at 7:22 AM