Best Fuel Efficient Car from GM?

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

I worked at a commercial high volume bodyshop kind of place once. They did work for dealer chains, manufacturers and fleets, they reconditioned late model vehicles for resale basically. Fixed up minor dings, polished out scratches, that kind of stuff for lease returns, 2 or 3 year old trade ins/ups. Anyway, we had about an acre of Daewoos there, one, two or three year old vehicles, some with as little as 3000 miles on.... ah, we loved it when we had to pull a Daewoo up to the workshop... if the doorhandle didn't come off in your hand, you might be able to get behind the wheel if the power seat hadn't siezed or the battery wasn't dead, then, if the console didn't fall apart when you put the key in, you might get it started, then if you could get the door closed without the trim falling off, you might get the shifter into reverse... I had a couple of close calls with the transporter trucks in those, because we had to cross the main pikup/delivery area... and about 4 out of 10 times the ABS would be on the fritz and you'd go to stop and sail straight into the path of a truck at 15mph...

That is just a shovelful of the mountain of reservations I have about Daewoos, and hence the Aveo

[cfg83]

lunarhighway -

Originally Posted by lunarhighway

i've heared GM is thinking about bringing the new corsa to the us as well as the yet to be officially released 2009 meriva small mpv based on the same platform.

the Aveo is just a rebadged daewoo that's probably geared for european citys driveing rather than american highways. over here it's only advantage over comparable cars is it's pricetag...

today i've read VW is also planning to increase it's activity's in the US, they're even planning to produce some new compact models there

i think most car manifacturers are beginning to design their mid to small segment cars with the US market in mind

Ohhhh, I like the Meriva. Very practical. I heard that the current generation Corsa was not crash-worthy for the US, so they would design the next generation Corsa to be "forward compatible" to US crash specifications. Is 2009 the next-gen Corsa?

CarloSW2

[VetteOwner]

i like the maxxes.

id say non current gm made car would be desil chevette, easy 50+ mpg without even trying

[cruiserdarren]

I have a Maxx and would love to know how you get 40 out of the thing. I get 24-26 in town, 28 on the highway, 30 with premium. I agree though, great car.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Uh oh, words getting out about that one, the Maxx that got away, next thing you know there'll be two big guys in dark suits saying they're sorry about the mistake at the factory, and won't you take this fully pimped out Escalade and the $10,000 check and promise to shut up about it....

[101mpg]

Originally Posted by cruiserdarren

I have a Maxx and would love to know how you get 40 out of the thing. I get 24-26 in town, 28 on the highway, 30 with premium. I agree though, great car.

You have an LS, LT, LTZ or SS? Sunroof?

We have the LT without sunroof and drive it like a granny. Putting premium in it is a waste. Only can hit 40 in the summer, but high 30s in the winter hwy.

First thing to do is put in Bosch +4 spark plugs. You will need a locking socket extension for this manuever, about $15 at Sears.

Second thing is substitute Lucas oil additive for 1 quart of your oil at next oil change.

Keep your air filter blown out. I went to Harbor Freight and got a $5 air pump meant to air up your tires, runs off the cigarette lighter, and use the red reduction nozzle for that. I also keep the tires aired up about 5 PSI over sidewall.

Switch to Amsoil if you can. Use the on-board computer to tell you when to change oil, go longer if you use Amsoil.

Keep Gumout high mileage fuel additive in at high concentrations every time you change your oil. I use 1 bottle to 1/2 tank at an oil change. Seafoam in the gas from time to time helps as well.

Use neutral generously. Drive like you don't have brakes.

Drive downhill whenever possible. Seriously you get better mileage Denver to Kansas City than the reverse, but it is doable with normal driving.

Keep your speed between 55 and 62. More than that your mileage suffers HORRIBLY.

You may experiment with a small grill block.

PUT IT IN NEUTRAL AT STOP LIGHTS, or turn it off completely. +2 to +4 city. Seriously. Know your stop lights and how long they last.

Get every unnecessary item out of the vehicle to save weight.

Check your brakes for drag. Using brake lube helps a lot on this particular vehicle, as the brakes are lightweight and can suffer lots of drag on the front calipers.

Mostly the usual, but if you drive 70-75 you will get about 28 highway, drop it back to 60 and watch those dollars pile up in your pocket.

Here's my calculator: If you drive 60 miles at 60 mph, it takes you about 8 minutes longer to get there than it does if you drive 70. The vehicle will get about 7 MPG better, let's say 35 instead of 28. This means .43 gallons savings in 8 minutes. At $3.50 per gallon, that means $1.50. At $10 per hour, you would have to work about 12 minutes to earn up enough money to offset the difference because you also have to pay taxes on that money! This means you just saved myself 4 minutes of your life by spending a little more time with your wife, not being ticked off in traffic, not worrying about getting a ticket, etc.

Would you rather drive slower and save wear on your vehicle, or go to work instead? I'd rather not be working, but spending the time talking with my wife instead. Then there's the whole slowing down and speeding up thing - I have calculated out that with parasitic losses due to extra braking for slower traffic and real-world tests, if you drove 75 in a 70 zone, even if you don't get a ticket, if you can move your mileage from 28 to 35, the break-even point is somewhere around $40 an hour before it's more economical to drive faster vs. making the money at work.

COZX2 has gotten over 100 MPG with his severe mods, btw, and can get more than double EPA estimates.

My wife drives apparently like you do and gets almost the same exact mileage. I drive known routes and get significantly higher MPG than she does.

There are more things I do, and am saving all service records, gas receipts, etc. to figure out total cost per mile on this thing over its entire lifetime. Also doing the same with my Nissan Altima (soon to be sold) and honestly right now the Maxx wins out hands down over the Altima.

When I get the supermile CRX going I will do the same for it - trying for 100 MPG in a hyper-modified CRX HF.

Originally Posted by cruiserdarren

I have a Maxx and would love to know how you get 40 out of the thing. I get 24-26 in town, 28 on the highway, 30 with premium. I agree though, great car.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

Originally Posted by 101mpg

Second thing is substitute Lucas oil additive for 1 quart of your oil at next oil change.

*shudder* that's just ruining a good synthetic.

You know that demo display they have, where the oil hangs onto gears? That's called roping and is considered a parasitic loss.

[cruiserdarren]

I have the LS with the sunroof. I live in Montana so there is up and down mountains. I use Redline synthetic oil in the engine and tranny as well as their fuel injector cleaner. I put in Autolite Iridium plugs and Magnecor wires at the tuneup. Am curious about the Pulstar plugs. I made the mistake of putting heavier T-rated tires on, but it sure drives better with them. I have 121k and have never had a brake job or new air filter (I have installed an air filter monitor). Of course the screen in that MAF sensor doesn't allow much flow anyways. And yes, I've calculated at 75 mph on multiple same trips when I used to commute 75 miles that premium Exxon did give me the best mileage, 2-3 mpg advantage. I appreciate your honesty about the 55mph thing. It's a great car I think.

[kamesama980]

do NOT use lucas or other oil-thickeners unless you're having other problems. my rings are going on the cressida so I'm using a little oil and smoking at high rpms. I threw some lucas in there, now the oil foams up and i start losing oil pressure on the highway. it's out of action for now but if I pull it back into action, I'm changing the oil to thicker oil without lucas before driving it. stop and let it idle (or more like hold the gas just enough to keep the oil light off) for a minute or two and its a-ok.

do not use additives in general if you don't have problems. especially if you use good oil to start with.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

I used to use all sorts of crap to minimise the smoking in Marvin (Valve seals/guides) pretty much discovered that they just turned to sludge and hurt mpg, as did 20W50, most effective and least problematic of those was the bardahls stuff in the can, which was also the cheapest. However, discovered Pennzoil "High Mileage" oil, (gold jug) used 10W30 and was very impressed, sealed up and cleaned up Marvin a treat, the castrol version was also pretty good, as was the Canadian Tire MotoMaster brand. I was getting whatever was on sale at the time, but Valvoline "High Mileage" I was not so happy with, appeared to have far too high a detergent content, everything started leaking like hell... so I'll avoid that one now. However, for a vehicle that otherwise seems to be tight but might have problems with sticking and carbed up rings, that might be the one to try first. Also discovered that Vizard (he of the tuning books) did dyno testing that suggested that 25% synthetic gave 99% of the HP advantage of a full fill of synthetic. So I'd recommend for worn engines, that you try a couple of changes of a good high mileage oil in the manufacturer specified grade, then when the problem is under control, use 1 quart of a compatible 5W30 or 0W30 synthetic in there with the high mileage stuff. For all oil burning scenarios, I'd also suggest trying a new non-Fram PCV valve, wrong crankcase pressure will do wierd stuff.

Anyhoo, with these new high mileage oils, there's almost never a good situation to be using additives.