Scion XB
 

I am not actually new here (as a few of you will know) but I would just like to introduce my new car and kick off my return to the gas saver swimming pool. :thumbup:

I spent a very long time researching what type of car to get. You probably wouldn't assume that considering my last car got somewhere close to 60mpg and now I am driving something shaped like a brick.

My goal is to push this 32.5mpg(combined) little box past the 50 mpg mark.

The woman I bought it from had an AEM (TRD: according to Scion) Cold Air intake, rear spoiler and alloy wheels installed at the dealership.

All of these things need to go as soon as possible.
The wheels, although not very heavy are hideous.
The cold air intake will be replaced with a warm air.
And the spoiler? Not so sure what to do with that yet. I am not at all sure whether I am in the mood to ugly up the rear of the car with AirTabs just yet.

First fill up put me at exactly 30mpg; Which I can not deal with at all, so I am eager to begin the mods.
I have already fixed a few things....
- I found out that Toyota/Denso had installed wrongly gapped sparked plugs on some models. Turns out mine was one of them. Plugs were supposed to be gapped to .044, mine were at .29. (So all you XB guys on here might want to check that.)
- After checking my tire pressures I found out that they were all set to 20psi. Increased to 40.

Hopefully I can hit 35mpg+ on the next fill up.


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Man.. I loved The Egg. Did it die on you? That was one of the nicest-looking modded cars on this site. Probably helps that I love white cars, but still, it was an effective and cool-looking little car.

The xB has potential, but the aerodynamics on that thing are... less than good. Seeing what you did with The Egg though, you might want to look into importing the 1.3 liter engine from the bB in Japan. Either way, I look forward to what you will be doing with this car.

Thanks man, I appreciate the comments on the Egg.

It did die on me so I sold it to a friend, who has been trying to get it running since. It is still sitting in my driveway, which is somewhat awkward considering I sold it to him in July. (I guess thats what friends are for: Giving you money for your old broken down cars, then letting you keep them)
He swapped in a D16y8 from a junk yard and is dealing with some serious issues. Whenever you give the car gas, it stalls.
Everything has been replaced and inspected. Well, I say everything, but the issues continue, so I guess not EVERYTHING. ( I just say that because there is a huge list of things that we have replaced)

Anyway....
I am hoping to get over 50 mpg without modifying Aerodynamics. (The only option I would consider is some sort of an under body covering)
I need to look into the bB a little more. The scion websites I have been to mention them often, but mostly because people want their "Emblems".

I initially wanted to build a MPG monster. I looked into getting a Honda Insight or a VW Jetta TDI(to run Biodiesel).

Insight - I would have had very little room in, and the $3000 cost of batteries would end up costing me more than the benefits of its impressive FE. (Although Honda will replace the batteries for up to 10 years under warranty, I didn't want to deal with this.)

TDI - I could not find a TDI with decent mileage. The average was 150,000 miles(on 2002 models). Also, The price for a TDI was insane compared to their gas equivalents(almost twice as much). Finally a Grease kit and all of the equipment for processing etc... would have run about $3500 or so. Even though Grease would have run about $1 a gallon to produce/obtain, I could have bought gas in the Scion for the next 3 years due to the price of the kit.

There were several other things that scared me away from those two cars. It seems like both cars suffer from pervasive wiring issues.

With these things considered (battery, TDI grease kit, and getting 40mpg with the XB) The XB will end up costing me LESS to drive over the course of 4 years.

I hope that all makes sense, I work 3rd shift and it is past my bed time...
Either way, Just as the Egg, I will do my best to make the Scion look decent and perform.

Seems like the spoiler on that would help with some AirTabs added at the appropriate locations. What size engine did the first gen come with?...I know the new ones have grown in Cubic Inches.

THIS is what every one that needs space and buy instead a SUV or a VAN should buy god dami**. How a Yaris engine can do some ok performance in such a none aerodynamique cube, that is heavier, well maybe cause 106 is all a human being will ever need to displace himself (not to mention that he can do it with 0, YES PEOPLE WE CAN WALK).

Nice going on the Scion XB, but I don't know WHY is that a MARGINAL phenomenon. I wish Toyota themselve could sell the product and make it to a bigger level. THey should do a Scion XB with 7 places, THAT would leave no arguments for a VAN (of course they could add some torque for the extra weight, but still....).

Then it IS a minivan. The rest is kinda narrowminded babbling. I'd never own one nor would it be efficient for me to do so and I could think of as many people that wouldn't as would like them.

formulatwo: as long as you like it, more power to you. Most of the car is about as aerodynamic as it's going to get without massive structural reorganization so don't fret too much. I agree that you can get some decent FE out of it even shaped as it is. one of the things often overlooked here that I've noticed is exhaust: I don't know what's out there but take a look for aftermarket headers and exhaust systems that may free up a few horses...and MPG. on Cressidas headers and exhaust are usually good for 5-10% improvement over stock HP and FE, but then we're pretty low mpg to start with too.

I guess I am chopped liver of something guys because I have been driving an xB for 2 years now HELLO!!

Fomular Two WELCOME to the world of the xB! Keep the rear spoiler they claim it improves aero, the CD is .35 which is pretty good. The ideal shape is supposed to be a tear drop and guess what . . . the front is pretty round if viewed from the top, it is just the back end that needs some work and I think AirTabs could be the answer but haven't tried it yet. I hear from others that 4oz of Acetone in the gas it the best amount to use not 3oz. Tires at 40 psi and with any luck and some better lube in the engine and tranny you should average over 40mpg easy with some hypermiling. I hope you don't have an automatic! Oh yeah and it already comes with a header.

I am the owner of a 1998 Jetta TDI. I bought it for a few reasons. One, I wanted to drive a turbo diesel. They are huge in Europe, and I wanted in on the action. Two, I wanted the great fuel economy that they provide. Three, I am guessing that there will be a huge market for diesels in a few years. Not everyone can buy new cars, so a lot of people will be looking for used diesels when Honda and the others start bringing their oil burners over to the USA. I hope to sell my car at that time for close to what I paid for it.

My car has 130k on the odo, and has a salvage title. It was a pretty light hit though, and there was no structural damage. Go figure. Anyway, I practically stole it, so I am sure that I can pass it along to someone in a few years when I move on to my next car.

Nice ride!

My friends girlfriend has one and I was shocked that it had more front and rear headroom then a Durango.

Neat little things. They look cool cause they look like mini astro vans

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I just bought an xB this afternoon as well. I've got similar hopes for it.

To DarbyWalters- The 1st gen got a 1.5 engine, same as the toyota Yaris.

To BIBI - I am also surprised that the Yaris doesn't get better gas mileage.

to kamesama980 - I will have to read more about the FE improvements on exhaust. This is something I thought about on my last car. I would be interested to study this.

JanGeo - Steered clear of the auto. My mpg jumped up to 35.5 after filling the tires and changing plugs. I wasn't really driving the way I should though.
I went to remove the A/C belt tonight and found out that it has shared use with the alternator.

Erdrick - You are right , the resale value on the TDI's is insane!

Three6Eight - You are the first to tell me mini astro van- I get a lot of comments about "toaster" , Xbox, Box, and believe it or not "short bus"

Improbcat - I love that color! Wanna trade?

FormulaTwo - don't worry about the AC belt - the pump spins pretty free when it is not used just keep away from the defrost the windshield settings with the fan on and the pump will stay off. Even when using it, it does not affect mileage much. I just found out my tires were down to 36psi from the cold and slow leaks which is why my mileage dipped for the past two tanks. Pumped them back up to 40psi and put the lower grill block in today and mileage is back up even in this 30 degree weather.

Best thing you can do is get something more slippery in the tranny for lube asap which should be good for a few more MPG.

Congrats Improbcat - photo is dark but it looks like it is in great shape.

You can get a little over 50mpg if you keep it under 45mph usually around 35-40 mph is good for mileage. I have had a few tanks full at 45mpg but it takes a lot of work to do that - usually I am happy with some 20 mile runs at 45-50mpg but a red light or two drags it right down.

It is pretty good. It's a '04, I got it cheap because it has 92,000 miles on it. But it drives and feels as tight as the 31K one I test drove. It needs a few minor things (two tiny chips in windshield, small scrape on passenger side) but getting it for over $1500 off the blue book value made it worth it.

I'm running the first tank as a "control", though I did throw a bottle of fuel injector cleaner in it. Once I get a MPG reading from this tank I'm going to put new plugs in it, check the air/fuel filters, change the oil, up the tire pressure and such. Then see if that makes a difference.

Make it four xB gassavers. I picked up an '04 xB 1.5 years ago. Big difference coming from an Impala SS with 330 lb-ft torque. :D

Less power but I don't have the guilt that I used to have by wasting gas.

I'm hating the winter time and the crappier gas mileage that goes with it. Right now I'm getting about 34mpg. During the summer I get about 37mpg with a best of 38mpg.

Here are some of the mods so far
-remove intake snorkle, not ideal wai but better than stock
-lightweight pully
-Enkei RPF-1 alloy wheels
-Sumitomo HTR 200 LRR summer tires
-Redline tranny fluid (5 speed)
-Ron Paul for president vinyl graphic and door magnets (thought you would like this FormulaTwo) :D
-ScanGauge II
-TRD springs, Whiteline rear swaybar, Hotchkis front swaybar so I don't have to waste energy braking around turns. ;)

When I can break 40mpg regularly I'll be very happy.

Sounds like a nice Box. How does that lightweight pulley affect engine revving and power? Is there a noticeable improvement?

I think I've only floored it once and I'm pretty gentle with the gas pedal normally so it's hard to say. I was more interested in mpg by reducing weight but I didn't notice an improvement in gas mileage. People on the xB forums say it's one of the few mods that give appreciable power gains but that's mostly SOTP.

I got mine for about $70 becuase it was a blemished model from the manufacturer. Don't use an impact gun to try to remove it either the bolt has enough give where it aborbed each impact without budging. Use a long breaker bar instead, I used a 2' long one.

I don't know about changing the pulley because it is part of the crank balance and that small amount of weight will have very little effect on the total weight of the rotating mass. You should keep an eye on the pulley wear and belt wear as well as pulley failure which also has occured. It won't give you more HP just slightly quicker revs which compared to the enertia of the entire vehicle is nothing. A better improvement would be lighter wheels which both reduced rotational enertia and improves handling by keeping the tires on the road better when riding over bumps.

Headers are factory stock on the xB and only some really good ones will improve HP and usually only a little depending upon how they are tuned it may only move the peak around a little on the RPM curve. Cat and header changes usually gives more HP and lower MPG.

The best thing to do is to reduce friction in the engine and transmission which gets you more HP to the wheels and better MPG. I used Synlube in the engine, transmission and power steering which is a one time cost and also reduces maintenance (no oil changes for 150k miles) while others have added EAL (PIB) to the oil (at each oil and filter change). Me, a guy in Texas and another in Alaska have all achived over 500 miles on a tank of gas as proof of the mileage improvments we have made along with hypermiler driving techniques.

From the numbers I am seeing over here, the difference in the 1.3 and the 1.5 is only 3 mpg. Am I missing something? Is 3 mpg worth the $1500 to swap to an engine that may or may not have parts available here?