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XFE, manual tranmissions and GM
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The XFE represented 9% of June 2008 sales and the Cobalt overall is experiencing huge increases YTD vs. 2007 YTD. Just a few months ago, GM intended to drop the manual transmission on all Cobalt modes except the sportiest "SS" trim level. They've now reversed that decision and even added a third production shift at the Ohio plant where the Cobalt/G5 is made. They have also indicated that they're working on expanding the XFE option to other models. I'm wondering if they intend to modify the automatic transmission to expand the XFE availability beyond just manual tranmission cars? |
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BTW, does anyone else wonder if the Cobalt XFE could maybe get better milage if it had a few less than 148hp? I'm sure that it would be perfect drivable with 110hp. If you received a half-proportional gain in MPG by changing the displacement and/or tuning of the engine, that would be 41-42MPG highway. |
The XFE has plenty of get up and go and could have used a 1.8L 4 cyl and had around 110 hp and been fine.
In fact would have helped with city mpg a lot. The car has an instant mpg meter that updates damn fast, car is actualy harder to get a high % above EPA but that may just be because it acts differently then the LHS in certain situations ( and my high expectations). My mileage has actualy droped down to about 41 mpg from 42.5 but I just need to find the best BSFC ( https://www.autospeed.com/cms/A_110216/article.html ) for when I'm accelerating, I think I lose a lot of mpg then. I have a few days off comming up so I think I may try to find a nice long stretch of road to do some tests on acceleration, P&G, and best cruising speeds/throttle possition for various conditions (uphill, flat, highway speed, main road speed, secondary road speed). My drive to work is too much up and down hill to compare techniques, too many variables to determine best practices. I will say the speed on the highway seems to have little effect on mpg, going anywhere between 45 to 65 on a perfectly flat stretch of road just maintaining speed I would get over 50 mpg. First, second, and third gear seem to have cruddy mpg even if just maintaining speed at 1,500 - 2,200 rpm your lucky if you see 25 mpg. I have just been trying to get to fourth gear as quick as possible while still getting over 10 mpg accelerating to get to the 35+ mpg fourth and fifth gear offer. Baaah, I'll know more later, I've only had the car 2 days, it will take time to learn it's nuances. |
You can definitely experiment with different shifting patterns. There's skip-shifting (as CAGS in the Corvette and some 4th gen Camaros forces you to do for FE), and just shifting lower with wider throttle. If the XFE has a wideband O2 then you may be able to use WOT + extremely low shifting like I do.
What speed are you maintaining in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at 1,500 - 2,200 rpm? I bet the XFE has reasonably tall gears, compared to my car being in 5th anywhere above 30 and often above 25mph. |
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