New to the Forum! Question about Gas Efficiency

[Shjinta]

Hello all!

Love the forum. My father handed me down his 2008 Vibe(Will post a picture soon!)It's 5 speed manual transmission. So long story short, I live in Shannonville Ontario and I drive to Kingston Ontario everyday for school. I do roughly 134km a day.(There and back) Before the Vibe I was driving a dying 2004 Suzuki Aerio automatic. I was about to comfortably do 3 days and then I'd have 5 bars of gas left(Fully digital dash) With the vibe, I figured I'd be able to get far more out of the tank but I'm not. By the end of day three, I'm slightly above the quarter tank. I tried to do day 4 and was on empty by the time I got halfway back.

Anyway, I'm wondering which areas of the vehicle I should be looking at to see if I can bump up the gas efficiency. I don't want much more, just to be able to get at least four days on the tank. I keep the oil up to date, Full Synthetic. Uh, air filters were just changed. I haven't checked the spark plugs yet. I'm running brand new winter tires(I know they take more gas to use)

I'm not very good with cars, So any help would be vastly appreciated.

[thebarber]

All highway at about 110-115kph I get about 7.5-8.5L/100km in my 03 GT. Winter with mixed driving my last fillip (yesterday) was 10.4L/100km

Winter kills the economy...

[IBYTRUX]

Good Morning and welcome!

I am a newbie too. Have had my Vibe for several weeks now. Just did a 1200 mile trip in 38 hours and averaged over 34 mpg consistently with cruise set at 70 mph. I could not be happier. The only thing I have done thus far is install a K and N filter.

[MadJoe]

shjinta:

Are you comparing apples to oranges? Are the gas tanks in both cars the same? If not, that could account for the Vibe getting less miles to a tank. I believe my 03 Vibe holds 13 gallons. Btw, I get right over 30 mpg on the highway with an automatic

[vibolista]

Check air pressure in tires, you want at least 35 to 38 psi in the fronts and a couple less pounds in back. I keep mine at 38 front and 36 rear.

How many miles on car? How are the plugs. This engine loves NGK iridium plugs. Might want to run good synthetic oil. I use Mobil 1. Someone already said check your engine air intake filter. My Blizzak snow tires knock my mileage down to 34-36 in Winter. The colder it gets the lower MPG becomes.

Make sure you take everything out of the car that you don't need. Lighter car helps. Driving as easy as you can will help MPG go up a tad. Easy takeoffs and off the gas as soon as you know you will be needing to stop.

Your Vibe can get great MPG. My 2008 manual has reached 40 MPG a couple of times in the Summer, and usually averages 36-38 MPG in good weather. I still love this car.

[thebarber]

I forgot to mention I also have an intake, ported exhaust manifold and a 2.5" exhaust on my GT

[MetalFiend]

I have an 09 Vibe 2.4L FWD with a 13 gal tank. I recently added a short ram intake and wanted to see how many miles to the gallon i am getting. Over the last 3 tanks I'm averaging 26 MPG and that's a mix of highway and surface streets. I noticed a slight dip in fuel efficiency after adding the short ram intake but that may be because it's getting more hot air from the engine, but I'm not sure. The performance has drastically increased with the recent mods so it's not that big of a deal for me.

[kumquat]

Check air pressure in tires, you want at least 35 to 38 psi in the fronts and a couple less pounds in back.

I guess those manufacturer recommendations are just BS to sell more tires. Or something.

[vibenvy]

I have an 09 Vibe 2.4L FWD with a 13 gal tank. I recently added a short ram intake and wanted to see how many miles to the gallon i am getting. Over the last 3 tanks I'm averaging 26 MPG and that's a mix of highway and surface streets. I noticed a slight dip in fuel efficiency after adding the short ram intake but that may be because it's getting more hot air from the engine, but I'm not sure. The performance has drastically increased with the recent mods so it's not that big of a deal for me.

Your gas mileage more than likely went down slightly after adding the intake because you were probably stepping on the gas more to hear the more pronounced engine sound. This is very common when adding an intake. We have seen a steady 1-2 MPG increase with the K&Ns on our Vibes once we got over the initial stage of stepping on the gas .