GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

630.1lms on 44.9L - 7.1L/100kms or 33.1mpg

With the once again rise in gas prices I have decided to temporarily hang up my speed racer jacket and do my best to optimize gas mileage. My strategy and goal has been to keep the RPM's at or below 3000. I have a 2009 GT with a standard transmission. In the past my mileage has ranged from mid 24 MPG up to a max of 27ish MPG. This is a mix of city/highway driving but weighted heavier to the latter. In the past I have had a tendency towards safe albeit aggressive driving. My most recent Easter road trip using my miser philosophy netted me 29.54 MPG with mostly highway driving. This is significantly better than anything I have achieved in the past. With a net increase of approximately 4.5 MPG this is quite a feat. I have impressed myself and am doing my best to permanently implement this new green side of me but at times on the road I think it would be easier to go through a water boarding session at Guantanamo Bay than drive in efficient economy mode.

Quote, originally posted by BC123 »With the once again rise in gas prices I have decided to temporarily hang up my speed racer jacket and do my best to optimize gas mileage. My strategy and goal has been to keep the RPM's at or below 3000. I have a 2009 GT with a standard transmission. In the past my mileage has ranged from mid 24 MPG up to a max of 27ish MPG. This is a mix of city/highway driving but weighted heavier to the latter. In the past I have had a tendency towards safe albeit aggressive driving. My most recent Easter road trip using my miser philosophy netted me 29.54 MPG with mostly highway driving. This is significantly better than anything I have achieved in the past. With a net increase of approximately 4.5 MPG this is quite a feat. I have impressed myself and am doing my best to permanently implement this new green side of me but at times on the road I think it would be easier to go through a water boarding session at Guantanamo Bay than drive in efficient economy mode.LOL!!! I hear you!I just got one of the OBDII bluetooth adapters from ebay and bought the Torque app for my smartphone. First half tank the MPG was quite off I'm sure, it was saying I got 31mpg in the city! Somehow it reset itself and started over, this time coming back with a 25.6 average when I filled up. Lo and behold, when I did the real math, it came to 25.4! With the Instant and Ave. MPG reminders displaying on my phone it does keep me driving more sedately. I'm usually a bit of an agressive driver, but when I'm trying to eek out the best mileage, it is a challenge! Now I'm going for 26 mpg this tank!

My latest fillup:

04.12.12 - 27.7 mpg - 50% city/50% highway

My mom's latest fillup:

04.15.12 - 26.3 mpg - 50% city/50% highway

today's fillup at thorntons:

326.3 miles/10.2 gallons=31.99mpg

70% highway

and i'm at about 198k on the odometer

After close to 6 years of ownership and 116,000 miles I average between 28-29 mpg. If I remember correctly, the best I ever got was 33 and the worst 24. The 33 came the first time gas hit $4/gal. and I started driving very conservatively. I've since found a happy medium for myself in between conservative & aggressive. I can't drive like grandma and flooring it when the light changes is in my past. I don't need to be the first to reach the next traffic light

I'm about to hit 25mpg at 100% city street driving, no highway (except for five seconds getting on at once entrance and off at the next exist, which doesn't count at all). I'd say that's awesome for being rated at 21mpg city. The 30-31mpg mixed driving on the last couple tanks were awesome too. Conservative (though not boring, because not hitting the brakes going into turns is pretty fun, and saves gas) driving is super-effective!

ponta2147 wrote:I'm about to hit 25mpg at 100% city street driving, no highway (except for five seconds getting on at once entrance and off at the next exist, which doesn't count at all). I'd say that's awesome for being rated at 21mpg city. The 30-31mpg mixed driving on the last couple tanks were awesome too. Conservative (though not boring, because not hitting the brakes going into turns is pretty fun, and saves gas) driving is super-effective!

Glad to hear you're finally seeing some better numbers Michelle !

I have found that the Vibe (mine is an '04 base w/auto), is extremely difficult to fill up with gas consistently, from one tank full to the next. I've never encountered a car that I could not consistently refill and get consistent gas mileage calculations from one tank full to the next.

Edit: Currently (12 Apr 2013) the mileage is 31.943 over about 30,600 miles since I bought the car

As a result of this, I created a spreadsheet to track the fuel mileage on the Vibe. This is an Excel 2010 spreadsheet. If you have Office 2010 it will work.

The spreadsheet is attached to this post. It is in a ZIP folder which you should be able to easily unpack with Windows Explorer.

It has several entries in it, you will need to delete these. Simply click and hold the click on the box C5 which is the upper LH date 5-Oct-11 and drag the cursor down and over to the right to K10 (under remarks and is blank). Release the mouse button and the area to be deleted is highlighted, then hit the Del key and its gone.

The columns are formatted thru line 150. You can reformat the date if you don't like the way I did it. The average in the top LH corner is a mathematical average of all of the gallons consumed and the miles driven done by totaling the two columns involved and dividing. At the top on the far right out of view unless you scroll over to it, is a MEDIAN average which done by arraying all the individual gas mileage numbers from high to low and picking the one in the middle or averaging the two in the middle if an even number of entries. You will probably need to change the printer settings, I assume mine carried over, not sure how to get rid of them.

Not sure why it says "read only" at the top after the file name, it appears that you can make entries in it, edit, delete, etc. BE SURE AND SAVE or SAVE AS the spreadsheet, changing the name if you so desire. I know very little about Excel as I rarely have to mess with a spreadsheet.

I need to add to this..... Line 5 of the spread sheet, DOES NOT calculate into the gas mileage. You would get an artificially low mileage if it did. Make your first entry on line 5 and then, beginning with line 6 it will take the miles driven on line 6 (since the fillup on line 5) and divide by the gallons of the fillup on line 6 to get an accurate mileage. At that point, the MPG for that fillup and the Average MPG will be the same. Continue making entries. The car is (to me) difficult to fill consistently and that is why I did the spread sheet, the mileage was all over the map and I needed some good hard numbers to see how the car was doing.

If for some reason, you do not fill the tank, still make an entry for that, with the gallons and miles driven. The MPG will be wrong, but at the next fillup, the Average MPG again becomes accurate, as it is still the total miles driven divided by the total gallons consumed....... You just need it full in the end.

It is not necessary to make Odometer entries in the odometer column, these are not used in the calculations, but are handy to have a record of, so I enter this info every time. I can see how close the car is to an oil change without having to get up and go out and check the odometer, its right here on the 'puter.

Charles

J_TO_ENVY wrote: Glad to hear you're finally seeing some better numbers Michelle !

Me too! And it wound up being 26mpg, with about 97% city and 3% highway (the last few miles before the fillup were on the highway). Part of it is that I've gotten extremely good at coasting, not accelerating too much, and avoiding the brake/gas/brake/gas method of driving. Also my tires stopped deflating every five seconds, so that's good (though I should check them every couple weeks just to be sure...)

Now just itching to see how it performs on the Ohio/DC/Pennsylvania trip over the summer (loaded down with a LOT of heavy equipment, on hills)

the new forum software will not allow file names with the extension of xlsx to be used

You can zip it up and post the zip file.
Just in case you're not sure how to do that, just right click on the file then Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder.

crazytrain wrote:

the new forum software will not allow file names with the extension of xlsx to be used

You can zip it up and post the zip file.
Just in case you're not sure how to do that, just right click on the file then Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder.

Thanks, its been years since I fooled with ZIP files, so simple now, forgot about doing that.

xslx file is now attached as a ZIP file to my post.

Charles

Great - glad to be of service
For anyone with a version of MS Office prior to 2007, you'll need the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats (if not already installed). It can be downloaded from Microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/de ... ng=en&id=3

I did a 300 mile road trip just this last weekend. With about 99.9% highway I was only getting an average of about 24mpg. I'm pretty sure I need a new O2 sensor. I reset the CEL right before the trip and it took 400 miles to come back on. I got a transmission flush right before and I thought that might have fixed something. Guess not! Another thing that probably doesn't help my mileage is the 75mph speed limits(so more like 85mph or so).

Met my goal and got just over 26 mpg on the daily commute this past tank. It is also the first time I've gotten over 300 miles from a non highway trip fillup (312.5). I know using the Torque app helped, as I kept trying to up the MPG on it. I had to punch it last night getting on the freeway, and it hurt as those decimals dropped off on my current MPG average!

So far the Torque app MPG calculations have been very close to my calculated numbers. It is less than 1% off. Torque 25.6 vs Calc 25.45, T 25.9 vs C 25.76, T 26.3 vs C 26.09 Much better than our Explorer computer that is always about 1 mpg off no matter what.

I've always been a little obsessed about milage and after purchasing my 05 base with a 5 speed with 130k...I began keeping track. I have had the vibe several months and have accumulated 10k miles. In that time I have driven mostly highway miles and my average has been 33.08 MPG.
I do try to keep my speed under control...try is not always .

crazytrain wrote:Great - glad to be of service
For anyone with a version of MS Office prior to 2007, you'll need the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats (if not already installed). It can be downloaded from Microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/de ... ng=en&id=3

Also, be aware that when you first open the spreadsheet file after un-zipping it, it will display a wide yellow band and warning across the top about the file originating from the internet and possibly being unsafe, and it has a button you need to click to allow editing. When you do that the yellow band disappears and the menus for Excel appear. At least thats how it happened for me when I tested the download.

While spreadsheets are easy, I'm not all that familiar with them, and it too a while to figure out what I was doing and experiment with the formulas to make it work. All in all, with the tweaking and tuning, I could have several hours in putting together this simple little spreadsheet. I think the last time I messed with a spreadsheet it was a Lotus 1-2-3 clone on a two floppy DOS computer, eons ago.

I have AVG and AntiMalware on my computer so as far as I know, I don't have any bad things lurking that could get on your computer from the file.

Charles

I didn't fill my tank to full, and I'm pretty certain my estimation of how much fuel could be crammed into the gas hole was over-exaggerated, but with higher temps, some freeway driving and thinner shoes I may have bumper my MPGs to about 30, when I've been averaging about 27mpg on winter-blend. I tossed $10 into it, so let's see if I can bring that average even higher! I'm just happy I got over 300 miles per tank for the first time since winter blend came along. 360 miles, and I was so low on fuel, my Vibe was idling weird.

Portland/NorCal trip: 8 tanks, Calgary through the Crowsnest pass, Kingsgate border crossing, Coeur D'alene, I-90 to Ritzville, 395 to I-84 to Portland, day in portland touring, I-5 down to Grants Pass, 199 to 101 to Arcata, Ca, back up touring the 101 to Astoria, Astoria, Or to Kelso, Wa to Castle Rock, 504 up to Mt. St. Helens and back to I-5 up to Seattle, I-90 to Coeur D'alene and retracing back to Calgary. 4147.2kms, 2 provinces, 4 states, 6 days, many pictures!

533.6kms on 34.51L - 6.46L/100kms or 36.4mpg, 100% highway
*474.1kms on 33.07L - 6.97L/100kms or 33.75mpg, 70% highway
*587.4kms on 42.71L - 7.27L/100kms or 32.35mpg, 70% highway
*567.1kms on 34.96L - 6.16L/100kms or 38.2mpg, 100% highway
523.2kms on 35.19L - 6.72L/100kms or 35mpg, 100% highway
455.9kms on 29.4L - 6.45L/100kms or 36.47mpg, 100% highway + climbing Mt.St.Helens and Snoqualmie pass
363kms on 27.4L - 7.54L/100kms or 31.2mpg, 100% highway + headwind
638.9kms on 45.8L - 7.1L/100kms or 33.3mpg, 100% highway

* were fills in Oregon where full serve is the law and it's "difficult" to get them to top it off the way you want.

Spent $300 on gas.

My mom's latest fillup:

04.28.12 - 27.1 mpg - 50% city/50% highway

My latest fillup:

05.01.12 - 27.4 mpg - 50% city/50% highway

Average of the last 44 fillups (12k miles) - 33.21 mpg...up since I added 3psi to each tire....and slowed down 3 mph.

'07 manual... just how I got it. I drive a consistant route to well, everywhere! 90% of my trips are curvy roads at 45mph about 50% of the time and city driving 50%. Just like a few others, I do the math every time I fill up but don't keep a log of it.
I generally average about 32mpg.
The worst mileage is during the winter, my Vibe seems to dislike the cold immensely; 23mpg(during a week when the temps were all negative).
The best mileage is during summer roadtrips; 37mpg... unless I feel the need to drive like a maniac and keep the speed over 75mph

I have been thrilled with the Vibe's gas mileage since my very first fillup!

trtlflwrs wrote:The worst mileage is during the winter, my Vibe seems to dislike the cold immensely; 23mpg(during a week when the temps were all negative).

A lot of it actually has to do with the winter blend fuel that is used by gas stations during the winter months.

3-1/2 years and 36,xxx miles on a 2009 - 5 speed 2.4 engine- I live in the middle of the SF Bay Area and get consistently 23-24 mpg mixed (including the hills of San Francisco and the East Bay). On the highway going 80-85 mph to LA I run 30 mpg. I know it could get better on the highway, but who wants to drive slow on Interstate 5?

Cleaned the maf, replaced the o2 sensor, changed the plugs, replaced the intake manifold gasket(had a code), and fuel trim numbers look ok to me and still get bad gas mileage.

nearly 50/50 city and highway 23.6mpg. Guess I'll try cleaning the VVT filter next since I just learned about it.

Hell if I can't get it up more than that I might as well sell it and go back to driving my old (removed) 89 dodge caravan that I pulled off the road when I bought the vibe. The van did about the same and could haul a lot more crap.

I tried driving a bit more conservatively for the past week and managed to get 30.2 mpg with my last tank. I drove somewhat slower on some of my highway driving (55 mph at times!) and eased up on my accelerations, trying to get the car to shift at lower RPMs...preferably lower than 3000 or even 2500. This was quite nice as it's my 2nd time getting 30 mpg...and is basically my highest MPG.

I probably won't continue to drive so conservatively (already broke the habit last night when I REALLY wanted to hear the engine rev again) but at least I hope I can find a happy medium somewhere. Intriguingly people tend to take off somewhat slowly (at least more slowly than I usually did/do) from the traffic light anyway.

26.5 mpg last fill-up! Woo! Oh wait...that's on the low end

395kms on 29.9L - 7.5L/100kms or 31.3mpg

Bastranz wrote:I tried driving a bit more conservatively for the past week and managed to get 30.2 mpg with my last tank. I drove somewhat slower on some of my highway driving (55 mph at times!) and eased up on my accelerations, trying to get the car to shift at lower RPMs...preferably lower than 3000 or even 2500. This was quite nice as it's my 2nd time getting 30 mpg...and is basically my highest MPG.

Driving conservatively is the key to getting better gas mileage. I do 55 mph on the highway/interstate (unless the speed limit is over 55 mph) and I keep my RPMs under 3000 when accelerating at all times (unless it's absolutely necessary to accelerate faster). My average over the last 18,485.4 miles is 27.8 mpg with 99% 50% city/50% highway driving. Not bad at all IMO considering the EPA combined rating is 24.0 mpg.

I haven't been doing too bad in the mpg dept. Last few tanks saw 31.2, 28.8, 29.3 and 30.1.
I think the 31.2 & 28.8 are false because I used a different station during that fillup. I always try to use the same pump at the same station.

I'd say I do 50/50 city/hwy. The AC is on all the time, I carry alot of equipment (back seat and trunk are full) and hwy speed limit is 65-70, but I usually do 70-75. Sometimes I can't and need to push it to 80 to keep up with traffic and not have other drivers up my (removed). Speed traps are very rare by me and people regularly do 85+. I've stopped that habit and am getting better mileage for it.

Last tank was 50/50 city/highway... mostly leadfoot and jackrabbit. My car will see 5000rpm at least twice a day but I do cruise in the highest relevant gear.

My latest fillup:

05.15.12 - 26.8 mpg - 50% city/50% highway

Yesterday's fillup - 28.9mpg.

J_TO_ENVY wrote: Driving conservatively is the key to getting better gas mileage. I do 55 mph on the highway/interstate (unless the speed limit is over 55 mph) and I keep my RPMs under 3000 when accelerating at all times (unless it's absolutely necessary to accelerate faster).

Under 3000?! Holy cow is that hard to do. I've been watching this week to see what the RPMs are when I shift... yeeeaaaahhhh. I like the get-up-and-go of the Vibe! It's first to second that kills me, the other gears I can keep the transition under 3k easier. Plus, when I get on the highway, I usually don't go under 70MPH (in a 65MPH zone). Oops. Lol.

As far as consistency you need to keep running mileage and pretty much ignore individual tank fulls. Too many variables, even with the same pump.

I'm using the spreadsheet I posted in my post above and my mileage has been steadily rising on both my Ranger and my Vibe. This is due to the summer blend increasing the mileage and thus slowly driving the average up. Since last September when I bought it, I've spent just over a thousand dollars on gas so far. My driving is about half interstate, either 5 or 10 miles to the next exit, or 30 miles when I go to work three times a week. The remainder is spent in the 45 to 60 range on county and state roads, with some slower in town driving. I'm up to 31.853 mpg right now.

Mine is an automatic and I almost never get over 3000 rpm with it.

Charles

Over 30mpg, with about 60% highway and 40% suburban-ish driving (we were in southwest Michigan). Full load of video equipment, lighting equipment, and luggage. We keep our RPMs below 2500 as much as possible unless we absolutely had to for traffic reasons. 2500 RPM in the highest gear is about 73mph (75mph on the spedometer). The hardest part IS first to second gear, you just have to be patient.

My mom's latest fillup:

05.18.12 - 24.8 mpg - 50% city/50% highway

688kms on 47L - 6.8L/100kms or 34.5mpg

32.2... woohoo!

2009 1.8 automatic with 55,000 miles:

now that I am retired, I am driving as slowly as I want and am getting great mileage: 33 mpg in all suburban driving with the windows down. No a/c; no heavy load (other than my mounted bike hitch) and will hyper-mile whenever I can (coast to red lights; shut the engine off when I know I am at a long red light). Since I used to be a big time speeder, my suburban mileage used to be 30. I also could never muster more than 35 on the highway (with passengers) due to my Commander Riker* driving style. I will soon take a solo highway trip and do my best to keep my speed below the usual warp 7.5 to see what mileage I can come up with.

* Always be the second fastest person so Jean-Luc Picard gets the speeding ticket

Hi all,

I'm back!

Got an '09 GT w/ 2.4L (stock). 5/18/12 on MI interstates, I got 37.625515 mpg. Kept the rpms down to 2000 when starting up.

Ron

areles wrote:Hi all,

I'm back!

Got an '09 GT w/ 2.4L (stock). 5/18/12 on MI interstates, I got 37.625515 mpg. Kept the rpms down to 2000 when starting up.

Ron

Great to see you back Ron ! Holy s***!!! That's a very impressive number, especially for an auto! You have given me a number to beat! My 100% highway best is 33.9.

My mom's latest fillup:

05.31.12 - 25.8 mpg - 50% city/50% highway

My latest fillup:

06.01.12 - 27.7 mpg - 50% city/50% highway

I strayed, I strayed
I try to shoot for 29-30mpg, but the last couple of fillups I got around 26mpg. Too much impatience this week and alot of stop & go traffic with all the accidents due to the heavy rain we've been having in my area (South Florida). I'll take the lower mileage vs. an accident any day though.

areles wrote:Hi all,

I'm back!

Got an '09 GT w/ 2.4L (stock). 5/18/12 on MI interstates, I got 37.625515 mpg. Kept the rpms down to 2000 when starting up.

Ron

I agree with Carrie about your impressive mileage My son's 09 GT has an auto & I got 35 mpg driving it home from Cincinnati to Toledo doing 60mph +/_ a few. My 09 GT being a stick got a couple mpg better at 37 which is what you just experienced. That is also with the engine revving up a few hundred more rpm's also. Just goes to show that if you don't need to be in a hurry, and you don't mind being passed up by almost EVERYBODY then go for it and watch your fuel $$$ go farther

29.6 MPG. Mostly all highway on a trip I went on yesterday. probably 90hwy/10city. This is the best I've gotten in a LONG time.

You can see in my signature.
I update everytime I fill up. Sometimes I wish I has bouth the 1,8L for gas millage... but I like how the 2,4L is performing.

32 mpg 100% highway
28 mpg 100% on the way back...

On a recent trip, I got 33.5 mpg. This was basically highway/rural driving, although there were plenty of curves and hills to be had. T'was the best I ever had, even with 2 other passengers!

Just got back from a 7'000 mile trip in my 2005 Vibe 2WD. Was super over-loaded weight most of the time. Back seats folded down, gear stacked to the ceiling, roof-rack with surfboard & rocket box full, trailer hitch mounted with 2 bikes on a bike rack. Got roughly 25mpg.

Question: Leaving again for Mexico with this Vibe at 74'000 odo miles. What should I have the technition check to insure the best mpg before departure?