GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Alright, so I've had my Vibe (2003 base) for a couple weeks now, and mpg seems okay, but not that great. Just trying to see where I stand.

Dealer filled up the car when I bought it, and about 250 miles, the low gas light was already on (although the needle was only a hair below the '1/4 remaining' mark). Took a little under 11 gallons when I fueled up.

So before I fueled, I threw in a bottle of Techron. So far, I've driven ~74 miles on a 1/4 tank. How does this compare to your Vibe? This is all 'city' driving btw.

Back when I drove my son's 06 for a year, I usually got about 300-320 miles before I filled up. One time I got 340. The last day the light light would come on and it usually had about 2-1/2 gallons left in it. Averaged about 27-28 MPG so I used about 1-1/2 gallons per day.

I try to benchmark myself and my mixed driving with the quarter/half/three-quarter marks. I try to get at least 90/180/270 miles per mark. But for pure city driving, I'm not quite sure. Basing off my 90 miles estimate, I'd say it's not unreasonable to get that many miles in city traffic.

mbz321 wrote:Alright, so I've had my Vibe (2003 base) for a couple weeks now, and mpg seems okay, but not that great. Just trying to see where I stand.

Dealer filled up the car when I bought it, and about 250 miles, the low gas light was already on (although the needle was only a hair below the '1/4 remaining' mark). Took a little under 11 gallons when I fueled up.

So before I fueled, I threw in a bottle of Techron. So far, I've driven ~74 miles on a 1/4 tank. How does this compare to your Vibe? This is all 'city' driving btw.

The only way to get a reasonably accurate mpg number is over at least 3 or 4 fillups. Even one fillup is suspect as the gas dispensers will click off at different "full" levels. Also the gas gauge cannot be accurately read to determine when 1/4 of a tank is used. Nevertheless your numbers of 250 miles/11 gal and 74 miles per 1/4 tank approximates 23 mpg which is in the ballpark for a 1.8L AT in city driving. The EPA number is based on real gasoline - most of us are forced to buy a 90/10 gasoline/ethanol blend which delivers perhaps 3% less mileage. Especially in the winter with short trips I get even less. My low gas light comes on when the gauge is near empty but at that point there is still about 3 gal left in the tank. I rarely let it get to the point when that light comes on. As your experience confirms, the Vibe is o.k. on gas mileage, but not that great. Even on 100% highway I am just getting 32 mpg but I drive the 65-70 mph speed limit plus a little. However it is a lot better than my SWB T&C 3.3L V-6.

jake75 wrote:As your experience confirms, the Vibe is o.k. on gas mileage, but not that great. Even on 100% highway I am just getting 32 mpg but I drive the 65-70 mph speed limit plus a little. However it is a lot better than my SWB T&C 3.3L V-6.

I think the thing to remember with the Vibe is that although the gas mileage is, as you say, "ok but not that great", it's actually fantastic for a vehicle *in its size class*. If someone's priority is fuel economy, clearly a vehicle the size of the Vibe is not going to be what they're looking for--they'd be better off with a Hyundai Accent or some other tiny car. I'd never expect a car the size of a Vibe to have what we'd call "great" or "excellent" fuel economy on an absolute scale. But, I don't think that there are any vehicles in the Vibe's size category that have better fuel economy, are there? Not sure...but at the very least it'd be right up there among the leaders, I'd imagine.

For someone like me, who bought the Vibe for its size and utility, its fuel economy has been a pleasant surprise.

Sorry...just realized this is all veering off topic in much the same way that my Kia Rondo veers to the right We now return you to your regularly scheduled topic!

mbz321 wrote:So far, I've driven ~74 miles on a 1/4 tank. How does this compare to your Vibe?

It's really not possible to estimate the MPG using the fuel gauge.
For one the gas tank isn't square, rounded on the bottom with a big bump in the middle (where the exhaust goes under it). #77100 in this picture http://www.villagetoyotaparts.com/image ... 71078J.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The fuel level sensor in the tank only analyzes one section of the tank.

The only reliable way to figure out fuel mileage is to watch entire tanks, and compare.

Fill the tank, and mark down the mileage and fuel added.
There are sites like "Fuelly" and others, that can help keep track.
https://www.fuelly.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I keep a Google doc (link to shared copy).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... sp=sharing" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For me when doing highway driving, I usually get 100-110 miles at the 1/4 tank mark. This is proportional to the fuel gauge also. Every 1/4 increment nets me around 100 miles. I have the bigger 2.4l engine with a 5-speed manual 400 mile tanks are the norm when driving long trips with 100% highway!

Link below is to my post in the gas mileage thread, there is a spreadsheet attached to the thread that you can use to track the mileage accurately over a period of time. Mine has, since I bought the car in end of Sept 2011 is averaging 32 MPG almost exactly. I have put 38K mi on it since I bought it.

viewtopic.php?p=429588#p429588

you cannot determine mileage from one or two tanks fulls, as the car is difficult to consistently fill.

The spreadsheet is a zip file, which will need to be unzipped and runs on Excel 2010.

Charles

Thanks for the link. You don't happen to play tennis with Gamma racquets, do you? I know a Charles in GA who I've corresponded a bit over those racquets...would be quite the coincidence if it was you! lol

canadave wrote:Thanks for the link. You don't happen to play tennis with Gamma racquets, do you? I know a Charles in GA who I've corresponded a bit over those racquets...would be quite the coincidence if it was you! lol

Not I, racquet person at all. However, glad to see you are willing to look at the spread sheet. I have had to reformat my columns to 250 lines since I'm up to 134 entries so far. $4,255.20 spent and 32.024 mpg right now.

Recent road trip to Iowa, I had (for MPG on the fill ups) I filled up more than needed, in part as an excuse to get out and stretch, and in part because I was off the interstate for some of the trip, or at night, and I wanted a larger fuel reserve.

32.112
36.132
31.010
31.894
35.325
32.963

The first was all interstate, at about 72 mph, the second fillup was also all interstate. The third fill up was after my short hop driving around at my destination in Iowa. The fourth was about 30 miles of two lane state road, and then about 190 miles of interstate, (it was only 6.832 gals), the fifth fill up was after about 220 miles of interstate and 50 miles of two lane state highway, it was coming on dark and I was going to be in western Kentucky on some rather desolate highway (the Pennyriles Parkway), the last one was all interstate. A good part of it was done with the A/C off, but it seems to make very little difference on this car. So, as you can see, there is no rhyme or reason to the mileage figures, that is why I started a spreadsheet.

Charles

I have a 2003 2wd base model Vibe with 96,000 miles and recently did a tune-up -new plugs, transmission fluid, oil change and air filter- and was amazed at the improvement in my mileage. Before I was only getting around 25 mpg and after doing the work I'm up to 28 - 29.

I've never had a car before that gained 3 to 4 mpg from a tune-up.

I bought the car used and the plugs I took out of it may have been the originals - they were completely shot to hell. The transmission fluid may have been original too because it was way too thin and black as motor oil.

I've heard that Toyotas love clean fresh transmission fluid. Given that its easy to dump and refill (as it has a drain plug, and takes three quarts after you dump it) then I do it every oil change. Nice clean fluid. I work with a co-worker with a Toyota Priva with an automatic that has in excess of 450,000 miles on it and it still running fine, he changes the trans fluid every oil change.

Charles

CharlesinGA wrote:I've heard that Toyotas love clean fresh transmission fluid. Given that its easy to dump and refill (as it has a drain plug, and takes three quarts after you dump it) then I do it every oil change. Nice clean fluid. I work with a co-worker with a Toyota Priva with an automatic that has in excess of 450,000 miles on it and it still running fine, he changes the trans fluid every oil change.

Charles

Changing the transmission fluid normal intervals is a really good idea. However, the transmission is a closed system. The fluid isn't exposed to the same levels of heat and debris as the engine oil, so it doesn't breakdown like it does in the engine. It's not necessary to change it at every oil change.
The automatic transmission fluid is made to be changed 60k miles. Doing a drain and fill every 30k, would be fine, but more often than that you're just wasting oil.