Fuel economy, ugh. It’s the most unsexy of all the car-number-things to care about, but since miles per gallon is really dollars per mile, we generally care a lot – especially when it comes to a daily driver. Thankfully, the government is pretty good about enforcing legislation that ensures manufacturers don’t give us numbers that are overly optimistic, and with a couple of miles wiggle-room per gallon depending on your lead or helium foot, most cars tend to deliver the efficiency claimed on the window sticker.
However, some cars may deliver significantly different results than the expected mpg numbers, if only based on the sample-of-one survey data generated by you or I and our individual test examples. Hopefully any discrepancies you’ve experienced were on the greater efficiency side of the fuel gauge, but these things can very much go either way.
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As for me, the car that surprised me the most, and pleasantly, was my Mustang GT. It’s the one genuinely high-performance car I’ve owned, which I purchased new in 2012 when the lure of the then-new Coyote V8 and its 412 horsepower (not to mention X-Plan pricing via my employer at the time) proved too much to resist. The official EPA fuel economy numbers were 17 city, 26 highway, and 20 mpg combined, but I was surprised to discover the GT could manage darn near 30mpg when my travels called for a long stretch of flat and straight driving across Texas, perhaps with a tailwind. As for my daily commute, well, I wasn’t exactly easy on the gas and so the Mustang wasn’t either, and I was happy if I got 15 miles out of a gallon. But hey, that was on me.
When it comes to gas guzzlers, I’d have to say the Jeep J10 Thriftside I drove in high school was probably the most surprisingly thirsty. Not that I (or my Dad, to whom it belonged) expected it to be some kind of economy machine, but the mere nine or ten miles its AMC 258ci inline-six managed to eke out of a gallon of gas seemed super low. I’m sure the truck’s short gearing (it sure felt short, anyway) and the extra rotating mass of the 4X4 system adding to the oomph required for each acceleration took a toll, and let’s not get started on aerodynamics, but man, that truck liked to drink.
Now it’s your turn: what car or truck have you owned that got way better (or worse) fuel economy than it should have?
2022 Colorado ZR2 diesel. I tend to average 21-23mpg in everyday commuting. Road trips it’ll be anywhere from 23 to almost 30mpg, depending on speed and headwinds. Best I’ve seen for a 50 mile average is a bit over 33mpg on a flat road with a nice tailwind.
Of course, it’s a brick so once I try to push it above 70mph the fuel economy drops pretty fast. Worse I’ve had was with a kayak on the bed rack, decent headwind pushing 75mph+ gave me 17-18mpg.
My Camaro was pretty dang good on fuel, easily over 20 on the freeway. 6mpg after 3 sessions on the track, though.
Both of the vehicles I ever owned always got worse MPG then I thought they should. Dakota was rated at 14/18, Compass at 21/27. Best I ever got with the Dakota was 17, & 24 in the Compass. 17 was the Dakota’s standard for anything out of city speeds, and 24 only happened once, on an 8-hour drive to Virigina. Otherwise, no matter what I do, the Compass manages at best 21mpg, whether it’s at 73mph or 60.
Rented a car in central PA and got a free upgrade to a Mustang GT. Sad part was the 55mph speed limits on every road, and speed traps everywhere. I averaged 32mpg
Not that 16-17mpg is anything to crow about, but I’ve been absolutely shocked about the degree to which my ’05 Escalade ESV (6.0 AWD) gets better mileage than the ’03 Suburban (5.3 2WD) that preceded it. Granted, the Cadillac has more than 100k fewer miles on it at this point, but my assumption is that the torquier 6.0 just isn’t working as hard as the 5.3 was.
My 2003 Honda element (yes it’s as aerodynamic as a brick with a smaller brick on top) gets about 18mpg around town. My 1968 cortina gt got about 24mpg in nice weather, when it was raining the mileage went into the high 30’s I guess it was optimized for English weather
My tuned 2013 Chevy Sonic LT was advertised to get 38 Highway, 28 city. I regularly got mid 40s out of it on my 550 miles of weekly commute.
It was definitely the tune, as back then my life was so dull I had a spreadsheet to track mileage for each fill up, and I saw a 5 or 6 MPG improvement after turning the boost up by 10 lbs.