Gas prices (and diesel prices) aren’t exactly great right now. There is a war on, or a few actually, and that’s doing little to help the situation. That leads me to today’s Autopian Asks—what’s the worst fuel economy you’re willing to put up with?
Of course, this applies strictly to cars that burn fossil fuels. We can argue about how many fathoms per joule you get out of your EV, but it’s just going to confuse things. We’re talkin’ liquids here, baby.
This question is one that is important car enthusiasts and normies alike. If you’re into cars, you’re probably willing to trade off some fuel economy for better performance, or for a vehicle that truly lights up your heart. If you’re a normie, you might see cars as appliances, and you just want the best efficiency possible. Alternatively, you might demand a certain level of luxury or cargo space at the cost of some extra fuel burn.
I grew up during the turmoil of the second Gulf War, albeit in the safe confines of Australia. We saw our gas prices hit new highs, and I was stuck driving a 1992 Ford Falcon. It had no working odometer, so I couldn’t accurately measure its fuel economy. Regardless, that 4.0-liter six sure loved to suck down the dino juice, and I’d estimate it was pulling down around 15 L/100 km around town, or around 15 mpg in your American money.
That formative experience routinely sent me broke. Since then, I’ve owned a wide variety of cars, and I’ve settled on a figure I find comfortable. It’s 10 L/100 km, or about 23 mpg. My 1998 Mercedes E240, 1992 Daihatsu Feroza, and 1992 Mazda Miata all hit about this mark. They were all cool in their own ways, and they justified their fuel use in turn.
I’ve had more efficient cars, of course. My BMW 320D routinely achieves 29 mpg or better. My 1989 Mazda 121 was a star at 36 mpg. That made them more attractive. By contrast, I felt strongly compelled to sell my Volvo 740 Turbo wagon when its fuel economy mysteriously slipped from 19 mpg to 15 mpg over a few months.
My question to you is thus—what’s the worst fuel economy you’re willing to put up with and why? Maybe it’s for performance, maybe it’s for seating, maybe you’re making a trade-off by running big chunky mud tires. Sound off and tell me how much pain you can take at the pump!
In a daily? My 2018 Mazda 3 GT hatch manual averages 31 mpg in mixed driving. Perfect for a fun little daily driver.
I would accept 15-18 in something with some off-road chops. Isn’t that about what a Rubicon gets?
My 2010 Ford Raptor averages 30l/100km when I’m towing my camper. And it basically only gets used when towing that camper in the summer because almost all my local trips are by bike/ebike in the summer.
So I’ll put up with terrible fuel economy, but it truly depends on the use case!
I love the wildly diverse garage. Ebike and raptor!
The Raptor was originally purchased as a shuttle truck for mountain biking. Need to get 5 adults and their DH bikes to the top of a mountain as quickly as possible? Raptor is the answer 🙂
I have several vehicles for my small business. Just today I offloaded a shitbox 2012 Chevy Sonic because it was only getting 26mpg. I opted for a 2nd Gen prius which gets 43mpg
I would say around 20 mpg, with a qualifier. My wife and I are both retired and I don’t think we drive 5,000 miles a year between us. Gas prices aren’t the concern they used to be. I could also argue that we’re polluting a lot less than we were driving 30,000 miles a year. These are reasons why seniors aren’t interested in electric cars. We’re doing OK.
I think the number we’re looking for is gpd (gallons per day). As everyone else has already stated, ideal mpg depends on usage. rn both my vehicles average 16mpg, but my commute is short, about 9mi. I could justify spending maybe $10/day on gas? At roughty $4/gal, anything more than 7mpg would be fine.
My 18 F150 (3.3L) gets 18 in town on winter gas, gets 20 on the summer blend (Washington state). On hwy at 70 mph gets 23, if I do a trip on rural 2 lane roads limited to 60 mph it’ll pull 27 mpg. My 09 Mustang GT gets 18-20 in city, when I was in Michigan with no ethanol fuel it was consistently 20-21 city, it’ll pull 28 mpg on hwy.
19/20 city, 24/25 highway
Coincidentally, the exact MPG we get with our 2013 V-6 Grand Cherokee that is generally what we use for road trips. Overall, that measuring stick strikes a pretty good balance between space, comfort, capability, and economy. Worth noting that I recently got 26.8 on the highway during a round trip with 400 total miles of mixed elevation. That’s pretty damned good as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t really drive enough to care. The types of cars I like tend to get pretty decent fuel economy though, even my Mercedes E350 wagon averages 25mpg overall and will see close to 30 on a trip. Probably over 30 if it didn’t like cruising at 85-90 so much.
My personal worst was my ’01 P38a Range Rover. It got 16mpg no matter how I drove it. City, highway, towing a boat, never seemed to make much difference. The stickshift V8 Discovery that replaced it will do 18 or so, but same, doesn’t matter how you drive it, it gets 18mpg. Not that I drive it very quickly, ever. And I put about 1K a year on the old beast.
I drove a ’97 Econoline-150 for 7 years as my only vehicle.
Living on a hill in a tiny town with a stop sign every 50 feet (what it felt like, anyway), 11-12 was typical there. 13-15 in mixed driving, and every so often on long highway drives I could hit 17.
For that level of interior comfort, I’d gladly suffer near those numbers again. Critically though, only as a second vehicle. I got my Prius v now, which at its worst did 33 on a short commute in the coldest part of a winter, but typically gets 38-42 most of the year.
I’d expect something in the middle if I got some kind of Lexus cruiser, but yeah, as an occasional-use tertiary vehicle, I wouldn’t be too picky about fuel economy so long as it was within expectations for that particular model.
I am struck by how horrible a metric mpg is. Actual example, at tone time the ex owned an Audi that returned 33 mog highway…on 91 fuel. Which meant that my Excursion diesel cost less per mile to operate than her Audi. Fuel prices change, and other dynamics are at play. I also used to own a vehicle that the EPA stated could achieve 22 mpg highway but never got better than 13.
With that said, for a 4wd/AWD family vehicle designed to haul at least 4 folks and their gear, it would be as follows:
for 87 octane fuel 25 mpg, for 91 octane fuel 37.5 mpg and for diesel 27.5 mpg. Those are equal cost per mile.
Well let’s see my 89 bird like 12mpg, 2013 FJ is like 17-18 and my 92 D250 gets 21-22. So I am not one to ask about fuel economy and I drive 45 miles one way to work haha. But if I were to get something brand new it would have to average at least 25mpg or more. My fiancés Tourx is only getting like 21mpg currently but she only drives around town on highway’s it normally gets about 28-30.
We’ve got 3 cars, none of which see 20 mpg in normal use. We’re lucky to see 17-ish in the 4Runners, maybe 19 on the highway as long as there aren’t any hills. I saw 23 mpg in mine once, on the downhill side of Tejon pass with a decent tailwind.
I am currently enduring the life of driving a 2017 Cadillac Escalade 6.2L. While it’s a great truck, I am averaging 12.9 MPG so far…. so that is as low as I’ll ever go
My ’01 Jeep Wrangler gets 19 MPG. So I’ll call that my limit.
25-30 is my minimum for anything newer.
Whatever my LX460 gets is my limit. I’m not sure what it exactly is and prefer not to look into it to closely…because it’s terrible but I love the car.
My 22-year-old car is getting about 25mpg now. I do not drive it very often, though. I’d rather be getting 40mpg, but that would require taking out all the fun/challenges of driving.
This survey will depend heavily on people’s uses. I have a friend with a truck that he uses for hauling an RV six times a year, and that he also uses as a daily, which for the most part he could use an EV. He’d probably love to get better mileage (15?), but mathematically cannot, because it would mean owning or leasing another vehicle.
I make enough money that I could afford to own a vehicle with terrible fuel economy.
But I choose not to own a vehicle that will cause me to waste a bunch of money on fuel.
So it’s a question of what’s the worst fuel economy that I’m willing to put up with.
And for me, my benchmark is ‘nothing that is worse than my manual 2008 Honda Fit’… and I have been averaging 5.9L/100km or about 39 mpg (US gallons) over the last 5.5 years/160,000km I’ve driven it.
And thus, my next vehicle will be a plug-in of some sort… either a good plug in hybrid or a BEV.
(and I do have an outlet next to where I park to charge it overnight).
Oh and for those who say ‘get another Fit’, the problem with that is finding one for a reasonable price that isn’t beat to shit. All of the ones in good condition without too much mileage in my area cost almost as much as a Prius Prime and the same as a Ford C-Max Energi. And that’s due to a lack of supply due to Honda not having sold any new ones here since the 2020 model year.
30 mpg. There’s no reason any passenger car should be less at this point.
Probably 6 or 8 mpg. I’m willing to put up with anything if the vehicle performs the purpose for which it was made.
Big van moves people.
Big truck moves stuff.
Smart car moves me and my lunch to work.
Etc.
My last few vehicles and current one get about 14-17mpg (depends on season) for my very hilly commute. That’s about as low as I want to go. But it’s not worth the expense to buy a more fuel efficient car (including a PHEV/EV) at this time just yet. I drive maybe 5-7K miles per year ony daily vehicle, so it would take a very long time to pay off the difference just in fuel costs.
For my delivery car – 35mpg – and I’d like to get 45 or better on my next one.
For my regular cars – 20 mpg
For my truck, 15 mpg.
Well, going by my piss poor calculations (I’ve done both miles driven/tank size) and miles driven/fuel used), I currently average about 12mpg in the city (it’s slowly going up because I’ve been paying attention to my RPM’s), and I think the best highway I’ve seen was like 24?
So, really, outside of sports cars and big displacement motors, I could live with just about anything.
It really depends on a lot of factors. I deal with my 2002 Silverado’s thirsty V8 for doing river stuff in the summer, but I wouldn’t deal with it for a daily.
Honestly, if I had to, I could handle just about anything, but I’d probably drive less if I had something less fuel-efficient.
I’ve been looking at something that would be larger and/or peppier than my Niro and I’ve sort of set 30 as a magic number. Luckily, the things I’m looking at almost invariably beat that (maybe I chose a number I thought would be easy). But stepping down from ~50 means I’m looking for something that seems better than the Niro in every way.
My parents, who drive 6 hours each way to see my sister and her kids about once a month, have a Tundra and a 4Runner. They had a Camry before the 4Runner, and I couldn’t believe they’d take that efficiency hit. I’m convinced they have no minimum efficiency requirement.
My 2008 Infiniti G35 6MT got absolutely abysmal mileage. Over the 8 years I owned it, it averaged 17-18 mpg in mixed driving. It was tolerable because gas was cheaper and I didn’t drive all that much, but there’s no way I’d buy a car with mileage in the teens again.
I mean…I’m pretty tolerant of crappy fuel economy. My daily, a ‘96 K1500, gets about 13mpg. My tow pig ‘99 K2500 gets 10mpg. Not good, or anywhere close to it. But they’re cheap to own and simple to fix, so I can accept the fuel consumption.
You drive two gmt400s?? My ’95 is reserved for truckly duties, and thats it. Same fuel economy as your 99, I’m assuming you also have a 454.
Yep, I love them! They’re great trucks. I’m a farmer, so truck stuff and daily driver are synonymous. My 2500 actually only has a 350, but it was optioned with 4.10s. Great thing is, it gets 10mpg whether unloaded or pulling a 12000lb hay wagon.
Huh! My 454 is the same way, 10 mpg loaded or unloaded. I can’t remember my rear gearing, but its probably more highway friendly.