Move to the country.

 

Winter gas formula, Snow tires, Driving in the snow, and longer high idle RPM at colder temperatures. My fuel mileage has dropped also by at least 10%. I noticed the biggest difference when I put my snow tires on.

 

Mine still gets 31.6mpg with aggressive starts from the stop lights.

 

The car's alright. I need to get my right foot and hand checked out.

 

My MC gets 35-38 in mixed driving. Alot depends upon how much of that is going to work (interstate) or running errands around town. Not my daily driver so that mix varies. The 35-38 mpg varies as my average speed does. When the average speed is 30 mph its the lower end, when it is 35 mph or so the upper end. When it's pure interstage MPGs are around 43 (OBC 45) for average of 65-70 w/cruise on. I check my tires religiously and haven't noticed any real cold weather drop off.

When you reset mpg on fill up in the OBC also reset average speed and chart how the mpg varies with that.

 

Wow, I get about 20mpg on my half ton truck and if I could lighten my foot a bit I'd get 34-35 on my MCC instead of the 32-33 I presently get.

 

I vote for the winter fuel blends/greater ethanol content.

My second full year with 2 sets of wheels: 25lbs S-lites rims with winter tires and 11lbs SSR comps with summer tires. Always seem to get 24-25mpg for three seasons and 21-22mpg in the winter. Thought it was the heavier the winter rims/tires.

But this season I swapped the wheel late in the season and noticed 21-22mpg with my summer SSR wheels for the last tank or two. Swapped to the heavier wheels winter wheels now and I'm still 21-22.

I'll be back up to 24-25 in spring.

 

MCS here, usually get about 32.0-33.5. Dropped to 30.0 starting in Oct 07.

 

Both my mini s and the wife's subaru lost 10% in gas mileage when our station started using enthanol.
The ethanol is being shoved on us and it is not a good deal, our mileage goes down, the engines won't last as long, and the amount of nitrites going into the ocean from all the fertilizer for the corn has created a 1,700 square mile dead zone because the nitrite depletes the oxygene.
Dennis

 

What can you do? That's the nature of winter fuel blends... Is it Spring yet???

 

If it is not marked, then there is no Ethanol. State law requires the sticker if the Ethanol content is over 1%. Ethanol content cannot exceed 10%.

I know I get much better mileage in Romi when I can get a tank of Ethanol free fuel. It is a pretty significant change.

It was not until recently Chevron started selling 10% Ethanol fuel here. Before that, the "Top Tier" thing on the pumps did not exist. Shell is still hit and miss outside of the D/FW area.

The fines for selling fuel, with greater than 1% Ethanol content, not marked at the pump is pretty stiff. I doubt gas station owners would risk not putting those stickers on the pump. It's not like people really care about it. Most do not know what it means.

 

Actually, it depends on the county and the air pollution regulations for the area. Here in the Houston area, Galveston, Harris, and Montgomery counties have the ethanol, but 20 miles north of us we have real gas--at the Shell station. That's true up to the Dallas area, I think. Hubby makes it a point to fill up our classic Porsche 356 in that county, at the end of a fun drive...

(I remember when we moved to Montgomery county 11 years ago, before the pollution regs moved up here, too. We had to sign a paper stating that we weren't getting a state inspection in this county, rather than in Harris (Houston) county, just because the pollution testing was more lenient.)

I AM surprised that Austin doesn't fall with the stricter pollution regs, though. It's getting pretty congested there.

 

If by "Shall" you meant "Shell" then you should know that Shell (along with 16 other retailers in North America) guarantees their fuels:Ref: Top Tier Gasoline Deposit Control Standard 1.3.1.2.1:

http://toptiergas.com/deposit_control.html

 

And those Shell stations which are still selling non-Ethanol fuel in Texas do not have any literature/marketing about "Top Tier".

Yep daffodildeb, I fill up at a station in West (when I get down there) and it sure does make a difference. The car runs better and the mileage is about 10% better on the highway.

I finally decided people who do not live here are going to argue about this regardless of what we actually know. Guess we should just stop beating our heads against the wall.

You guys do not want to believe, that is fine. As long as it available, I will continue to make sure to use it.

 

Hubby uses it because of the detrimental effects ethanol has on the old engines--I'm talking 40 to 50 years here. They just aren't designed for it.

 

there is a possibility that you could have gotten regular, when you filled up. it happened to me once, but you'd notice a dramatic change in the way the engine reacts.

But i live in Oregon and we have fuel pump attendants that do all the work.

 

...an additive in the colder states during the winter is MBTE....the combination of cold air (less fuel volatility) and MBTE reduces fuel efficiency significantly

 

Any idea how much this boosts your fuel cost? It's amazing that they would do this (and there's another state--NJ?--that also has this law. It's as if there were a union. Local 42 of the Gas Pumpers union, I guess.

 

Yeah, a typo--I've corrected this in the original post. But you really need to read the stickers on our Texas pumps.

 

Not sure about Oregon, but in Jersey it doesn't boost gas prices one bit. As a matter of fact, Newark is constantly at the top of every news maker's list as the cheapest place in the country to get gas.

And no, I'm not from or even live in NJ. My best friend is though. Before coming to PA for college she had no clue how to pump gas. Is still kinda confused by it.

 

I filled my tires about 5 lbs more than recommended(they were 30 and now are about 38) and got about 36 on the highway during a recent trip going 65-70 mph. I average 30 mph with a combination of highway/city driving. I've got a an auto C, no S. I guess I'd pick up a couple extra mph if it were a standard.

 

Just took a 400 + mile trip to the coast and got around 35 mpg on my MCS. I was a little disappointed. I held it down to 65 for the most part on cruise control and started out with the potential of 500 + miles on a tank, but it plummeted as the miles increased. Ended up putting in 12 gallons at about 435 miles. I just don't understand how some of you get these huge MPG numbers? I wonder if the cruise control had a play in it.

 

I drove to Florida in October, and was disappointed to get my usual 33 and a fraction. Then again, I WAS moving. Gotta get around those truckers somehow! Man, they drive fast nowadays. Must have been making up for the 70 they could only do during the previous day's rain...

Msteadman--the scary thing is your friend probably considers herself quite competent to drive!

 

I also don't get it. Then again I haven't gotten the chance to take my MINI on a nice long road trip yet. About 95% city driving equals MPG in the mid to low twenty range... Bet it's still better than I'd have gotten with the MS3 or GTI though.

She really does, always bragging about how she has been driving for over 5 years now. If anything that makes it even more embarrassing!

Btw, we're all college students. I know 5 years experience probably sounds like nothing to most NAM'ers.

 

Well if she never pumped her gas before i guess it would be alittle tricky.

I am steady with a mpg of 32-34 in my 07' MCS
The reason we have cheap gas here in jersey if i remember correctly is that we have a low tax on gas, although now it seems a lot of the gas stations are placing a $ .10 charge or more if you use a credit card.